The strip is what attracts most people to Las Vegas. Zion National Park just 2 1/2 hours away is protected as a national treasure. Red Rock Canyon is, in a different way, every bit as beautiful. It is more than a Nevada Treasure, it is a rare gem and largely unknown.

My intent in publishing the images is to make people aware of this beautiful place, to come see it and to let you know that this wonderful canyon must be saved from those who see profit in development instead of a priceless gift that nature has provided.

Today I saw smoke in the sky over the Las Vegas Strip. I had no idea what it was. There is so much construction, I thought it was a construction site. I went hunting.

As i got closer, I could see it was a large hotel - casino but there was no direct access. The police had cleared and blocked the Las Vegas BLVD.

I-15 runs parellel to the strip. It presents on unobstructed view of the hotels. I waited through the heavy traffic and exited on I-15. As soon as I turned I looked for a shoulder to pull off, rolled down the window and began to shoot. moved a little to get a better view.

I was the first to pull off, but not the last. 15 cars had pulled off behind me.

Being at the right place at the right time takes a lot of hard work and thought. It tkaes willingness to do what most people won't. You make luck - it doesn't just happen.

When you see a photo of a mountain that takes your breath away, you will know how much it took to make the miracle happen.

Respect your work and others. It takess persistence and that takes dedication and the willing ness tobe alone and lonely, cold and hot, restless and energetic. Just do it!

I am currently reading "Yhe History of Photography" by Beaumont Newhall. The first few pages explore the bginnings of what has turned in to an art form. It began as an aid to creating reality. For the photo-artist, it has turned in to a way of expressing our illusions.

With PS, I save in 16bit with all layers which can make for a very large file but it's worth it.

Here's another little trick - you can duplicate a layer - use emboss on the top layer and then select overlay - depending on heavily embossed the 2nd layer is, the image will come out sharpened - without the unsharp mask as a permanent change on the base file - plus you can erase any edges on the 2nd layer if they see too sharp.

The reason you use layers for curves, levels and all the rest is so that the base image is disturbed as little as possible. An image is just made of pixels and if you affect one, you affect those around it so by doing all your adjustments in layers, and then flattening, you have a record of what you have done and a file that has as much clarity as when you started.

It is beyond me why anyone questions the use of PS - it is a darkroom in a pen or mouse - it will teach you so much about the next time you shoot and it will end up making you better images and learning more about what you want to do the next time.

For instance, while I like the grad filter effect, I'd rather use a grad filter to begin with - start with the best and improve on it - with JPEG, you've lost a lot of the bits you started with and an image that is compressed.

Now, if you're a wedding photographer, that's a whole different ball game - who would have time to edit 300 shots - but for a flower or a sunset - raw gives me so much to work with and in 16 bit which makes any changes that much less noticeable.

I read an article a little while ago about the difference between shooting jpegs and raw and I think it has some bearing on the use of Photoshop.

That is - what goes in has more to do with what comes out than anything. Photoshop can do a lot and make some lousy shots pretty good, but I think the better you understand light and exposure, the better images will turn out.

There are literally thousands of things Photoshop will do. It's ability to selectively lighten dark areas while leaving light areas as is, is just amazing. However, if there is no detail in the shadow, all you end up with is sometimes and spots of shadow.

There used to be a wonderful show on PBS. Three people would play with PS and teach different techniques. Today, I read PCPhoto magazine. The magazines have some wonderful tips and tricks that I've learned.

For instance, did you know if you have an underexposed shot that putting a 2nd layer on it and selecting screen will change the exposure by 2 f-stops. You can then adjust the opacity of the layer so the right amount of lighting is achieved.

Conversely, if you have an over exposed image, that putting another layer on top and selecting multiply for the layer will darken the image by 2 f-stops. You can try this with part of an image. If you cut and paste a sky, for instance right back on top and select multiply, it will give you rich detail that might never be noticed.

If you chose only part of the image, such as the sky, it is like using a graduated filter - just make sure you feather the selection before you paste it back so the effect is gradual.

Most importantly, you have to use the program as much as possible so you begin to learn where all the tools do and what they do.

For all I have learned, I feel I can barely scratch the surface.tips.

