Wallpaper: September 2010
This month’s wallpaper is for all you coffee lovers out there. A nice close up of some Sumatran arabica coffee beans being roasted over an open fire. The smoke of the dark roast rising to through the beans. I hope you enjoy it and that the caffeine doesn’t keep you up at night. This month [...]
the RAW and the Muse
On this trip to Sumatra, I did what I always do; I shot in RAW. RAW images files are fantastic, they give you the latitude to make changes to your images while processing that JPEG files just don’t allow. This, of course, is old news to most of us. Nate Watkins, the buddy I was [...]
Multimedia: Lintang Coffee Millers of Sumatra
Over the past week I have been up to my chest in tea plants and knee deep in coffee beans. I have slid muddy slopes on my butt down too many times to count and dug dirt out of my camera more than I care to think about. But I gotta say, it has been [...]
South Sumatra #2
Just a quick note and a few photos from the past two days. The note is to say I have disabled the geotag feature. Great for clients, not so hot for blogging. Tonight I am in the middle of nowhere in Southern Sumatra. The people are still amazingly friendly and a pleasure to photograph. Here [...]
South Sumatra #1
Had a good first day of shooting. I am reminded how wonderfully friendly the Indonesian people are. The men and women are both so willing to have their photos taken. In fact, almost incessant at times. It has been raining every afternoon and thus the weather has given us some great opportunities for dramatic images. [...]
Depth of Field: David Honl
David Honl and I have been interacting via the net for many years. But as is common with net-based relationships, I have never met him face-to-face. It’s a strange world we live in. You’d think listening to this podcast we’d hung out with each other or shot together, but that is not the case. Maybe [...]
Geotagging: Just Because We Can
For most people the fun thing about geotagging, or adding the gps coordinates to a photo is simply because you can. But there are some practical uses. I have a client that hopes to create a database of their projects around the world. In this database they might store information and names of staff that [...]
Tom Little, IGVP And The Need For Peace
A photo essay by John Stanmeyer about Tom Little and NOOR. (Click the photo to go to the story at VII) This post is a little out of the ordinary for me. But I think my readers will still be interested in the photos and the plea associated with it is important. By now, you’ve [...]
Wallpaper: August 2010
By now you will have noticed I have not been posting on this blog over this past week or so. I am on the road and will be spending much of August in Indonesia on assignment and in meetings with several organizations. Last week I taught a workshop on how to compose and shoot better [...]
Depth of Field: Michael Clark
A few weeks back Michael Clark and I got into a fight. It was a knock-down-drag-out kind of fight and the internet won all, but the last round. Michael is patient man that allowed me to keep calling his home until we finally had decent line. Thank you Michael. Not only is he a patient [...]
Aristotle, Excellence and the Photographer
“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit.” Aristotle This morning I met with some friends of mine for coffee. My buddy Hans tossed out this quote he’d recently read in a runner’s magazine of all places. He thought it might spur some challenging conversation. We were discussing [...]
All dried up!
click image to view larger I am at a creative dry spot today. I hit it harder than usually. I feel like I have fallen down a well, hit the dry bottom now I am flat on my back looking up a small pin point of light. How did I get down here? I’m tired. [...]
Dear Beginner, You make ripples!
Recently I had an email from a reader who had some basic photography questions. He was dealing with some pretty common issues that most beginners deal with. He has been frustrated that his images, though taken in some very exotic locations don’t seem to grab the viewer. After I looked over some of his images [...]
Depth of Field: Jeff Revell
Jeff Revell is a super nice guy and a talented photographer as well. When Jeff is not shooting his own work, he is managing a group of photographers, authoring books or leading photowalks. In fact, Jeff is the inspiration for the Scott Kelby’s World Wide Photo Walk. You might call Jeff the Photowalk Guru, others [...]
I talk to myself. Do you?
I talk to myself. There – I’ve said it. I know, you think I’m nuts. That’s not new news–but that’s a whole other topic. The fact is, I talk to myself. Whenever I put the camera to my face, I talk to myself. Sometimes audibly, all the time in my head. I ask myself what [...]
The Mundane
There are several things taking my time up lately and most of them are rather mundane. I’m spending a lot of time keywording photographs. For some of you, this is not very important, all you need to do is keyword an image so you can find it quickly in your library. However, for many of [...]
Wallpaper July 2010
I am a few days late in posting my July wallpaper. After returning from Egypt I find myself trying to dig out from under masses of e-mails and all kinds of DAM (Digital Asset Management) work. So today I took a few minutes to put together a wallpaper for you from my trip to Egypt. [...]
Multimedia: The Camel Market of Cairo
Over this past two weeks of reconnoitering for an Oct 2011, Cairo/Nile photo workshop I was able to see and visit some amazing places. Places, that if I didn’t have the job that I have, I might say were once in a lifetime kind of places. Last Friday was once such place. My ever gracious [...]
Go with the flow, or in this case the light.
(Click on the image to view it larger.) Here is a lesson; hold on to ideas and concepts your shooting lightly and let things happen naturally. Go with the flow. One of the hardest things to photograph is an icon. Something that everyone knows and everyone has photographed. So how to you do it? Honestly… [...]
Egypt: Aswan Nubian Village
We travel in 52c (125º) heat, across the Nile and reached an isolated Nubian village visited by few foreigners. It was like nothing I have ever seen. The walls of the home where bright blue, deep red and mustered yellow. The people, the most friendly we have met in Egypt and the light was perfect; [...]
Egypt: Aswan, More Images
Most of my time here has been split between looking at possible sites for a Nile workshop and family vacation. The family vacation images are on my Facebook page. There is huge potential for a photo workshop on the Nile. The villages we have been looking at are outside the normal tourist routes and are [...]
Egypt Post #1
I am with my wife and daughter on a working vacation…of sorts. Marco Ryan of Focus for Humanity fame, is hosting our family here in the wonderful land of the pharaohs. Marco and I are doing a “recce” as he says, for a possible Egypt photo tour and workshop. There certainly is no dearth of [...]
Guest Blog: Marco Ryan
I’m going to go down a bit of a rat hole. I’m even going to give it a name: value. You’ll already be wondering why a post that begins “I’m going down a bit of a rat hole” might have anything to do with Focus for Humanity – a newly launched foundation aimed at giving [...]
I shoot for mostly NGOs and nonprofits. I photograph images of the unknown, the forgotten and the helpless. These are often the stories that most people overlook. 
