YardArm

How would you like to spend your retirement?

With full knowledge that fewer and fewer of us will achieve our goals in this area..  I'll share my dream with you. So many people, get RVs and travel the country.  I ... really don't like driving long distances, so I'm pretty sure the RV is out.

I'd like to spend a good deal of my retirement, sailing but I have some portions of this plan, still to work out.

I can sail.   I have a small sailboat that doubles as my "head down, tasks" office.   She's 29 ft, older than I am and not pictured here. Her name, Stargazer, is an omage to my real plan for retirement, one day.    To sail the seas in a 40+ footer. With a Wind Generator, Solar Panels and the loves of my life.  My wife, my telescope and camera while my children drink away my life savings in search of college degrees.

I decided to take a step in this direction, this year when I got Stargazer.. for quite a deal.  

So, now I have some practice sailing.   I'm no expert but I can drive the boat, work the sails, navigate with wind direction in mind.   Basic Skillset, Check.

My wife gets seasick.  This could be a snag.

I'm making plans to hopefully attend a week long sail school in the spring.  Get certified and when I'm really old and deranged, I can make people call me Captain.   

Much, sooner than my retirement, however -- I've been considering a change of careers.   Sort of, my pre-mid-life crisis.  I'm a really good developer but I know I'm not getting any younger and software development is a young persons' career.    Management opportunities aren't exactly falling from the sky.   Maybe I should have held on to the one I once, had.

I've seriously considered working towards a 2 year goal of trading up into that 40 foot sailboat and doing private charters on the beautiful gulf coast.   Coupled with my love for photography and some contacts, I'm sure I could make it lucrative.

Then, today as I looked up YardArm's website to post some details about the really neat restaurant/marina pictured here, I see details of a private charter that has gone out of business that was home, here.

I believe in signs.  So, is this a sign to call and buy their boat (which is for sale) or to quit daydreaming and get back to work.    My checking account leans towards the former option, so I guess I'll go program something...

Happy Monday! 

White Fence

Whenever I see a fence, I automatically think about Tim Taylor's neighbor, WIlson.  

(Fun fact, his name, for the sake of that show, was actually, Wilson Wilson, Jr. )

Of course, for this to be that fence and Wilson to almost peer over it, he would have to be about as tall as a leprechaun.    If only I had a neighbor like Wilson, I could ask him about how tall Leprechauns were. He would surely know.

I guess, that was before Siri and Andrew, before Google was a verb and everyone had a powerful computer in their pocket disguised as a phone.  

Except for maybe James Bond and Q.  Pretty sure, they had smartphones, then.

Well, the James Bond, Q did, anyway.  The Star Trek Next Generation Q, didn't need smartphones.  He could just wrinkle his nose and alter reality @ will, so silly trivia wasn't a major problem for him.

.. or was that Jeannie that could wrinkle her nose and make things happen?

I wonder if Tim would have found a way to give a Smartphone,   "More Power!"

Maybe he would have come up with WebOS and a power-guzzling 8 core processor and in the last minute, Al would install the latest Android or IOS build, add some battery capacity and turn off 4 unused cores...

I guess, these days, he can just tell Curtis the Elf and he can make that happen.

...if you don't have a Television or didn't have one in the 80's, this post will make little sense to you, sorry.  Check
Netflix on your smartphone and you'll get the references.

Embracing Imperfection

This time of year, a few years ago, I sat next to this professional photographer on a flight coming back from a U.S. Customs conference for Brokers and Broker-related technologies.  He, being a photographer with an interest in software-technology and me, being a programmer with an interest in photography: we traded business cards and had a nice chat.   We shared two legs of the itinerary and had some time to grab a beer in Atlanta's airport and chat about our respective careers.  

From that chat, I remember vividly this quote, (regarding Portraits, specifically -  Christmas Portraits) he said, "I help capture the lie that people like to perpetuate of having the perfect family."

Now.. I will admit that is a total-hipster statement but...in my own experience I've found some truth in it.

Last year, I picked up Trey Ratcliff's photo book.  Among the many fantastic photos in that book, is this very awesome and magical Christmas portrait..

 (.. I mean, really... how awesome is that?)  
A very inspiring image... in fact, it inspired me into a moment of insanity but, in the end, helped us to develop a new holiday tradition.. read on.. 

So, in my very Clark Griswold way, as the Holiday Season approached last year, I projected onto my family the impossible task of creating this perfect family Christmas Portrait.  Not because I wanted to impress anyone, outdo the Jones's or cousins.   Not to try to portray the image of a perfect family.   Just... because.

