Patterns

Maybe it’s just I’m just so uncoordinated I need to always be looking at my feet when I walk, but I always seem to find beautiful things right beneath my feet.   I was out enjoying the frigid cold and impressive wind chill when I noticed these patterns in the snow drifts under my skis.

I walked over this patch of snow right after the photo. This is the only record it was ever there.

My first thoughts of becoming a photographer were

Patience and Photography

When your average viewer looks at a great photo, the first instinct is usually to credit the camera.  That, of course, is rather silly given that most of the photos you see in a museum were taken with cameras so primitive you’d be more likely to throw them out than use them.  The slightly more sophisticated viewer is likely to look at other factors, such as the photographer’s skill in composition and perhaps photo editing.  While these factors no doubt place some distance between a professional and the casual snap-shot taker, perhaps the greatest factor separating the average tourist snapping photos off in a park and Ansel Adams is something rarely noted: patience.

This photo is dedicated to a wonderful reader who lamented that my lake photos were too sad. I hope this brings a smile!

Ansel Adams didn’t just take a weekend trip to Yosemite

Umbrella

After my second trek through the Himalayas I spent a couple of weeks recovering in a small restaurant which, from the outside at least, has little to distinguish it from the many other restaurants that line the sides of Phokara’s main street.  I spent day after day there playing chess with a German friend and enjoying the only French cuisine for a 1,000 miles, compliments of a French expatriate who had married a Nepalese woman.  In the early evenings intense storms would often pass over the city and we would enjoy the rain and relief from the afternoon heat that accompanied it.  I looked up from my game only for a moment the day I caught this image, but in that moment the sounds of the falling water and feel of the storm charged air seemed to take concrete shape.