Color vs. B&W...a "Heisenberg Uncertainty"-like Relation?

In my last post, and immediately on the heels of returning from a trip my wife and I took to Greece, I noted that Santorini = geometry + color + shadow; emphasizing color, in particular, and brazenly declaring that Santorini is glorious, breathing, living, and sometimes blindingly bright color.

While I do not back down from those words - indeed, as I look over my growing portfolio of finished images and a selection of draft prints, I am, if anything, even more enamored of the "full color" results - an interesting thing happened as I went back (a second time) to process a few images in black and white: they reminded me of how awestruck I was when I first gazed onto the strange Escher-like Santorini architecture.

To be sure, what struck my eye first (or so I remember) was Santorini's blazing color; and my first emotion was pure joy - joy at being on a long awaited and much needed vacation with my lovely wife, joy at finally arriving at such a magnificently beautiful place, and joy at looking forward to discovering yet-unseen but sure to be wondrous sites. Consequently, when we got back home and I started processing my images in my usual style, I was struck by how much of my raw joy was missing from the black and white images. However, the color images instantly evoked many of the same feelings. My earlier blog entry thus followed naturally.

So what happened afterwards, and what is the point of this new entry? The answer is both "simple" and subtle...and, for me, a source of an important lesson I ought to have learned long ago. After working on over a 100 or so color images, and taking a few days "off" (while working on other, much older images having nothing to do with Santorini or Greece), I went back for a second look at my Greece files. I must emphasize that as I managed my usual black and white workflow, I did nothing objectively different from what I had originally done upon our arrival home from Greece (and what had originally resulted in my decidedly negative reaction, compelling me to work in color). But this time, even after completing only the first few files, I was struck by how powerfully the black and white images reminded me of the unbridled awe I felt at simply being in Santorini and finding myself amidst its magnificent architecture. This awe was not, strictly speaking, an emotional awe; it was much more akin an intellectual awe. My experience of witnessing Santorini's architectural splendor unfolding before me reminds me of the first time I gazed at an Escher print (which eventually resulted in a lifelong pursuit of math and physics). The point is that I had (at least) two layers of experience with Santorini landscapes; and that both cannot be simultaneously expressed equally as strongly in a single type of image. While the color images most strongly evoke the purely emotional side of my experience, the black and white images most strongly evoke the purely intellectual and cognitive side of my experience. Interestingly, neither type of image - alone - suffices to express the full depth of my experience. (This vaguely reminds me of Heisenberg's uncertainty relation between complementary variables, such as position and momentum, on the atomic scale).

Why had I not noticed this the first time around? I think it is because my emotion - or, rather, my strong desire to express my emotion of being in Santorini - was so overwhelming, that the secondary component of my experience in Santorini (a somewhat more detached intellectual "awe" of its geometry) was lost in the process. Yes, the color images vivdly convey the blazing light and glorious color of the island; but they also leave little room for any reaction other than a joyful exhuberance. The focus on color in my color images is necessarily so strong, and so dominant, that even the photographer's own eye is unable to discern the other - equally as important - dimensions of the original experience. In a sense, going back to the original files and "revisioning" them in black and white (although, truth be told, that is how I originally "saw" them while I was composing; I chose to retain the color afterwards only because the color reminded me of what I felt in Santorini, not because that is how I previsualized the images taken there) is my answer to Minor White's well-known admonition to use photography to tell the viewer something about what else the subject matter is. My color images show you what Santorini is; my black and white images tell you what else it is.

By stripping away the color, by focusing exclusively on only two of the three dimensions - geometry and shadow - I can more easily express the emotionally less charged component of my experience. Since color is absent, it is no longer the "distraction" it is in the color versions of the same images. The viewer is forced to interpret an image in terms of form and tone alone; and, hence, in Santorini's case, in terms of geometry and shadow.

