It was the coldest night of season and I awoke at 5:30 this morning and turned on the TV to watch “Balalaika” with Nelson Eddy, from under a warm down comforter and snuggled among my doggies.   A point of clarification, Nelson Eddy is in the movie, not in my bed. I grew up with the Nelson Eddy and Jeanette McDonald musicals, and Balalaika (costar is Ilona Massey) was always one of my favorites, and my mom’s, because it...

    On a recent day trip to the forest to find autumn colors, I made the photo above.  It’s an HDR (high dynamic range) composite of five photos.    We don’t have many maples here in New Mexico;  lots of gorgeous golden aspens, but not the vibrant red of maples.  I was quite focused on finding red, so I was somewhat surprised that I was drawn to this scene, apparently for some unconscious reason.  There were...

  On January 1st of this year I embarked on my first 365 day photo project.  There are a lot of hints and suggestions about themes and how to stick with it; however, I have learned that if you’re going to be successful in this or anything in life, you have to customize it to your preferences.  Today is Day 228 of the project, so I thought I would share some of what I learned. At some point, probably between day 35-50, there is...

  Artists, writers, any creative professionals refer to the “muse” as the source of  inspiration.  We all hit a blank wall at some point.  For the writer, the words just don’t come, for the photographer, it’s “I don’t know what to take a picture of.”  It’s what we do at that wall that defines as an artist.   Unfortunately, inspiration doesn’t come if we sit and stare into space...