Is anyone listening and if not, why am I talking. Writing is talking with no sound. I'm sit across from you and talk and I have the floor without pause to go and and say what i feel. Let's say I want tot talk about the last photos I've taken and tell you they are all excuses for why i am not doing any real photography.

The rose is most certainly deserves the attention and yet, I'd rather be out to see the sunset over water, over mountains, over trees and feel the cool wind on my face or would I?

I think you know what you want to do by looking at what you're doing and I am not doing that. There was a time - a few months ago when I could walk out to the car, look up and know exactly where to go or to just turn around and go back inside as if the only reason to be outside was to find a wonderful photograph.

But life's more than that. When i look back at the many treks i took through Sawhill and along the foothills or up Mount Sanitas as the moon set, I forget about the days i didn't go. I forget about the colds and flu and the headaches and the tiredness that pushed me around or the computer that wouldn't work and I was too possessed with the possibility of it not working to even consider leaving it as if it were a child suffering from some unknown disease. I wouldn't leave it as if it were the most valuable thing on Earth because it held all my photographs from yesterday and the day before. Those became more valuable than the one I was about to take and I lost them anyway and I lost the moment.

And why I am writing about this today is that all those heavy little pieces fell on me today, a cold and sore throat and tiredness and then a computer that won't do what i want and I have no choice but to replace it.

A computer is not a piece of paper or a storage bin and there are no photographs in it. What there are is 1s and 0s and those 1s and 0s combine to make designs and colors I call photographs and they can all become 1s and 0s and that's it in the blink of an eye. It's like a storm or the fire that rages through California. One moment, all you know is there and the next it isn't.

So, I had this day and as I watched the news tonight, I saw what life is about for those who were in the fire and I feel very small and very silly that i take my life so seriously.

One of my disks went down - went off and won't come on and there is so much on it and I can't remember if anything unique is on it and my life hasn't changed because everything is on two disks - well, almost everything and yet, my house stands, the water runs and the bed is comfortable. The sky is not filled with fire and smoke and a night of quiet sleep in a familiar place awaits me.

So, I watch a woman in mask sift through what was once very dear to her and I see her holding back her tears. I am still only half thankful for what i have.

I'd like to tell you I know secrets but I don't. They are hidden away and out in the open for everyone to see. So - first - how many of you always (not sometimes) use a lens hood. If you don't, you could be losing 25% of the clarity of your image. How many of you use a tripod when ever possible or is it just too much trouble. How many of you use a cable release and how many of you keep going to the same places a hundred times or maybe a thousand until you know where every tree is an every angle the sun comes up and use every lens you have until you can imagine without looking through it what you will see.

Photography is not so much what you know, it's how you use it and if you use it. It's a lot of hard work and getting up and going out when everyone else is asleep. The light changes an hour after it's up. It changes before it's up and in 5 minutes and fifteen minutes and are you there.

For 6 or 7 years I got every morning before the sun came up and went out. I'd get in my car with growing bag of equipment and look at the sky and decide right then and there where I'd go. Boulder Colorado makes that hard because it offers so much and indecision is a killer because if I don't my butt going, I won't end up anywhere.

I wasn't right all the time either. But as i went, i began to learn where I wanted to be when the moon set was at sunrise and almost full. I remembered when the leaves changed and when the air was still the reflections I'd get and i shot so damned much I just had to learn how to use the camera.

So, about the equipment and the hood and all that - it is vitally important to the shot and so is the camera and all its settings but like a piano player we have to know it so well, what we do becomes instinct (I finally changed from you to we). So, when I began to shoot seriously, I bought a Nikon F100 and set it manual except when I was trying get Canada Geese taking off and learned to see light as the camera did. I didn't always like what the camera saw, but what could I do because the camera certainly wasn't going to make any changes in for me and the film was going to limited in it's capacity unlike the human eye, so in spite of all my moaning and groaning, I had to learn.

One day, I sat in my back room and threw away 9,000 slides - and in film terms that's a lot of slides - a lot of really lousy photos that I spent a lot of money on. But when you're in love with what you're doing and you've got the money (or credit card) and think you are after something non one else can have, it's so much easier.