And as for my lesson...? The lesson - I warn you it is a "trivial" one, but one I obviously needed to "relearn" at best - is that a single image can be used to express markedly different emotions; the "emotion" being a function of how the original captured (or raw) image is processed. Indeed, since my experience of Santorini (as of any place I visit, including places I know as well as my own backyard) is obviously multidimensional and is far deeper than "mere" joy and awe, I suspect that I will slowly discover multiple versions of the same underlying "raw" image captured by the camera. Collectively, and over time, these "expressions" will tell an increasingly more refined (but forever incomplete) story of my experience in Santorini. And I will continue to search for ways to bring out (and discover!) certain aspects of my original experience; undoubtedly focusing on one particular dimension at a time, at the expense of another, complimentary one (perhaps best expressed by some other expression; or "performance", as Ansel Adams likened a print to a negative). But, of course, that is precisely what photography is supposed to be all about :-) (Shows how much I have left to learn!)

Santorini (Greece) = Geometry + Color + Shadow

Regular readers of my blog, and those that have seen my work in Lenswork , Focus, and Black & White magazine, know that I am primarily (indeed, almost exclusively!) a black and white photographer. While I have dabbled with color in the past, and print in color on occasion (the last time involving images taken in Hawaii, with an "explanation" provided by this 2006 blog entry), almost everything I do "seriously" (and seriously try to sell) is in black and white. O'Reilly publishing also published a "color portfolio" (of sorts) of some flowers, but these were considerably older than the "2005" byline date would suggest, and - moreover - were never meant to be part of a larger body of work. Generally speaking, and without apology, color is simply "not my thing."

So, it came as somewhat of a shock to my system to learn that Santorini, Greece - a veritable paradise of color, geometry and shadow that my wife and I were fortunate enough to visit for a few days earlier this month - effectively makes a mockery of everything I held sacred about black and white ;-) Trying to render Santorini in black and white, even if duo- or tri-toned, would be like trying to convey to someone who had never heard of George Carlin what his "seven words you can't say on television" are without uttering what those words are, and doing so in a PG manner. Simply not possible.

While I tend to "see" the world in tones, not colors (a habit I think I first picked up when my eyesight started going bad when I was five; since - without glasses - the world is made up mostly of featureless, colorless splotches in my visual field), I recognize that when color is the primary - or otherwise important - focus of my aesthetic attention and therefore needs to be expressed, it behooves me to render the scene in color. But color is by no means my primary focus. And to the extent that my (mostly B&W tonal) aesthetics dictates how I perceive a photographic environment, and what grabs my attention in the photographic environment, it is simply a fact that I have seldomly produced a body of work consisting of color images. However, Santorini renders all such musings and intellectualizations absurdly moot. Aside from its intricate labyrinth of criss-crossed and interlocked walkways (that passerbys must occasionally share with mules), Santorini is nothing but color; glorious, breathing, living, and sometimes blindingly bright color!

I am convinced that color is somehow born and nurtured here, before being unleashed in muted tones elsewhere in this world. A result partly of the eternally bright midday summer sun and partly of the bright local hues and saturation, Santorini is ablaze with color. This is somewhat of a paradox, as most of the buildings are painted a bright white, and are devoid of any color; of course, this accentuates the omnipresent colors that much more and renders them, if anything, more intense.

Since we were there for only a few days, I regret not having the time to "attune" myself to the fantastic - and phantasmagoric - Escher-like architectonic forms. I was more in "point and shoot" mode, trying to capture as much of the colorful geometry as I could in the time we had, than in my more usual slow, deliberate, and contemplative frame of mind (which, had I followed, would have resulted in far fewer shots; perhaps none at all (!). As it turned out, I did manage to find several wonderful scenes that show some of Santorini's unique charm (though I'll let kind readers judge for themselves).

