Singapore Nepal Tibet 2001

In the Spring of 2001, I made what I then considered to be "the trip of a lifetime" to Tibet! To put this in perspective, in 1973, I was taking a Hatha Yoga adult education class at Merion High School outside Philadelphia. At the end of the last class, I shared with the instructor (Don Wesley) that if I wasn't back after the holiday break in January, that I'd be on my way to Tibet. I wasn't back...

Somehow I remembered this, embarking in March 2001, to a land I'd heard about from my parents in the 1950's, and much more recently, been encouraged to go and bear witness by the president of San Francisco Zen Center.

My son Tim had offered me his fancy Canon SLR, but declined, saying I didn't want to see Tibet through a viewfinder. He thought it was a good answer. It seems, indeed, silly in retrospect. What I did take along was my 5 year old Canon SureShot 80, a point-n-click film camera. The results are here: http://www.waldo647images.com/Travel/SNT2001

I re-discovered these rolls of films with the basic scans from Wolf Camera a few months ago. With some hesitation, I imported them into Adobe Lightroom. I also subtracted all the recognizable people shots. Was there anything left of value? For me, yes, some wonderful memories of sights, energies — extraordinary people and places. Perhaps it will be my good fortune to return some day with our current Nikon DSLRs, or newer cameras.

As we chant: Dharma gates are boundless, I vow to enter them...

Some Ansel & Brett inspired images

http://bit.ly/3IhW3y

http://bit.ly/CjUo3

http://bit.ly/3agQtH

http://bit.ly/ns4tD

Just wanted to add these onto the previous post.

Some dinner time inspiration from Ansel

Ansel Adams 400 Photographs — want to argue about something positive over the dinner table?

When I was around 10 years old, my mother and older brother and I stopped in at the gallery-store in Yosemite, and the great meister was there. My mother made a connection with him through her friends Brett Weston and Gus Bundy. I was spellbound looking at the superhuman sized prints on the wall behind him. Somewhere in this process, he noticed the Brownie camera around my neck, and my fascination with his images. He asked me what I thought about one. Not knowing what else to say, I was bluntly honest: "I really like the sky and clouds in that picture." There was a twinkle in Ansel's eye, and he admitted, "I spent a lot of time on that sky." Then I heard him, softly, share with my mother, "make he keeps taking pictures".

Fifty years later, I continue to draw inspiration from his images. You can, too. If you think of yourself as an artist, if B+W strikes a deep chord in your soul — this is a wonderful book. See how good it really gets.

Flickroom — an LR interface for Flickr

I've been trying out Flickroom. I started out on Flickr, and then moved to Smugmug, initially for the interface — hey, all those white pixels are really eye-fatiguing after a while! And, I didn't see much reason to go back. Well, actually, the groups on Flickr are cool. Given that one has the time.

Flickroom is an Adobe AIR app, and to be honest, part of my curiosity was to test out AIR, on something that I might be using. I've since shown and emailed it to several friends and colleagues, and their actions have been similar: why didn't Flickr do this in the first place! It's true, it's a nice front-end, especially for those of us that prefer less fatiguing darker interfaces.

It's been quite a while since I uploaded anything to Flickr. My first digital SLR purchase coincided closely with the public beta for Adobe Lightroom, and I started with Smugmug not long after that. I've done two uploads with Flickroom so far. It's a significant improvement. Not quite as responsive as a local app, but the performance is close. My problem, I guess, is the back-end. Flickr and Smugmug are worlds apart for me now. The analogy of bicycles & airplanes comes to mind.

Well, to each, his or her own, I guess. If you're a Flickr user, be sure to check out Flickroom.

NiceNames on Smugmug

This is a really exciting new feature on Smugmug. Take a look at the URL in the previous post. We used to be limited to domain/category. Now the NiceNames will automatically pick up the gallery names (this is editable), and the old NiceNames will be remembered if one is changed, so links don't break.