And that's what i was - in love. I bought and read every camera magazine and every last one had something in it that i could use. A little tidbit that made it possible for me to see differently than I had the day before. I read an article about lens hoods and after that I had one on every lens all the time - not just pat of the time - all of the time and I won't buy a camera or a lens that i can't put one on. I bought a tripod because some pro said it was the one thing that would improve my photography the most.

Now, I had this idea of shooting that involved holding a camera to my eye and clicking away like the photographers in movies - click, click, click but once i got a tripod, I slowed down. I had to and then I felt naked and unstable without it. Guess what?! They were right. I think it is is because I slowed down and because i didn't have to hold anything and then there was the cable release so I didn't touch the camera and I began to see tilted horizons because now, I looked through a window.

The Nikon F100 is a wonderful camera and it began to feel like a musical instrument in my hand. Like a musician, i played color instead of notes and I hardly had to look to see where my fingers went to change a setting. That's when I began to notice light. The camera became transparent and all i saw was light and I began to figure out that the light had to be soft and even. I threw away all my flowers that had blown out noon light in them and began to hide the flowers from the sun until the sun was soft and kind to the flowers and the detail in the petals came out.

I began to learn the rhythms of the world around me and I anticipated where the moon would be and when it would be full. I began to remember and one night I had this thought about finding a very beautiful thing each day and bringing it home.

One afternoon, I shot at irises and went through almost 500 exposures. I spilled water on the table and when I was done, I had learned more about irises than I ever expected to know. I had never seen the designs and lines and dimensions of the iris and I fell in love with them just as I had fallen in love with roses and the moon and reflections.

So, if I can say anything, it isn't about the equipment although you know it is. What I can say and recommend is to fall in love everyday. I see most of you do, I see it in your images as if I was looking through your eyes and I see a new vision.

With love, I am persistent and excited and determined. I am willing to get up and put layers and layers on when it is cold enough to make me shiver and I am determined enough to be alone and lonely while I wait for the colors of a sunrise or a warm light on a rose. I am willing to carry my tripod up steep slopes and make sure I don't forget the hoods or filters or cables. Yet, there have been times i was so focused on bring everything, I forgot the one thing that made it all go - film. So, after watching a blue heron stand silently only 20 feet from me with 12 dead batteries and all the film i needed, I determined to go through a check list before I went out.

I think it did me some good to just watch although that would have been one great shot - you'll have to trust me on that.

So, the camera is gone. Oh, I have one in a box I haven't opened but I have a suspicion Canon is about to release a new one - perhaps the 450 or 500 with God knows what improvements.

The XTi is a very fine camera though, like the XT, is just a little too small to feel like a precision tool that the Nikon F100 did. The F100 was like playing a musical instrument and because it was film, I had no way to look at what I had just shot while I missed another cloud or color in the clouds that had just popped up. I got used to ignoring that big, wonderful screen on the back of the camera so I could see with my failing eyesight what I had shot.

At the heart of it all, the camera made great photographs. Oh I know, it's the photographer and you may or may not think I made great photos, but the camera gave me the opportunity to do it.

The images made great prints, a few of which hang in my house, not to honor me but to remind me of those wonderful walks at Sawhill Ponds or the incredible lines of an iris.

The images it produced were striking in detail and clarity and the texture of the photos was almost liquid. What was missing from the camera was made up for by experience and practice. Yes, I'd have loved spot metering and I'd have liked it to be a little larger so it fit in my hand more comfortably and I'd have liked two control wheels, rather than one.

It wasn't an F100, but it was also lighter and easier to carry and with a 2 gigabyte CF card and a fully charged battery, I could shoot for two or three hours without filling the two cards i carried or running out of power. Coupled with the two image stabilized lenses I had, I never enjoyed the collection of cameras and lenses so much.

For those of you who don't think a sensor cleaning system works, I will say, i never once saw any dark blobs (which indicate dust) in even one photograph. While I would tell anyone to turn the camera off and hold it down when changing lenses, i was often too excited to remember that rule. Yet, the sensor was never in need of manual cleaning or even a puff of air.

When I look back 10 years to the Olympus D600L I used for over 15,000 images as i learned light and composition to what has happened now, it seems like a miracle.