On a physical side, what I will always remember about Santorini is the steps; endless steps, ups and downs, and more endless steps ;-) My wife and I needed about 80 steps or so to get down to our hotel room from the main desk (which is itself about 75 steps removed from the "top" of Fira, the town we stayed in), then another 50 to arrive at the hotel's restaurant for dinner. It is the first place either of us has stayed in with the amusing (and slightly surrealistic) property that, if - after locking your hotel room and before arriving at the hotel's restaurant - you suddenly remember that you have forgotten something absolutely vital for the rest of the day, you will pause, in mid-step, for considerably more than a few minutes (partly to catch your breath and partly to just think), reflecting on the pros and cons of going back to the room for the item; and, 9 times of of ten simply decide to forget it. This place is just hard on the legs and lungs! Though we were both immediately winded less than half-way up the first series of steps the first day there, we soon acclimated to the mini-climbs and were hardly out of breath by the last day. Just in time to prepare for our hike down Samaria Gorge on Crete, our next stop; but that's another story. (We also both found our thighs had expanded two or three inches in girth with pure muscle after we got back home.)

I have posted a mini "point and shoot" portfolio of Santorini's Geometry, Color, and Shadow - (no B&W to be found anywhere ;-) - here.

Not Taking Pictures of What We're Taking Pictures Of

Brooks Jensen, editor of Lenswork, recently posted a humorous podcast entitled "That's Not What We Do" in which he recounts an incident while shooting in a park with a friend. He and photographer Joe Lipka were photographing at Fort Warden, WA. At some point, Joe went to the tourist center and got noticed by the woman at the service counter, who inquired about what he and Brooks were doing. Upon explaining that they were both photographers, the woman suggested they talk to the park manager, who was interested in buying some tourist shots to sell. Joe politely explained that neither he nor his other photographer friend take those kinds of pictures. Seeing that the woman was puzzled by his answer - after all, he is standing there with a bunch of camera equipment; what would all that gear be used for if not "taking pictures"? - Joe offered a the following line (that I suspect is familiar to most fine-art photographers placed in a similar situation): "We make pictures that don't look like pictures of what we're taking pictures of." I only wish I were there to see the look of confusion on the poor woman's face!

I've already blogged about my personal favorite story of this type, namely the one about Brett Weston returning from a trip to London with a handful of pictures of rust from the London bridge. Here are a few from my own archives. Any one of my numerous trips to Great Falls State Park in Virginia typically result in shot after shot of totally "unrecognizable" shots of rocks; big rocks, small rocks, rock formations, you name it. "Where were these taken in again?" I'm usually asked.

Last year, in the autumn, when my family and I all went to Cox Farms for hay rides and pumpkin picking, "daddy the family photographer" was busy clicking away with his camera, but not necessarily at the kids or the rides they were going on. Among the more recognizable shots I came away with that day was this one...

...which at least has the virtue of being recognizably "something" (if not exactly declaring, "I was taken at Cox Farms!").

When we took a similar family outing to a local apple orchard for apple picking, daddy got two shots of an old barn (recounted in a previous blog entry) and this "Shot Taken While Apple Picking" shot...

And then there are my "beach" shots. Sand, water, waves, toddlers frolicking on the shore, sunbathers,...? Nah! Sissy stuff for fine-art photographers ;-) Here's a keeper from last summer's sojourn to a beach in Key Biscayne, Florida:

...which I was "lucky" enough to find just inside the entrance to an out house. And, speaking of outhouses, here's one of my favorite shots from a trip my wife and I took to Hawaii to celebrate our tenth anniversary in 2006 (this one from a Oahu beach outhouse, though whether any "beach" is evident in the picture, or any hints of a beach in Hawaii, I leave up to the viewer to decide):

Oh, and the ripple-triptych at the top of this blog entry was a quick series taken a few weeks ago at Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden, though - again - I'll admit that deducing that it was taken at Fairchild Tropical Botanical Garden may not be that - Ahem - obvious. Then again, with some of my shots, such as the ones in my Micro Worlds portfolio, most people are mystified even after I explain what the shots are "shots of"! Par for the course, I'd say, for a fine-art photographer ;-)

