SOLITARY TRAVELER PHOTOGRAPHY

So (until now, anyway) I skipped over what I did over the summer. That's because, in a lot of ways, this summer felt like a "lost weekend" of sorts, trying to find my photographic "voice" again after a period of real uncertainty in my work. Simply put (and I alluded to this briefly in my previous blog) I got a lot more "no's" than "yeses" over the late spring and summer months. A lot of my work got passed up, and income I thought would be there wasn't. Yet when that happens a

My intention for this past Saturday was to head up to Boone for the private reception for all the finalists in the Appalachian Mountain Photography Competition at the Turchin Center at Appalachian State University. I wasn't a finalist this year; but given that I'd shockingly won two awards at the AMPC in 2017 (including the People's Choice Award for my image "An Entrance To Winter") I was invited back to join in the fun and festivities. It would also be a chance to hang out a

On a rainy Friday, just before Christmas, in a singular, freak moment that night - I slipped on wet concrete, my feet giving way from under me, with all 200 of my pounds landing on my left wrist and arm as I vainly tried to break my fall..... And I knew as soon as I landed with a sickening thud, I'd hurt myself. I stumbled back to my feet, bought an ice cup at a convenience store, poured the ice into a bag, placed it against my swelling wrist and arm, and carried on. I even w

"Don't look back. Something might be gaining on you." ~ Satchel Paige It's always been about the "long game" in regards to my photography. One little step here, another there; slowly, but surely. My poor scatterbrain can't handle all-at-once success. There's a friend who is based in Texas who once mentioned that it took him seven years to break even and begin making profits in his photography. I'm in my fifth year as a sole proprietor, and I came as close as ever in 2016 to b

The "Spring-in-Charleston-by-way-of-Winter-in-Saluda" trip was truly a successful, satisfying escape (see Part 1 for more) - with winter and spring images all squeezed into what amounted to a single day of productive shooting. The only thing that stunk about my brief but bountiful venture was that some goob ate the rest of the chocolate chip cookies in the lobby of the Holiday Inn Express when I went back for seconds. Seriously. The desk clerk told me some guy came in and too

For the better part of the last few months, I was in a funk and I needed to find a way to break out of it. Heck, if it took gettin' down wit' my bad self, dancing like a freak to some James Brown funk in order to break out of my funk, then funk yeah. Gotta get the funk out. Okay, I just ran slap out of horrible puns; and besides, I have two left feet anyway. I'm a lover, not a dancer. Seriously, if you saw me dance, you'd collapse in uncontrollable laughter. Right after I col

When I was a kid, I had my own little Saturday morning ritual. Starting around 1980, not long after my father passed, I'd make a bee line to the grand room in our house, sit on the couch, and turn the radio to Z-93 in Atlanta to hear Casey Kasem on American Top 40. And for four hours, I'd sit and be mesmerized by the tunes Casey played, some of which weren't even on Z-93's playlist. I'd listen as he counted them down, from 40 to number one. And I did this for years, all the w

In recent weeks, the steady flow of images from Yours Truly began slowly diminishing to a near halt. And it was no fault of my sometimes dodgy Honda Civic, a car that has developed a habit of starting when she darn well feels like it - with nearly 230,000 miles on her, I'm grateful that she even starts at this point. Somehow I made it through the entire fall foliage season without being stranded, even though the ol' Civic sometimes does nothing at all when I first turn the ke

"When I last left off" seems to be a recurring theme in my travel blogs lately. I'd sit down and begin writing a new blog, only to be distracted by one thing or another (and there have been a LOT of distractions), then I'd go wafting off without even typing another word, and another travel blog gets abandoned. That being said.... When I last left off....... .......we were somewhere in August, and I had endured a stormy summer, literally and figuratively speaking. I'd about ha

When I last left off, your faithful reporter was firmly "in my element," living life "to the max," and "going epic." (How's that for seamlessly weaving my last three blog titles into the intro of this latest one?) It seemed like every adventure yielded a new discovery, a new inspiration, a new revelation - with a bumper crop of great images to boot. And boy, did all that "epicity" pay off - I've had numerous print sales of images taken from that period, as well as downloads f

I had great hopes for Sunday morning. The rain that had soothed me to sleep the night before (and believe me, there's nothing more soothing than falling asleep to the sound of rain here in the Smokies) was scheduled to move out at sunrise Sunday morning. So I dutifully set my alarm for 5:15 AM, with two options for an epic sunrise shot dancing in my head. As it turned out, neither option became reality, because Mr. "My-body-feels-like-it-got-hit-by-a-Greyhound-Bus" here decid

My original intent with this particular blog was to write at length about my two week foray into the state of Virginia. Now don't get me wrong, it was a refreshing, enjoyable experience. I had great fun exploring, spending some time in a somewhat unfamiliar locale; an area I hadn't visited since 2013, when I shot images for Roanoke Valley Convention and Visitors Bureau. In fact, my image of Mountain Laurel taken on Sharp Top still graces the top of their web page (www.visitro

Winter is always the toughest season for photography - at least for myself, anyway. If you've kept pace with my blogs, you already know that winter and I are engaged in a sort of "peaceful co-existence" - in other words, I (mostly) don't like it, but I cope as best I can. So I count the days and salvage whatever images I can until I see the first spring blooms, so I can give the wintry season the send off I think it deserves: "Don't come back now, ya hear?" Since winter isn't

For the better part of the latter months of 2015 and even into the new year, it seemed as though the expected cold weather in the Smokies and High Country - heck, the entire southeastern United States in general - joined the bears in hibernation. There I was on Christmas Day, sporting a t-shirt and shorts, walking along Dauphin Island, Alabama for a sunset shoot - the outside temperature a toasty 78 degrees. I was half-seriously debating whether or not to bring the sunscreen.

I live in an area with three really great seasons and one really not-so-great season - that is, of course, unless driving on icy roads and freezing your keister off on winter hikes is your thing. As the years have passed, these old bones can barely tolerate the winter chill. As I get older, I've held out this completely unrealistic hope that winter would last for about.....oh, three days; as long as one of those days is a snow day, then I'm good. I can capture a few wintry fr

Last Wednesday was, to put it mildly, a very slow day at work. And since I'm the highest paid driver in the P&Z Carolina franchise, I was the one who got off four hours early to save labor cost (I volunteered, but I knew I'd have to make up for the lost wages somehow - money, shall I say, is rather tight). I was free, mostly broke, but it was only 3 PM and I didn't want to languish at home, so I decided to explore on the tightest of budgets. I had plenty of gas in the tank, p

I've likely said this in one form or another in my previous travel blogs on Facebook, and maybe even in one of my two self-published books, I'm sure (I do tend to repeat myself sometimes as I get older), but it bears repeating: I'm no fan of winter. Perhaps when I was younger and more sprightly the thought of cold and snow was more appealing to me (because that meant staying home from school, another thing I was no big fan of), but today I'll gladly take green grass, blooming

Things were becoming a bit.......stale. From the day I arrived here in Western North Carolina, I've had very little trouble finding lovely scenes to capture. Living only six miles from the Soco Gap entrance to the Blue Ridge Parkway gives me quick access to some of the most breathtaking scenery in the Southeast. And on most days, I've had no trouble capturing that beauty: The trouble was ("and he's complaining??", you say) my work had become repetitive - variations on a them