The Journey Into Art

I know this is really boring, but if you can't master your camera, you can't make good photographs. Michelangelo had to master his paints and brushes before creating his paintings and frescoes...

So I decided I would take my camera with me on my daily walks with the dog. We walked along many places in the neighborhood, and I took pictures of what caught my eye...

This is the fourth in a series of Before and After images that shows what came out of the camera and what subsequently went on paper.

This print was from a morning session south of Sedona, Arizona, shooting with a long lens...

This was a soft evening in early June at Devil's Garden outside of Torrey Utah. The forms and colors of the Garden and evening were rare and inviting.

I was tired from several days of dawn to dusk photo shoots and found the quiet meandering among these peculiar shapes on the north side of a wide draw refreshing...

This is the first a series of posts showing images that I had taken at the start of my photographic journey a number of years ago.

I am sharing these images and posts as a way of encouraging those starting out on this journey...

One of my hard things was that I came to photographic art after many years of professional training and experience in science and medicine. I had no formal art training, except for making paper mâché boxes in high school...

a sunrise outside of Torrey Utah

IF you do the following, you are following a film paradigm (while shooting with a digital camera):

1. You do nothing to the image that comes out of the camera and print without processing...

This is the third in a series of Before and After images that shows what came out of the camera and what subsequently went on paper.

This is the image as it came out of the camera and was imported into Lightroom with only the default Camera Raw settings, i...

Driving around the Escalante area in Utah, one is met often with bland flatness or that same old red you see all over the Southwest. Yet a turn in the road or view around a corner can show a dramatically changed landscape...

It should be plain that you can only capture what you see. Yet when starting out and trying to focus on something to photograph (other than everything), one must see first and then capture the image...

I have been asked by a number of people to expand on the description of my basic capture and processing workflow as described on the Artist's Process page. It is important for me to share that what I do is not remotely close to point-and-shoot photography...

This is the second in a series of Before and After images that shows what came out of the camera and what subsequently went on paper. This series was spurred by several issues. First was that people regularly ask me if the print was "manipulated...

Many have asked what was the change that I mentioned earlier about this month's print of the month. So I thought I would add this Before & After to the series a bit earlier than planned.

The initial image from Lightroom with some basic modifications...

This month's print is a creative divergence from previous prints.

I love the Southwest US for its openness, grandeur, solitude, history, and scenery. Sometimes when I am standing on an overlook, I get so enamored with the beauty and the moment that I want to jump up and down, run around in circles chasing my tail, dance, sing, and shout...

There are more and more of us on this planet. That means it is harder to find places of solitude and photos that show something new.

I have recently wandered the landscape of southeast Utah and paid particular attention to where I walked after being reminded of the delicacy of the soil...

This is the first of a series of Before and After images that shows what came out of the camera and what subsequently went on paper. This series was spurred by several issues. First was that people regularly ask me if the print was "manipulated...

I have read a fair amount about the southwest US and the ancient ones who had lived there. I have seen many pictures of ruins of their dwellings and other artifacts found. Unfortunately that is all head stuff to me...

This month's print of the month is from an early morning, watching the sun rise over the main Zion Canyon. Light glances off the distant peaks to lead the eye to the morning moment.

April 2019 - eastern Arizona sunset

This is the fifth of a series of 5 posts expanding on questions people had asked me when discussing my work and artistic experiences at a recent show. They are published as part of the exploration of my creative life...

This is the fourth of a series of 5 posts expanding on questions people had asked me when discussing my work and artistic experiences at a recent show. They are published as part of the exploration of my creative life...

Time wandering alone in the wilderness often leaves me open to awe, expectancy, and hope. Moving around a new turn in the path or over the next little hill or moving 30 feet to the right or left presents a new experience and new vision...

This is the third of a series of 5 posts expanding on questions people have asked me when discussing my work and artistic experiences. They are published as part of the exploration of my creative life...

This is the second of a series of 5 posts expanding on questions people have asked me when discussing my work and artistic experiences. They are published as part of my exploration of the creative life...

This is the start of a series of 5 posts expanding on questions people have asked me when viewing and discussing my work and artistic experiences. I wrote them down and decided to write about each one in greater and more thoughtful detail...

For millennia the desert has represented a space and experience, where one left all their roles and responsibilities behind to seek solitude, direction, and respite.

Some also intentionally went to the desert to seek wisdom, purpose, and enlightenment...

An evening storm is coming into the Maze District. I had been here for 4 days before this night, exploring one of the most remote areas in the lower 48 states.

Getting here involves miles of high clearance, 4-wheel drive roads that have not been maintained since they were built in the 1950's...

The slot canyons of Arizona and Utah hold a particularly important place in my art and in my understanding of human experience.

My first exposure to them was during my first photography workshop with Alain and Natalie Briot in the spring of 2010, and little did I know the impact it would hold...

The current Antelope Canyon milieu is completely different from when I came here in 2010. (I will post more specifics when I talk about slot canyon I and II projects...