Blackberry Picking and Abstracts

What does picking blackberries have to do with abstracts? Perhaps a better title (certainly more informative;-) would be, "How to bring home some abstract photos by listening to your wife!" Hot on the heels of my last Blog entry (which also credits my wonderful wife with getting me into position to get some shots despite myself by insisting I take my camera, when I professed "lack of muse", and didn't want to bother), my wife is to be credited with again reminding me what every photographer (except this stubborn one!) knows; namely, that photographs are everywhere.

The context for this latest denouement (i.e., and my embarrassing inability to learn this one basic lesson) was a simple, lazy Saturday. The sun was bright, the kids were anxious for something to do outside, and my wife was full of interesting ideas. "Let's go blackberry picking!" she suggested, something we had actually never done before. I was delighted to tag along; indeed, because of the horrible "photographer's weather" (i.e., bright sun, few clouds makes for ugly contrast-ridden shots; at least in general), I had already consigned the day to be "photo free" and braced myself for an onslaught of the obligatory photographer's lament and pouting about "another day lost". However, as always, my wife was far wiser than I: "Hun, you never know what you could find. Isn't that what you always tell me? Why not take your camera." As on our recent trip to Florida, I relunctantly grabbed my camera bag, but was inwardly smiling with the thought, "Yeah, I'll take it, but I won't be getting any shots today!"

So we went berry picking, my wife and kids loved every minute of it, and we now have more berries than we know what to do with. As for me, I knew I was in a photographer's Shangrila the moment our minivan sauntered into the dirt parking lot of a local organic farm. While my wife and kids were gazing out toward the berry patches, my eye was drawn to old tractors, farmhouses, dilapited storage bins, deserted cars and trucks, vine-entangled old windows and beat-up farm equipment. "I'm so glad I decided to take my camera along!", I thought (Ahem!;-)

All told, we spent two hours or so at the farm; my wife and kids picking berries, and with me prowling around looking for whatever might catch the eye. The owners were very nice, and gave me permission to roam their property at will. They were a bit puzzled, though, about my subject matter. While I took a few stray shots of tractors and some closeups of hay, I spent far more time admiring one particular section of a half-ajar door (full of other-worldly realms of peeling paint and other mysteries) to a trailer just off to the side from where the owners set up a small table to greet all incoming berry-pickers.

My wife mercifully came to my rescue as the owners' quizzical glances soon turned to outright panic that perhaps the strange man bobbing his head up and down and contorting his body in odd angles while keeping his nose barely three inches from the door is, after all, just a bit deranged. "Please don't be alarmed," she jumped in to explain, "My husband just delights in finding interesting patterns and textures. He lives for doors like this!" (She could have rightly added: "Of, course, he can only do this when he remembers to take his camera, even if it looks like it's a 'horrible' day for photography!";-)

"Chance Favors the Prepared Mind"

"Chance favors the prepared mind," Ansel Adams was fond of saying (though the original quote comes from Louis Pasteur). I was reminded of the wisdom of this aphorism during a recent trip my family and I took to Coral Gables, Florida. Armed, as usual, with my camera-bag's worth of equipment, I had a carefully preconceived plan in place to visit some of my favorite "photo-safari" haunts. I know the area well from my many visits, and places such as Fairchild Gardens and Vizcaya were firmly at the top of my list. While they didn't disappoint (they never do), and each offers delightful compositional opportunities, through no fault of theirs - since I was the one who deliberately chose them for my photo-safari - my muse was unfortunately struggling to stay awake.