I also have a Nikon D40x that I am trying out. One of the Photo magazines rated the XT and 40x buys of the year and I'd have to agree,

But just having a good tool doesn't mean you are going to take a good photo. Like any other form of art, the artist has to have some sort of intention when shooting and the various features of the camera become transparent in actual use. But, this is a time when I have a camera from the two largest sellers of cameras and if only I could have what they both offer in one camera.

The 40x, like many of Nikon's cameras obscures some of the simplest functions in menus - the Rebel XTi has dedicated buttons. With digital, you don't change film, you change settings as the kind of light and the subject change and having those controls a push button away is so much easier than scrolling through different menus.

I recommend the Rebel XTi highly and at the prices the XT is selling for, I don't think anyone could go wrong with either. In fact, the 40x is a great little machine.

My problem is that I have a few Nikon lenses and while not made for digital are wonderful with the 40x. With a tele extender and my 500mm lens with a silent focusing motor, I have a 1000mm lens that is fairly fast and focuses automatically. Not bad and for a little less than $1,000, I get that and two light lenses and a carrying bag. The lenses are small and light so all I need is a 10mm lens to shoot ultra wide angle shots which is one of my favorite things to do.

Look, I know you can read richly documented reviews at dpreview.com and see all the comparisons - and the pros and cons.

We live in an age of electronic miracles and all of these fill the bill.

My purpose in writing this was to sift through my thought and get to a point where I knew what direction to take. I plan to look at the new cameras coming in November - particularly the Nikon D3.

I also plan to look at what Canon has to offer next. I've been disappointed in Nikon for lagging behind, but with the D3 and D300, they caught up. Well, sort of because now Canon is offering a 21mp full frame camera.

That's like having medium format in a 35 mm body but, $8,000 is a lot to spend. Yet, in this world of ever changing and ever improving toys, that 21mp is very inviting.

Yet, with the 10s of thousands of images I've shot, I still find the images I shot with Fuji Provia, the F1000 (and get this) a Tamron 28-200 lens that cost less than $300 ten years ago are still the best I've every taken.

Ansel Adams didn't have all the tools that meant instant results as we have. He could not compare one shot to the next and often he hiked with perhaps three or four glass plates and waited months to see the results.

It used to be, the photographer bought a camera. It was just the box. It was the film and the lenses that made the difference and the lenses still do. But now, the camera is also the film and all of the choices are wonderful. So, go out and buy an XTi - you won't regret it. Get the 17-85 IS lens with it and almost anything you want to shoot will be possible.

Since I can't get the new cameras for a month, I still have weeks of confusion and decision making to go through. I have to worry about spending the money. But, when I think that someone just bought 11 images from me from what they saw on my web site, I know that money isn't the issue. For me, the 400 was a wonderful tool and I wish it hadn't been stolen. But now, the thought of making images that I can fill a wall with - that I can have all the features I want and less money in the short run, I do know what direction I'll go.

I'd love to hear what others have experienced with the D200, and the 16mp Canon - I want to know how large the prints you've made are and what do they look like - are they smooth and real enough to walk in to.

What I thought was a review is more a meander. I remember that what was most wonderful about photography is how I see the world now and what see that I never noticed.

There are photographers out there who creat images that take my breath away and many of them do not think the internet is a place people will buy from. Compared with some sites I charge very little for my work - $220 plus shipping and tax for a 20X30 shipped in a tube and yet, as hard as I've made it, I make a sale.

My enjoyment of photography certainly never centered around money. There are far more efficient ways of making it. My insurance business allowed me the freedom both financially and in my schedule so that i could go when i wwanted and expand what i needed as I grew in to it.

It all began with a need to get out and walk and the camera seemed to make it more interesting and the more obssessed I became with the colors, rythyms and patterns in nature, the more I walked and the more I learned.

I took some pretty bad phtos in the beginnig not understanding the limitations of film with light. I experimented and read and went out again and again. I began with digital and went to print film and then to slides and back to digital. Digital allowed me to waste as much clicking as i wanted but the images weren't big enough and film was the way to go - funny how much has happened in the last 10 years.

As I grew to understand film, light and the camera by reading a lot and studying the pros, the tools became a part of the background - almost invisible and that's when I began seeing past recording and became agile enough to begin to express my feelings and to fall in love with the moon, water and reflections, the hot colors of sunsets and sunrises and trees - beautiful trees.