With a 2 year and old and 6 year old, our house isn't the most clutter-free place.   One of the reasons I'd rather do Google Hangouts from my Boat than my house.   But, we  do have this corner where we  always place our Christmas tree and we have this Grandfather clock that means something to me because.. my mom and grandfather built it.  We set up stockings around the Grandfather clock, buy some Christmas floral arrangements and cute little outfits for the kids and I set off in the misguided journey for the perfect image. The idea was for the image to look like we were beginning to decorate the tree.   False - Candid Portraits.

Perfect lighting, the perfect poses, the perfect clarity, the perfect angle.   It must all be PERFECT!  Miles, turn in towards your sister and fold your arms on your lap.  Jena, chin up but face me.  Smile!  No - The real smile! ... Miles, put that down and sit here.  Jena, stay where you are..   Miles -- no wait, don't do that -- over here!!

Click Click Click Click

I went shutter-mad.   Took hundreds and hundreds of photos.   At the end, I looked alot like my favorite scene from National Lampoon's Christmas vacation.   Sipping Egg Nogg and wondering where my chainsaw is so I can cut down the tree in disguist.   

..and ma in her defeated pose and I about to snap, the kids flopped down to the floor with Christmas lights in their lap...

Then, it happened.   While Dina and I looked at each other in stress-induced defeat, the kids sat down beneath the tree and started playing with an extra strand of Christmas lights.  I pulled off the boot flash and took the camera off the tripod.  Snapped a half dozen shots and ended with this.. my favorite holiday shot of our kids..

It isn't a perfect image.  Because of my lens, it is a little higher-ISO than would be ideal.  They had both changed into random PJ's, so these were not the cute little clothes we wanted. There was some motion blur and neither kid is looking at the camera...  But.. the thing about this image is... it is real..

So now, we have a new family tradition.  Instead of trying to get the perfect family Portrait for Christmas.. as we decorate the tree we pulll out the lights and let the kids play.   I snap some shots and most of them, don't turn out.   But, I always find one or two that will pass for the sake of capturing the memory.

I haven't even gone through all of the photos from this year but this one stuck out to me as appropriate for this post.  As a casual photo-snob perfectionist passerby sees the photo I posted today, they'll see amateurish imperfection.   Mid-High ISO and softness from the Lens I used.    Motion blur from the wrong shutter speed.  Incorrect focal point and maybe the wrong F-stop.

As Dad and Photographer.  I see the memory.  This shot and the 20 before and after it of my children enjoying the Christmas Season.  Isn't that, the point, after all?

Perfection.. can be.. a fool's errand.

Merry Christmas & Happy Holiday Season..

Bill, the Not Perfect Dad-Photographer

Sunset from the Pier..

About halfway down the Fairhope Pier, the Sunset on a nice, cool afternoon.

TGIF!

The Oak and The Barn, Panoramic

<sanitized>

No Wide Angle? No Problem!

During the photo walk in Fairhope, I found myself in a position where I'd like to have had a true wide angle lens, instead of the do-everything lens I usually carry..   No Wide Angle?  No problem.  Shoot your image in quadrants and let photoshop stitch them together for you!

Video of the making of this:

"Let their minds fill out the shot.."

The only photography training that I ever recieved, short of online workshops recently, was during High School.   I joined the Yearbook group for all the wrong reasons.  It would give me this full period of time during the school day that I could wander around, even offsite at times under the guise of "yearbook activities."  It gave me a pass to hang out with any clubs I wanted.   Football, baseball, cheerleading or band.  I could shadow any organization in the school and it was perfectly okay.   I eventulaly met my wife, a band chick, through this newfound freedom to explore the school with a camera.

Back to the training, though.   They sent us to this Olin Mills or Herf Jones workshop to learn compositional style and camera fundamentals.   I was a teenager and remember hardly anything from the class except for the girl that oddly enough, paid attention to me..

As the "photo editor" (ha ha) for the yearbook and working as a trade-school sort of arrangement for a local newspaper, I developed a pretty passible darkroom skillset.   I loved the develop photos.

Which brings me to this image from the Holiday photowalk, this weekend.  

The head of the yearbook organization was this really effective, mildly crazy, super-intense ex-Cop-turned-english teacher named Jim Reeves.   I always sort of imagined him as a strange mashup of Jimmy Buffet, Ernest Hemmingway, Dirty Harry & Steve Jobs.  I'd pour through the photos of the others (far better photographers than me, by the way) and he'd pour through my list and pick out the best.

