and now a little tech stuff:

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.

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And isn't that what any art is really about? It is for me and always has been. It isn't about shooting or creating anything that others will remember or be moved by. Even if they are, their experience will be different than mine.

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.

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I had a feeling something big was coming from the manufacturers, and I wasn't disappointed. When I started shooting 10 years ago, I bought my first digital - a 1.3 mp Olympus D600L and after taking 15000 images with it along with all the film I was shooting, I had a feeling digital would replace film sooner or later.

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.

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From the tall and sometimes snow covered foothills of Boulder, Colorado, I moved to Las Vegas to begin a new stage of my life though I won't know what it is until a more time passes. It's too difficult to see the path to the top of the peak when you walk through the trees to timberline. from the top, it all appears to make sense. From the bottom, it is just a mystery, a journey. It is that way where ever i am.

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 . . .

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