That, to me is what expresses art - when you fall n love the process and subject and can't hold it in. Doesn't matter if it's a camera - when i spend enough time to find the voice I could hear inside and shout it out with the camera iswhen, for the first time I discovered an artist that lived inside.

I could draw and I am technicallly colorblind (which means I can't see the numbers in the book the eye doctor shows me) but I can certainly see light and patters and designs.

If there is any more to art than expressing your love, I don't know what it would be.

But I am, sooner or later going to have to scroll down about two miles if i keep this up - so - how about this - for the writer - since I've written everything here and really don't care what i wrote a week ago - the new entry is at the top along with my last writing as it is now.

And how about - as in real blogs there is spell check and all the rest because I'm writing without a great deal of thought and less hesitation and there has to be a spelling mistake somewhere a long the line and the reader will think I'm careless, but what he/she doesn't know is that i have forgotten how to spell. Why? Because I don't have to know how to spell any more because I can F7 or whatever the program wants and it points out all my litlle misces which are mostly typos becuase i pond away at the keys with two and sopemthimes 3 fingers - not oftern, but, a times.

Well, that's enough of thast because what i want to talk about tonight is waiting. Becuase it is the basis of our lives and it is the basis of our photography, our art, our breath, our happiness. We're always waiting for something and since you can't argue with me, I can say it and feel as if I am absolutely right - so the next time you go out or in remember you are waiting for something and it is that - well, for wnat of a better word, anticipation - that moment when the sun breaks through or the light sprays across the clouds like blood or the iris opens or the bird lands and looks right at you - it's that moment of anticipation when you hold your breath and relaize what is ahppening anc click and it's done and you are there.

You never know when it's going tohappen, and like an orgasm that is just about to arrive, you wait and the wind quiets and the water turns to a missor and click and you've found heaven. Wait for me, I'll be there in a moment.

Goodnight

Billions of people move around with cameras of any size and shape but there are very few who can create an image that sticks in the mind.

Much of any art is persistence and it takes a lot of it to become a great photographer and I don't mean learning how to use a camera, learning light, learning compostion. Those things become transparent to the photographer just as the brush and paint become transparent to the painter. They both choose by intinct, by being able to see through the reality in front of them to the hear to what they want to express.

For me, it is getting up before light and standing or walkjing alone through familiar places until what i came for was there. I may not have know what i came for - but when I see it, I know.

It could be spending 12 hours with a bunch of flowers and reflectors and water until my arm and head ache and then, something happens - and at that moment, I see something I may never see again. It's a moment or a a look or a light or a color or a flow or a surprise that i won't be able to define for days or even months and may be years.

Art isn't about anyone else except the artist. If we are lucky enough to have others enjoy and be taken away by it, that's great and if we are fortunate to sell something, even nicer. Bust art is the experience of the artist and I happen to be a photographer and can't trace my hands with a pencil and draw wierd looking stick horses and people. I've see sunrises and sunsets that made me cry and those are moments that touched me and have touched others - at least they said so.

We need to have our lives reviewed and edited for our own good. It won't make for good reading, but who has time to ready any more?

I may refuse to accept payment through Artwanted unless this is rectified immaediately and direct people to conact me directly which makes ecommerce through artwanted somewhat questionable. Makes me wonder about who technically secure the rest of the system is - this was pretty simple stuff. EVERY order I have sent through ARTWanted has been messed up in some way.

The secure server will cost about $100 a month and maybe $150 and I can't say I understand why it can't be on a site like www.powweb.com where my current site is. My friend explained it is about security and all the information I will have CC#s and addresses and security coodes so the site has to be totally secure and we'll use https instead of http.

I still have not decided on the design.

What is missing from most sites - even the pros is ease of buying. Paypal requires too many steps and I have heard some horro stories bout it so I am going with what moist people have in their wallets - master card, visa, and through Costco, it is very reasonable.

It's really the design i want help with - so if you know some sites that are really well done, and eye catching, that's what i want. The technical work is being done. I will give him a house full of prints in return but basically it is a gift from a very gifted man.

What i am looking for is a design that will stop people in their tracks - which - hopefully, my work will do, but it will be so easy for them to buy, that once they get the urge, it will be click and done.