There is a feeling, roughly analogous to the common dream of running through molasses, that overcomes all photographers at some point when they've prepared too much. Everything is "right", all the equipment works, the lenses are clean, the camera bag has exactly what you need, the light is right, the location is right, beautiful vistas are all around you, and ... nothing happens. There is no magic. No spark. You lift your (strangely, much heavier-than-normal) camera to your eye, and - maybe - at some point click its shutter more to alleviate the growing boredom than because of anything that strikes your aesthetic eye as "interesting." And yet, everything, objectively speaking, is perfect. How can that possibly be?, you wonder Everything is just right. All photographers - all artists - know exactly what I'm writing about.

Now, skip ahead to the last day of my family's trip. The rain starts to fall in the morning, and is unrelenting; and with it, so I think, wash away my last hopes of savoring an "Aha!" moment at Fairchild or Vizcaya. Finally, the sky clears, it is late in the day, and my kids want to go feed the pelicans at a nearby park (Matheson Hammock Park Beach). Sulking from my trip-long funk, I want to leave my camera behind (something I almost never do). My wife (as she always does;-) reminds me that I almost never do that, and gently urges me to bring it along, which I do, reluctantly (and expect nothing more than to get some quick grabs of the kids feeding their pelicans, if even that). Which is, indeed, exactly what happens. No muse, no sparks, just that same monotonous, lifeless "clicks" as before...and then the magic happens!... just as the kids finish feeding their pelicans and everyone starts walking back toward our car.

While putting away my camera, my trip-long, nearly comatose "photographer's eye/intuition" finally awakens, and forces me to glance over my shoulder...and I am absolutely transfixed by the magnificent cacophony of lines, shadows and light playing on the rapidly darkening, and by now deserted, marina. Literally breathlessly, I reset my tripod, rifle through my bag for a 3-stop ND filter (to get at least a 15 sec exposure to blur the small waves), compose more on instinct than design, and take one shot. At which time my wife and kids are already getting antsy, and remind me that dinner is waiting and that they're all hungry. And the magic goes Poof!

But what a moment. While my one shot - reproduced at the top of this blog entry - may not be an award winner, it is by far my best shot of the whole trip. It is also the one shot I didn't plan on taking at all; though I was prepared!

I hope I'll remember this little lesson in humility, though I recall saying those same words to myself countless times before, and such experiences still obviously take me by surprise when they happen. Although I almost always "plan" on going to certain places (that's my style), and always have at least some idea of what I'm "after" when I get there (in concept, if not detail), I also always try to be prepared for when chance decides to pay me a quick visit. Indeed, as a photographer, I live for these moments!

Kauai's Kalalau Valley Lookout

The towering, majestic cliffs of Kauai's Na Pali ("Pali" = "Cliff") coast represent one of the Kauai's most spectacular sights. While numerous waterfalls and streams (that are all powered by the wettest spot on the planet, Mt. Waialeale) quietly but dilligently carve out rugged valleys, the ocean just as inexorably pounds the earth down below into Pali. Stone-walled terraces still exist in the valleys as monuments to where Hawaiians once lived and cultivated taro.

While the Na Pali coastline can be experienced in many ways - on foot (via the Kalalau Trail that starts at Kokee State Park), via a helicopter, or on a raft - the easiest, and arguably, the most visually stunning views (although one could just as easily argue that any view of the Na Pali coastline is destined to be "visually stunning", so that comparisons are essentially moot!) can be had from the Kalalau Valley Lookout (~4000 ft. elevation). You can get there simply by following Waimea Canyon road all the way to the end (see my earlier Waimea Canyon in Color blog entry).

The lookout area is typically shrouded in Mt. Waialeale's cloud cover; though if the clouds are slowly drifting out toward the water, only a bit of patience is required and they are likely to part long enough (at least in spurts) to permit a peek of this magnificent valley. However, if there are heavy clouds coming in from the ocean, you may need a considerably heavier dose of patience to catch a view!

Kalalau Valley Lookout is my Church, for it is here that I feel closest to the heart and soul of the world and universe. It is here that I most strongly resonate with Einstein's Cosmic Religious Feeling. And it is here that I can best hear the faint whisper of the true answer to the question, "Who am I?"

