Trains, Planes, and Automobiles

My plans are made to go see my daughter and the grandbabies, and also to meet her new significant other. I’ve chosen the method of travel that seems the most sane in this world – train. I can go round trip on the train for what it would cost me in gas to go a little more than one way and I get pretty good gas milage. The only way I’m flying these days is if the trip is too far to do any other way.

I started out loving flying. I saw the ocean from the air before I ever saw it on the ground. In fact, the first time I did see the ocean on the ground I wondered where the white fluffy things that sat on the water (clouds) were. I remember nothing but enjoyment when we flew back from Korea, 33 hours in the air, my poor parents. I do remember feeling a little miffed because everyone told me we were going to stop in Hawaii and the only thing I saw in Hawaii was the inside of a windowless room where all us children were herded while our parents went through customs. I loved flying when I took a bus to Boston and then discovered I could fly back for just a little more money. Sixteen hours on a bus plus 2 hours in the New York terminal vs. an hour and a half in the air. It was heaven. It was pure decadence. When my first husband and I moved to New Hampshire we flew back home regularly. I’d bring my camera and fight for the window seat, taking lots of non-descript cloud photos through scratched plane windows.

Perhaps it was the time the plane hit turbulence, the seat belt sign stayed on for the entire trip, and I needed to visit the restroom in the worst way. Maybe it was all those small planes that I flew in when I worked the northeast installing and teaching software. I especially remember the one into Pittsburg where the seats looked like school cafeteria seats bolted to the floor and we bounced and rolled like never before. Maybe it was Air Florida hitting the 14th street bridge. Somewhere along the way flying got a little scary.

I went through a period of being afraid to fly and that slowly mutated into just not liking it but doing it anyway. I came to acceptance that when it is your time to go, it’s your time to go and quit being afraid of crashing.

Now there is a whole new fear, getting stuck on a plane for hours while it waits to take off. I’m not so afraid of getting stuck in a terminal. I’m pretty resourceful and I always have my camera with me so the idea of getting stuck somewhere interesting sounds kind of fun. But getting stuck on a plane for hours on end, stuffed into a tiny seat, with the bathrooms slowly becoming unusable, sounds slightly terrifying. And it is so much more inconvenient these days. I can’t check my camera and laptop because they might get stolen but they’re bulky and dangerously close to the carry on limits. I end up only carrying one camera and stuffing it into the laptop carrier with my purse and now I’ve got so much delicate electronics rubbing against each other that I’m afraid to put it in the overhead bin. Not to mention trying to take off my shoes, keep an eye on the laptop, the other eye on the camera, and get through the metal detector.

The train – it sounds so civilized…

Patience (or not)

“I never know in advance what I will photograph, ... I go out into the world and hope I will come across something that imperatively interests me. I am addicted to the found object. I have no doubt that I will continue to make photographs till my last breath.”

Ansel Adams


A lot of patrons remark that I must have a lot of patience. Actually I don’t or at least I don’t think I do. I search out the wild places because of a spiritual hunger that needs the peace and tranquility they offer. Any photograph I get is an extra gift. I don’t generally lie in wait for a specific shot. I walk and look and wait for beauty to reveal herself. When I am out taking photographs I will raise the camera to my eye a hundred times without pressing the shutter. If I like what I see however, I enter a different mode. I will take 30 shots in the space of 10 minutes or less trying to get that perfect representation of what I see before me. Unlike what some say, the camera can and does lie. It darkens the darks and washes out the lights. Sometimes the camera, most frustratingly, tells the truth. Our eyes compensate, turn the pole straight even though it is leaning when it becomes two dimensional. Our eyes miss the piece of trash in the foreground, until it shows itself in the photograph. It’s not just the art of seeing that makes a good photograph. It is the art of seeing and anticipating the way the camera sees.

Sometimes I just stop though, and breathe in the air, feel the solitude.