I will only put up images that are already to print from my printer in Boulder CO. They have an FTP transfer set up for photographers and can print up to - well as large as i want. but 24X36 is good for the 35mm slide scans and I'll experiment with the 10mp digital.

I will also raise my prices and the design will allow me to do it universally instead of image by image or I can select a group of images.

It will have a slide show and video capabilities. I'll do short talks on everything from technique to what i see or feel - I will also make it possible for others to show their videos and to offer video classes as I plan to do.

I don't know if this will work but for $1,00 investment, one sale will pay for it all.

Based on the success I've had with a poorly designed site and what people have been willing to go through to buy my work, I think I'll be able to repay the investment and be able to give my friend as many prints as he wishes for the wrok he is doing.

Most people (including me)until recently don't understand just how much money goes in to really well designed and technically competent websites - $1 million and over and even for a modest sites $25,000 to $100,000.

The sites that offer templates and ecommerce may be inexpensive but what I do know is the people makeing money offer things other sites don't and that's what i intend to do.

I also need a new name since I am not in Colorado any more but I will still use coloradophoto.com because it is a natural. I've been told I could seel it but I think it might be worth more to keep it.

So any opinions, suggestions for designs and names are more than welcome.

I've sold as much as $8400 in one order but that was once. I've sold a few around $1,000 and this was with people having to call me on the phone or email me abd there were so many images on the site that I hadn't scanned or had and found blurred once enlargened. I have access to one of the best framers in Colorado so I can have the prints framed and shipped directly, He has a site that allows people to design their own frames and mattes. His work is true art. He framed one of my images and the result made my image look so good, I couldn't believe it.

I sent my last client to him and she thanked me for such a find.

I know there are cheaper sites out there but John Botkin at photocraft in Boulder is incredible. Look them up www.pcraft.com. I think it's the best lab in the coutry. They work with and Katz and a slew of other nationally known photographers. They are one of the few labs that is surviving the digital revoltuion by doing thins that most labs won't. They are knowledgeable and incredibly helpful.

John Botkin is skilled and he loves to think of himself as surly but he is caring and he has 35 years experience. He took my mistakes, worked with my client and made it all come together. The owner, Roy McCutchen has been my friend and mentor for many years. He understands the struggle he is in but he offers quality service the way he always has.

I am a luck photographer to have the help of all these wonderful people.

What i said a moment ago or an hour ago or a day or a month ago become completely memorable and important because it might just prove a point. Then, a little time slips by, the need to be right has passed, the need to be a victim slips away and everything is forgoteen.

Did you eer notice it's extremely hard to remember what fight are about after a long time passes and we end up making up reasons for them or suddenly we remember why we felt like crap and get nasueous all over again and then we realize that we are repeating the same tthings over and over again.

How does this relate to photography. Wel,, it probably doesn't unless I think about and I can see a link however unimportant it might be to anyone but me. Photography, like most conversations in life has it's meanings int he silent places that only I or you understand and no matter how much I try to explain what I meant by this or that word or photo you may or may not get it and even if you do or don't, I'l never know.

I shoot a sunset and I think the sky is cool but what you remember is the day you met so and so wno's middle name you hardly remember and you try to explain it to me.

You might be wondering if this has just recently happened to me. Nope. It did not I am sure it has or will but it didn't happen today.

All these words squeezed on to the paper like ketchup on eggs.

Tuesday and it feels like Tuesday - now I was going to say MONDAY

The machine, it turns out, was wrong. It was wrong because the FedEx plane that carries ivernight mail had left already or was about to - but nontheless, the screen said 3:00 PM so I left thinking this rush order would get their on Friday.

Since there was a large check involved int he order, paying $125 for same day would have been just fine.

Now, right beside the counter, there is a sign that says, "when we say overnight, we mean overnight." Omar at the Post Office express said - well, yes - um . . . . normally.

"Normally?" I asked. Yes he said. Well, you stamped my package that it was to ge to Boulder CO by 3:00PM. Well, he said, what do you want me to do.

Aside from telling people when normally is, and since you didn't, I'd like a refund. Show me where i said it would be there at 3, he said. And so it went.