Molokai = Tranquility

Each Hawaiian island indelibly leaves a unique imprint on a photographer's mind/I/soul. For example - for me - Oahu , while indisputably lovely and a photographer's paradise, is somewhat of a tropical version of a fast-paced (at least by "island" standards, as all the Hawaiian islands are decidedly "slow" by mainland standards!) mainland resort, and leaves me both relaxed and a bit anxious to go somewhere "quieter" after a brief stay. To be sure, much of Oahu's "fast pace" is arguably confined to Waikiki, Honolulu and their neighboring areas, and much of the rest of Oahu (particularly its eastern and northern shore regions) induces a feeling much closer to what I associate with Kauai (see below) than to how I have characterized it here. Nonetheless, since my experience of this island has always been anchored to Waikiki (and Honolulu), Oahu unfortunately remains in the category of "extraordinary place to visit for a few days, but..."

The Big Island is full of nervous energy and mystery, as though it is still unsure what to make of itself or where it wants to go. It feels unsettled. While this unfocused energy undoubtedly provides a creative spark, it makes it hard to completely still my inner world; which is something I must therefore always consciously devote some of my own energies to do whenever I am on the Big Island. I therefore typically leave the Big Island feeling both exhilarated (for having seen so many wonderful sights) and exhausted (for having to counter the Big Island's yin with a bit of yang).

Maui contains many scenic wonders (Haleakala, Hana, and the Sacred Pools, to mention but a few), but is - for my tastes - too commercialized. The seemingly endless parade of pristine new golf courses, while clearly a welcome sight for some, takes much away from a "pure" experience of the natural Hawaiian splendor. Maui thus always leaves me longing for a simpler, less glitzy, Hawaii; somewhere where the gentle whisper of the land and trade winds can still be heard above the modern din. I am sad for Maui, as its heritage and true self seems to be slowly, but inexorably, eroding.

Kauai holds the dearest spot in my heart, as it is a perfect blend of old and new, and displays some of the most awe-inspiring natural beauty on earth. If there were one place on earth I could choose to live, it would be Kauai. I equate Kauai with rejuvenation; physical, spiritual, and artistic.

Thus, finally, we get to Molokai: a simple, quiet, tranquil oasis of the deepest, most ineffable calm that I have ever experienced!


I am convinced that time comes slowly to a stop (and if not a full stop, certainly to no more than a crawl;-) halfway between wherever it is you start your journey to Molokai and your first step onto this special place.


You become oblivious to everything - every time - except for the eternal now.


For me, Molokai is tranquility, for that is the state of mind I am always in whenever I am lucky enough to visit. Just "being in Molokai" is akin to performing effortless meditation.


The hard part - speaking now as a photographer - is to find ways of expressing how I feel about Molokai in my images. Unfortunately, I've yet to hit my mark! I guess I'll just have to go back for another tranquil, timeless, effortless meditation ;-)

Waimea Canyon in Color

On the heels of my prior post (Kauai in B&W), comes an unabashed about-face (at least regarding this particular photo!) and the "almost self-evident" observation that some pictures are destined to be captured and expressed in color.

As "proof by demonstration" (as a mathematician might say) I present the image above. This was captured at the Waimea Canyon lookout on Kauai. While I do have a B&W version of this photograph, I am unhappy with it, as it fails to convey what I really felt as I stood - mostly in awe - gazing into my viewfinder. As any honest photographer will tell you, if your image does not communicate at least something of your inner state/vision at the instant of capture, your image is, at best, a banal "postcard"; and, at worst, a failure (as an artistic expression). In these terms, I therefore confess that, to the best of my current ability to work in the digital darkroom, I simply cannot create a "successful" B&W print from any of my RAW images of Waimea Canyon!