Like Steve Jobs, he'd thumb through the photos into two piles, all the while, saying outloud "crap.  crap. crap.   decent.   crap crap crap decent. crap crap crap crap... "  until the stack of paper was reduced two a tiny piles of decent images and a large pile that would immediately find itself into the wastebasket.

As I took this shot, I thought of Jim Reeves... He would applaud the action shots of people and of photos of innanimate objects, he'd tell me..

<paraphrased>

"Let the viewer's mind fill out portions of the shot, it's okay if everything isn't in the frame."

I've improved in camera handling since then but I don't think I ever did get the nack for natural - epic composition and I constantly struggle with when it's OK to exclude a portion of the shot.   But, I did get that girl's phone number from photography camp.  However, to paraphrase the sitcom, "Kids, this is not how I met your mother..."

Utopia, Found?

Whenever you see a sign that advertises Utopia, you just have to take that picture.  That's a rule, right?

I don't know if this town, Fairhope, is utopia or not but I had a great time walking the streets snapping photos like this one..

In my usual fashion, this shot almost landed me in trouble.   Someone felt I was a little too close to their vehicle as I sat kneeled on the ground for the looooonnnnnnngggg exposure times to tick away.   I mean, I didn't think I looked like a carjacker but maybe a crowbar wasn't a valid photography accessory?

Utopia, indeed. :)

A-Pier-ances

I go to a Christmas-season photowalk and walk away with a bunch of pictures of piers.   :)
I'm undecided if I like the processing on this one but I know I'll release some other "versions" of this shot in the future, because I like the composition and subject.  

For this version I was going for stark contrast hoping to bring in the white reflections in the clouds on the water. 

A Very Creepy Christmas..

I attended my first Photo walk on Sunday, with the Eastern Shore Camera Club. What a cool time!  I met these fantastic people and walked around Fairhope taking pictures of this and that..  Also, got to hang with one my Flickr Heros, Brody ..

What a cool time!  I love photography and I'm thrilled to attend anything where other entusiastic and nice people are there..  Can't wait to do it again.

K, for this shot, I wandered off to the Pier at Night.  Walked to the end and for some reason, after a day of taking pictures of beautiful Christmas lights in an idyllic setting, the macabre-ish style lighting really called to me.

It reminds me of how many creepy things have made their way into the Christmas celebration.  From Dickin's ghost to Tim Burton's The Nightmare Before Christmas, somehow the macabre has made its way into this season.   This photo is my tribute to that :)

The Art of Chill

Walking by the House of Blues (Orlando), this scene caught my eye.   Relaxing music, comfortable chairs, soft lighting and great service seems to bring a great mood to this spot.   My capture of it, on the other hand, was handheld and could have been improved to reduce the glow around the patio lights.

I wasn't about to pull up a chair and chill.  The two year old tugging on my arm had other plans, leading to some epic daddy-son time, instead.

I plan to return to this spot, though, as a patron! 

The decorations are out..

I'm not sure how common this is.   Around me, in Southern Alabama, all of the little towns around our 21 mile stretch heading to the beach, participate pretty heavily in Holiday decoration displays. 

Along the road, lightpoles get decorated with light-up ornaments and the parks get filled with fake reindeer and scaled-down Christmas villages.    Is this something that is just normal here in the bible belt or common elsewhere, too?   I don't remember seeing this in Indiana when I lived there...

Golden Masts

 I dropped by the marina @ Fairhope Pier to check for available slips.   I really wanted to get my boat in Fly Creek Marina but it was booked up for Hurricane Season.  Signed a lease at the Wharf instead.    

I'm not sorry, The Wharf has nice amenities and is a "hurricane hole" with its great floating dock system.   Still, the Fairhope area would've been a nicer drive.   Oh Well, maybe next year :)

I did, at least get this shot from the Fairhope City Marina @ Sunset.

Cotton: Ground; Cotton: Sky

A few weeks ago, I did a portrait session @ this cotton field near Elsanor, AL.   Everyone seemed to have a great time and I believe the portraits turned out well.   While we were waiting on the sun to do something interesting, I snapped this photo of the cotton field landscape.

 

A Long Walk Back..

(Click through for full crop)

On Thanksgiving, this year, after eating too much food, I accompanied my wife's family to the park just to the east side of the "Flora-Bama' Point bridge for a sunset portrait session.   It was a very productive portrait session, I think everyone walked away with a couple of favorite shots.