In 15 minutes of meaningless conversation - (oh yes, he asked who i takled to and I said - I am not sure - the giuy behind the counter - you I think. Well, I don't remember you and I am the only one here so, you can call who you want - next)

So, in that space, Monday became Tuesday pronto and here i am - still ticked off that they gave me the wrong information. Now, it's a race to see if they can scan, proof and print 6 lightjet prints by Friday. They think they can - meanwhile the payment check arrived.

I told my client i had tobe paid up front and if they don't get it done, I will have to return it. Meanwhile, when you think of the post office, think "MAYBE."

Shooting at F22 - a word about that - the sweet spot of most lenses is around F8 and at anything beyond 30 feet or so will be is as much focus as it's going to get. Shooting at F22 can degrade an image. When you shoot at small f-stops, you can get defraction which can cause color aberations, particularly in digital. I read this in one of the magazines and from a pro I met out in the field. I do use f22 and even higher but only when I want and cannot get everything in focus such as ultra close macros. For landscapes, you'll trade a higher f-stop for a much slower speed and then you risk camera shake - and at 1/8 of a second it doesn't take much.

I wonder if anyone else has thoughts on this.

It's about be moved by what I see which could be the result of thinking or visuallizing it, find a place to go, going and find what i thought I would or something entirely different.

It's really about love in all its wonderful forms and being emersed in a moment that will never come by again which is what life is all about. it's about enjoying the whole process, the feel of the air on my skin, the site of the colors glowing int he sky or the reflection of a cloud or a duck in the water.

It's about living in the moment and, after all these years finding the right instrument, the perfect toy that makes me feel like crying or laughing out loud or sighing in sadness or comfort at a moment which is mine alone.

Now, entry level digitals are below $500 and falling with every new step in to the higher range cameras and 35mm DSLs are reaching into the heights of 21mp. This is approacing medium format. I expect the number of pixels to grow quickly. But niumbers alone don't make the only difference and as manufacturing techniques improves, so too will the quality and accuracy of these machines. Feel free to disagree on any point as i don't claim to know much, it's all just a guess.

They say that the pixel sizes are approaching theoretical limits, but science has always taken us to places we never expected. I think I am very lucky to see this happen and if the next ten years give us anywhere close to the changes the last ten years have, what tools we will have.

Over the last 150 years, technology has increased exponentially so any guess i might try to make about the future of the camera will probably be very different from what I imagine. As a little boy, it didn't even occur to me that computers would become cameras and our world would be filled with ringing pockets that connected virtually anyone to anyone, anywhere. And while I find that many of thse technologies while changing our lives haven't neddessarily improved them, it is still and exciting journey.

Some think technology will continue to grow at it's presnt pace for at least the next 50 yerars and be the most disruptive force in society. it has already given us different ways to communicate though i can't say we communicate any better. In fact, the cell phone has just about taken any solitude if we choose. When I go out to shoot, I turn it off. I usually turn it off as I drive out.

I used to have to wait a day or two to see what i shot, now I see them right away. Somehow, I think the time between shooting and seeing was useful and embedded the lessons I learned more deeply than the instant gratification.

A thee inch screen - do we take better photos just because we can see them before we shoot. I think Of ansel adams and his large plates of glass and the months that sometimes passed before he saw what he'd shot.

Thjey are certainly pretty topys and fun to use. But my question rto me is, do they help or hinder the process of expressing myself. Is the journey too quick. Would I be better off if I slowed down a little and studied what i saw longer. In those moments is when I sank in to the space of my heart and began to open. It is those moments, I begin to see and I wonder if digital is a fast car in a fast lane and the scenery is rushing by way too quickly.

Las Vegas is dry and hot, windblown and colorless except where man has planted his lights and flowers and grass. Boulder was home for 41 years and friends stopped by - wonderful surprises on both sunny and stormy days.

During the 2nd week of August, my Canon cameras and lenses - at least most were stolen. I reached for them on the back seat and they were gone. They became ghosts that held memories of images I had seen through them. i remembered the sunsets and flowers, friends and lovers I had seen through them. That look, that light, that moment. It is more than losing a machine. They were friends whose controls and curves I came to understand and use to record images that would express what I felt, not just int he moment but in all the moments of my life.

I still remember the exact moment of a sunset, how the air felt on my face, the drive home after and the surprises and disappoints i found when i took them in to my digital darkroom.

To be continued . . .