The colors, in this case, cannot be ignored. They are Waimea Canyon! To try to collapse them onto a grey-scale tonal range (and desperately try to make up some of the lost aesthetic ground by selectively dodging and burning) seemed to me, in the end, to be carelessly blind to what I really want to convey about this magnificent spectacle. And to try to do this, haphazardly, without having first previsualized (ala Ansel Adams) what I wanted to do with the image before I pressed the shutter, was encroaching uncomfortably close to the land of "false" art. Indeed, I will further confess that Waimea Canyon is so spectacularly, and colorfully, beautiful that it is a rare instance of a scene where I did not (could not!) first previsualize it in B&W! While for most non-fine-art-B&W-photographers such a statement is either silly or meaningless, I can assure you that it is a very strong statement for a fine-art B&W photographer to make (and is never made lightly)! ;-)

Keep in mind that even the color version you see here - though I hope many viewers will enjoy it - also falls short of communicating the true spectrum of colors that the "real" view consists of. In posting to the web, I have converted the image's color space from Adobe RGB (my usual work space in Photoshop) into sRGB, which has a relatively muted palette; and in any event, I cannot account for different kinds of monitors and calibrations.

For the best view of what is truly one of nature's wonders, you must go to Kauai, rent a car, and drive the 50 or so miles from Lihue airport along Highway 50 west toward Waimea. Take Waimea Canyon Drive, which appears right after mile marker #23. The winding road weaves its way though the canyon area and will eventually deposit you at Pu'u o Kila Lookout. Enjoy the view!

Kauai in B&W

The island of Kauai (in Hawaii) is arguably one of the most beautiful islands on earth. Words alone certainly cannot do justice to the extraordinary beauty that awaits the lucky visitor; images, even superb ones, also invariably fall far short of communicating the experience of seeing, feeling, breathing, hearing, tasting and simply being with Kauai, as its sweet gentle rhythms slowly embrace your mind and soul and lift you into truly another dimension of light and form.

Why B&W? Kauai (indeed, all of Hawaii!) is nothing if not fantasmagorically colorful!?! So why present images of Earth's natural gift that are devoid of color? My answer is that, as a fine-art photographer, my eye/I responds most strongly to light and form (followed by texture); color, while undeniably enjoyable and aesthetically pleasing, more often than not (at least for me!) diverts my attention away from the core beauty of a composition. Ironically, Hawaii is so intensely colorful that when color is present in a photograph, it is hard (sometimes impossible) for me to visually penetrate the deeper layers of a scene (and it is precisely those deeper layers that drive much of the "art" in my photography). When there are too many blues and greens and reds, I am effectively blinded! (On the other hand, if I am to be completely honest, my propensity for B&W may stem simply from an inability - thus far - to faithfully render the color I remember "seeing" with my camera on my computer and by my printer. Perhaps in time I will learn to do this to my satisfaction and actually start enjoying natures joyous colors!)

In the meantime, here are a few images from Kauai (and only a few, as it will likely take me six months or more to finish processing even the first drafts of all the images I captured on our Hawaii trip!). The image at the top is taken from the first of two Kalalau Valley lookouts that reward the patient driver who has managed to make it to the end of Waimea Canyon Drive on the western end of Kauai, as are the first and fourth images that follow. The others are assorted images from the northern coast (horse scene and water) and a view along Waimea Canyon Drive itself (last image below).

Frozen Impermanence

On Oahu's north shore is an extraordinary little beach called Laniakea Beach. It is also called Turtle Beach because visitors are usually treated to the amazing sight of green sea turtles swimming close to shore to feed on seaweed growing amidst the rocks. More often than not, visitors will also find several turtles basking gently on the sand, alongside tourists and locals (who are all doing pretty much the same thing).