Having multiple cameras sure comes in handy when shooting portraits of 10 people and racing the sun on its descent below the horizon.   I handed off two mirrorless cameras and I shot with my DSLR and a Film camera.   Looking through the results, each camera had some great shots.

On the.. long.. long.. walk back to the car I stopped and snapped this shot, handheld with that Panosonic micro 4:3rds camera.  I thought it was a compelling result, though smugmug crops this preview, strangely.

I hope your Turkey Day festivities were enjoyable.

Alternative Shopping

When it comes to photo-gathering around retail locations, I have this rule.  I try to be a patron of the location.

This sometimes leads to some new and interesting experiences, which is the whole point to my photography: gathering experiences.

Driving back to the boat after meeting a developer friend for lunch, this VW caught my attention.  I had my little micro four thirds camera in the car, so I stopped to get the photo.  Now, the quandry.   I'd never actually been in a head shop before.  At least, not as an adult.  (I think dad or mom may have taken me to one when I was a kid but that's another story.)

This VW sits nestled between a law office and this Hippy Store.  I like Hippies more than lawyers, so I went it.

Turns out it wasn't a head shop but a cute little hippie boutique.
 ..of course.. everyone inside was very friendly and helpful.   I considered this may be a good time to do some alternative shopping so I looked around, settled on a hacky sack for my son and a necklace for my daughter.   

This leads me to reflect on the startling presence of multiple, differing "life views" that I exhibit.

I go so very far left on some things and so very far right on others...   I like guns and wanted to be a marine, yet I like hippie culture.  How is that possible?  

I don't know but the hippie in me says I shouldn't care and the professional is telling me to get back to work..

So, enjoy the fun image and your Black Friday.  Be safe and consider shopping .. alternatively..

Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving, Friends!

Sure, it is a cliche but, what are you thankful for this year?   

I'm just really super-thankful for my little family.  My awesome, beautiful, patient wife and fun and loving kids. They really especially helped keep me glued together through a tough year with the loss of mom and dad and other things.   

I'm also, really thankful for a patient employer who gave me the space I needed to get that stuff handled and for friends who have supported us. 

I'm thankful to God for his constant blessing, provision and tolerance.

The Photographer's Pier

Fairhope Municipal Pier in Fairhope, Alabama.   What an epic pier and neat little town.  The City Pier's marina has some of the lowest marina fees I've found.  Though, you wouldn't want to live aboard as the waves can get active despite the little sea wall.

The thing I love about Fairhope Pier is that it is the most active photography location I've ever seen.   Everytime you go, you'll find professional and hobbyist photographers milling about taking pictures of this and that.  (even in this shot) For good reason, too!  The rose garden and fountain.  The pier and surrounding beaches.  The adjacent park, smaller piers and duck pond.   Really, this place is scenic heaven.

The thing I really love about this pier.  It is very seasonal.   In about two months it will be bone-chilling cold here and no one will show up but hard core fishermen, morning runners and ME with a camera in tow.

There are two bluffs overlooking the pier. (North and South)  

Where I took this picture, a group of family or friends, sat in the grass.   A decent wine, some dixie cups, prepped to watch the sunset.  It struck me they really had a better grasp on the importance of living than most...

Maybe one day, Dina & I and our young adult children can meet up for a similar outing.  Something to look forward to!

The Rickety Pier

Because I spend so much time on the coast, I end up shooting alot of piers.  I think it is likely because they break up the scene well and provide a good subject.   They don't move around too frequently and rarely require a model release. :)  Sometimes shots of the most epic beach scenery can still be boring without something in the scene.

The problem is that it usually feels like there is only one good way to frame a pier in a shot.  Shooting down the pier with the end of the pier at Center, A Third or Phi.  I wanted to try something a little different with this little pier located in Fairhope, near the Municipal Pier

So, this is my attempt at a different composition than I usually would pick for a pier.  

I would love to hear your feedback on it!

Civil War Cannon @ Sunset

One sunset, walking around Fort Morgan, I captured this of one of the cannons near the Postern.   It's a pretty major gun and the resonating thought that stuck with me was:  "This gun was used against fellow countrymen."

A chilling thought.

I wonder what a civil war would look like in America today.  Would the borders be geographic? Probably not.   
Social, political, racial or religious? Maybe.   Borders based on economic classification.  More likely.