Photography Invitational and More on Canvas

I am looking very forward to the Photography Invitational at the Mount Dora Center for the Arts. They will be displaying four of my photographs. They even put “Morning in the Glades” on the postcard advertising the event. I was there today dropping off work and got to see some of the other work that will also be displayed. Some very nice quality work and well worth the trip to see it. Please stop by if you can. I will be at the opening which is on April 11 from 6 – 8 PM. This is the same time and in the same area as the Mount Dora Art Walk. If you cannot make the opening the exhibit will be up until May 9.

On another note - Another attack on photographs printed on canvas and it’s coming from photographers themselves. It’s come to my attention that some photographers are having their canvas gallery wrap prints made in China very cheaply. I will be the first to admit that I don’t do my own gallery wraps. Trust me, you don’t want me to, it’s not a quality product if I do it. I can eyeball a print inside a mat to see that it is straight but I can’t get my gallery wraps straight or neat. I’ve also tried several suppliers to do gallery wraps for me until I found my current one. They just weren’t right either. Too tight and the canvas cracks, too loose and it looks sloppy. The coating put on the canvas is important as well. Canvas gallery wraps do not have the benefit of UV resistant glass to protect them from the elements. The wrong or improperly applied coating will cause the photograph to fade prematurely. The bottom line is that quality is very important on a canvas gallery wrap.

If you buy from me I can guarantee that my canvas gallery wraps, and all my work, is done to the highest quality possible and done in the US. If you buy from somebody else and the price seems quite low, please check and make sure you are getting a quality product. If you’re looking for a canvas gallery wrap made in China – Wal-Mart sells them.

Check out the new picture of me. A friend and I photographed a wedding this past weekend and he took this very nice photograph.

Sunrise...

Sunrise, my favorite time of day, as the world around me starts to wake up. I head out early, in the dark. I arrive in the dark because the best sunrise photographs are taken before actual sunrise. I sit in the dark and listen to the night. Then it starts to happen. The first shots are on the tripod with a long exposure. The light is constantly changing. The shutter speeds get shorter and shorter, starting at minutes and ending with fractions of a second. Sometimes the clouds are low and nothing happens for awhile and then suddenly it is very light. Sometimes the clouds and the vantage point are just right and the sun comes up like a huge orange ball. Sometimes there are no clouds at all, just orange. But each one is different. Then when it is finally light I head out, either to take more photographs or home to grab a quick nap. The trip back is very different than the trip out. There are more cars on the road, the world is starting to move around. Pretty soon, it’s just a normal day but I feel slightly different, a little more connected to the universe, a little more serene.

The photographs above were all taken at the same place, at approximately the same time of year, but different years. If you look closely you can see the same tree line. The same, yet different.

Catching up - Everglades and Naples National

Well I’m quite a bit behind… Three shows in a row plus a trip to the Everglades will do that to me. So to catch up:

Wilma did quite a bit of damage to the Everglades National Park on the east side. The Anhinga trail is missing quite a few trees which means many of the birds seem to have moved elsewhere, although I was a couple weeks before prime time at the Anhinga Trail. I did see some great blue herons, a green heron, the resident egret, and the usual cormorants and anhingas. The woodstorks have moved to Paurotis Pond, on the other side so they are very hard to see. I also saw a couple pink dots so there are roseate spoonbills there as well. Eco Pond looks rather decimated. I'm not sure if that is drought or hurrican effects although there are a lot of down trees in the area. I saw and photographed some plovers but that was it. The old Flamingo hotel is boarded up and there are a lot of trees missing. There was an immense group of alligators at Anhinga Trail, probably a mother and offspring. The mangroves at West Lake look like they took a beating as well. But hurricanes are nature’s way and nature doesn’t answer to people.

There was a lot of activity at Shark Valley though. I even got to see and photograph a yellow crested night heron. It looks like a dull great blue heron. It’s going to take me a great deal of time to go through all the photographs, especially with another show in a week but keep an eye out over the next month or so and I’ll try to post here as I put them up on the website.