The photograph shown above was taken in July, while my wife and I were on a much-needed rest-trip to Hawaii, and were (on this day) utterly mesmerized by these magnificent (and somehow, inexplicably, at least to me, magnificently regal) creatures. What caught my photographic (and philosophical) eye as I was watching "Russell" (which is this particular turtle's name; since they frequent the beach so often, they inevitably interact with their human counterparts on a first-name basis;-), beyond Russell's obvious innate beauty, is how wonderfully this tranquil beach scene illustrates the "paradox" of the permanent transience of nature.

The exposure here is quite long (~30 sec or so, made possible by stacking a polarizer on top of a six f-stop neutral density filter and gently frightening the beachcomber onlookers out of the viewfinder by placing my camera on a rather imposing tripod). The result is that while Russell remains tack sharp (indeed he did not move at all during the two hours my wife and I were observing him!), the water has been rendered as an ethereal fog.

The image thus represents an interesting blend of disparate time scales: the hint of waves, lapping on to shore every few seconds (along with the implicit rise and fall of the associated tide), the day-long silent but ostensibly "frozen" basking of the turtle, and the much-longer times during which the rocks themselves appear to be unchanging and anchored to the sand (which, too, in the spirit of our musing on the illusions of permanence, we know will eventually fade away with time). To which we can also add the ~1/40th sec worth of intuitive-mind "processing" that took place behind the lens, during which yours truly saw Russell, the water, and the rocks (and felt the ever-present "push" of Oahu's strong trade-winds) and immediately thought, "Ahh! What a lovely, lovely self-contained universe of frozen impermanence!"...and clicked the shutter.

For another glimpse of frozen impermanence, and another clue about the nature of illusion and reality, my wife and I visited the western shore of Molokai, which is where I suspect infinity goes to rest every once in a while...

"Artist at Work" ;-)

My Blog (and I) have been off-line for a while, as my family and I enjoyed a well-earned vacation. This short entry, to recouple myself to the Blog world, is titled "Artist at Work" - and contains a wink, ";-)" - at the end because I am decidedly poking a bit of fun at myself. While I aspire to one day attain the right to call myself an "Artist," I have also retained enough objectivity in my short life to appreciate I have a way to go to get to that point. The image shown above is a before and after shot. The before shot (on the left-hand-side) exists by courtesy of my beautiful (and brave) wife, who was with me on the Florida beach as yours truly was (incredibly, and somewhat idiotically!) taking a series of Hiroshi Sugimoto-like long-exposures of some pylons sticking out of the water as it, the beach, and my wife and I were pummeled by close-to-hurricane-level winds! The after shot (on the right; "after" referring to the physically banged up state my wife and I were in after braving the inhumanly vicious winds!) was among the several images I somewhow managed to capture without my hat, camera, tripod, and bag being blown half-way to Cuba. Suffice it to say that I now understand two things about my photography (and physical state): 1. That it is not why I take the pictures of the things I tend to take the pictures of (leaves, reeds, vines, dilapidated buildings, ...) that people stare at me when I take pictures with a mixture of bemusement and incredulity; rather, people stare at me with a mixture of bemusement and incredulity because of how I take my pictures. 2. The reason my back (and neck, and shoulders, and knees, and ...) seem to hurt all the time has less to do with the inevitable age-creep (I'm only 45 for Goodness sake;-), and everything to do with the contortions I put my poor body through to get that next shot! (The irony is that my body, in the act of capturing the beauty of dilapidated buildings, is itself succumbing - rapidly - to the same entropic decay!) When I said to my wife (while laughing at what I thought was a "fluke" picture of me in a comically and awkwardly wrenched position), "Hey, you were lucky to catch me like that!"... it was my turn to stare at my wife (with a mixture of bemusement and incredulity;-) when she gently, but firmly, assured me that I always look like that when taking pictures. Whether I am in a mini-hurricane (as above), or precariously balanced on a ledge on some cliff in Hawaii, or delicately (and typically not all-too-well) poised on one leg on a small rock in the middle of a babbling brook, I'm always scrunched up like a pretzel! The "Artist at Work" indeed!