Here's another example: http://www.waldo647images.com/Portfolio/Coast-Bays/ Note: the actual gallery name is Coast & Bays, and it's being auto-adjusted to a usable hyphenated name in the NiceName. These plain English URLs are a big help in pointing to an actual gallery. Previously, I'd have stopped with /Portfolio/, or included the gallery name with a multi-digit number, even used a URL shortener like bit.ly or TinyURL — these are OK for nerds, and customizable, too; but, hey, plain English wins every time. Now I can say: "Check out my Coast & Bays gallery at http://www.waldo647images.com/Portfolio/Coast-Bays/

Spring on Hwy 1, finally done!

http://www.waldo647images.com/Dunn/Alum-weekend-2009-Places — it sure took a while, but I think this gallery is just about done. I've had some good fun along the way. Also note the new Smugmug NiceName URL. This is an awesome feature. I'll say more about this in the next post.

This was a serendipitous trip in late April 2009 for several reasons. I decided to drive down and back up the Big Sur Coast (Hwy 1, aka PCH, Pacific Coast Highway), and caught some interesting light both times; and another dawn shoot from the Skyview Motel in Los Alamos, near Dunn School, Los Olivos and Solvang. This year's dawn shoot was even better than last year's with some interesting mist in the hills.

I like to push the envelope on digital photography, trying to capture low light, dynamic range, interesting light, things like fog and mist that can present some challenges. I'm also playing with B+W film emulations — Fuji Acros, Rollei R3, and of course Kodak Tri-X. As part of this, I've decided to keep my B+W images separate, i.e. start from the RAW image and make those images only B+W. Otherwise, it gets into this guessing game, at least for me, about "OK, do I like this better in color or B+W?" With those images finished now exclusively B+W, that guessing game goes away. Yes, there are some similar images, but they're actually separate images. There's something timeless about B+W — maybe it's about that darkroom I always wanted.

And, yes, I'm still thinking about shooting some of these films in my wife's Nikon N65 (F65 outside the USA). I'm also very impressed with what I'm reading and hearing about the Mamiya rb67 and rz67 medium format cameras. My younger Chris and several friends and acquaintances are dabbling in these. Some really impressive stuff. Check out this link of my friend Allan Chen's shots. Some really rich shots here. And here's another page that's really impressive. I guess I need to get out Sue's N65 first, and see if I'm willing to go the extra mile — me, the guy without enough patience for a tripod, most of the time.

Mini-review: "Motionless Journey" — an extraordinary photo book

From Motionless Journey: From a Hermitage in the Himalayas by Matthieu Ricard:

Preface: This collection of photographs is an account of a motionless journey, the fruit of something that most photographers (including myself) rarely have the chance, the time, or even the inclination to do: to sit for a whole year, waiting for the right light.

Nor, indeed, was that my goal. I did not go into retreat to take photographs. Nevertheless, as I contemplated that sublime landscape from the early hours of the morning, well before dawn, until after nightfall, every now and then an extraordinary light would illuminate the vision evolving continually before my enchanted eyes. The scenes in this book, all taken from the terrace of my hermitage or within a few dozen yards from it, are the fruits of that long 'wait without waiting', and of the joy of witnessing the harmony of nature blending closely with the delight of meditation.

Introduction: From the terrace of my retreat hut, I can look out over the almost perfect circle of the horizon. Dominating the spread of the foothills, the majestic chain of the Himalayas stretches over 200 miles. To the east are the massifs of Everest, to the north those of Gaurishankar and Langthang, and to the north-west, far away, the Annapurnas. ...

Each of Matthieu Ricard's images is accompanied by quotes from Dilgo Khyentse Rinpoche (to whom the book is dedicated), Shantideva, Milarepa, and others.

In addition to the extraordinary scenery in his images, the author pushes the limits of available light photography far beyond where many of us would venture forth. For those entranced by low light shooting, this is a portal into the possible. Matthieu's images are a feast for the eyes, and his paired quotes, a teaching by themselves.

Acknowledgments: ... The author's share of the proceeds of this book has been entirely donated to various humanitarian projects in Tibet, Nepal, India and Bhutan. To find out more about this work, please contact:

Dilgo Khyentse Fellowship

...

www.shechen.org

karuna-shechen.org

The photographs in this book are available as signed limited-edition prints.

For more details, please go to www.shechen.org

Available at Amazon and other fine book sellers.

Additional links:

Matthieu Ricard's website

and his gallery there.