My sister and I took a side trip to the Alligator Farm and I finally got to see and photograph a Florida Panther. It was in a cage though. I’m still working on a couple leads I have to get some photographs of a Florida Panther in a rescue setting. Of course I’m also keeping a lookout in the wild but the changes of seeing one, with the right lighting and conditions is pretty slim. We also took a great airboat ride. I don't much like airboats for photography, the noise keeps the birds away, and it's probably not too environmentally sound but it was fast and fun and a great break.

After that it was on to Naples National. A much more pleasant show to do than St. Stephens but I was also able to stay at the vacant home of a relative and didn’t have a hotel to contend with. It was HOT. A welcome relief from the rain but I was lucky to have a booth location under some trees with a slight breeze. Other locations, I heard, were not nearly as pleasant. That evening I called my uncle, who is in Virginia, to see if he thought it was okay to get into their pool. They were expecting snow, he was not amused. The show was okay, so far my best show of the year, but definitely down for me. People were buying, but they were buying small. I sold a framed panoramic and everything else was matted pieces. I paid $3.41/ gallon for mid range gas….. I also managed to back into a tree and break a back window, not a mark on the tree. And my car was broken into while I was gone. All in all, I was glad to get home.

So this weekend I’m at Leesburg. The weather is absolutely beautiful and the people are pleasant. The hotel room (Days Inn) is nice. Actually, except for my aunt and uncle’s and of course home, the nicest (and cheapest) place I’ve stayed for the past three weeks. Sales are going fairly well and I think it’s going to be a good show. I’ll let you know in my next post.

Grrrr

You know, Florida is in a drought. Despite the rain of the past few days we are still hurting for rain. And the Everglades is an environmentally sensitive area. Florida City hotels cater mostly to people who are visiting the Everglades. People who visit the Everglades tend to be environmentally conscious.

So why on earth would a hotel in Florida City not offer the opportunity to conserve water and energy by re-using the towels in the room instead of giving new towels every day? Not only, not offer the opportunity, but force the occupants to have new towels every day. That’s right folks, force. Not only do I want to be environmentally conscious and re-use my towels I prefer to not have my room made up. I travel with camera, computer and this time with artwork. With all the signs around that they are not responsible for anything stolen I prefer to not have anyone see what I have in my room. Note, I always tip the maid anyway, seems the right thing to do. So I left my room on Tuesday morning and put out the “make up room later” sign. That should have been my first clue. There was no “Do Not Disturb” sign. When I returned my room had been made up, new towels replacing the previous barely used ones and the curtains left open for everyone to see my laptop sitting on the table. When I complained, I was told that it was the owner’s policy. I COULD NOT request that my room not be made up. I offered to bring the trash out to them. I offered to let them inspect the room to see that I was doing nothing illegal in there. No dice. The manager wouldn’t even tell me the reason for the policy so I could explore some sort of compromise.

Why would a hotel want to treat a customer this way? Why would they not want to accommodate a simple request? I’m still waiting for an answer Best Western.

Wet and Tired!

Everything was going great until the skies opened up Sunday. It was miserable. One of my print boxes leaked and I lost about 10 small prints. I forgot and left the box for my canvas prints out in the rain so I'm not sure how well they will fare being transported. I probably will not hang them at Naples anyway since "Water's Bend" was well received. It didn't sell yet but a lot of people liked it. Framed work seems more fitting for Naples anyway. From Sunday afternoon on having a corner booth was useless. The majority of the time the sides were down and the photographs on the side could not be seen. There are little brown leaves all over the tent. I had planned break down as a slow, patient thing since everything is wet but my location was in a spot where they needed to bring in other vehicles so I was requested to break down as quickly as possible. Thank God for the gentleman that offered to help as I think my sister was overwhelmed by the whole experience. Truth be told, so was I. I was glad to get out of Coconut Grove. No fault of St. Stephens. They were very nice and helpful. They even came by with incense to bless everyone's artwork. But I'm going to hold out for the Coconut Grove show in the future. St. Stephens was not enough profit for the stress level.

But we're in the Everglades now, or close by at least. We had a nice dinner and have decided to forgo sunrise tomorrow morning for some extra sleep. There's a place I want to try for sunset anyway. Hopefully I'll have some new photographs to post tomorrow.