Friends, inspiration and bonding times - Part 2 of 4

Odell Butte and Diamond Peak at Crescent Lake 

The Sun breaching the crater rim

How does one drive seventy miles to catch Crater Lake at sunrise on the longest day of the year? You have to get up at 3:00 AM and hit the road at 3:30 AM and arrive by 5:00 AM. Is this painfully early? Yes it is.

Is it totally worth it?  Yes it is.

As early as it was, Crater Lake proved to simply stunning. I have lived in Oregon most of my life, save four years I was in the military. I was born here, grew up here and returned here after I left the military. Yet given my growing number of years in Oregon, exceeding four decades, I have seen very little of Oregon. In the last decade I have created a bucket list of sorts. My bucket list includes seeing sites in my own home state that I have not seen yet. Crater Lake was at the top of that list. Well now I get to scratch that off my list.

I was awe struck by the shear size of the caldera, at over 5 miles wide. Photographs absolutely no justice to the shear size of the crater. It is estimated that Mt. Mazama, now Crater Lake, was at a height of 11,000 to over 14,000 feet (larger than Mt. Shasta). If you add in the fact that Crater Lake, the deepest lake in North America and the 9th deepest in the world, is 1949 feet deep, nearly one vertical mile of mountain collapsed into the caldera, ejecting up to 14 cubic miles of magma into the air in the most violent eruption ever in the Cascade Mountains.

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14 cubic miles may initially sound mild, but think of it like this, 14 miles high by 14 miles wide by 14 miles deep. In comparison to the 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens; Saint Helens' eruption had a Volcanic Explosive Index (VEI), which is used to measure the explosive power of a volcano, of 5, but just barely and had very little magma ejection. Krakatoa in 1883, one of the most powerful explosions in modern recorded history measured a 6 on the VEI scale. Mazama's collapse and subsequent magma eruption measured a 7 on the VEI scale. The only larger would be Yellow Stone, 640,000 years B.C. The source of this information can be found at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_Explosivity_Index

Ash from the eruption, known as Mazama ash for its unique silica composition, covered nearly all of Oregon and reached as far as Washington, northern California, Idaho, western Montana, and parts of Utah, Nevada, Wyoming, Alberta, British Columbia, and Saskatchewan.

After the trip to Crater Lake was complete we came home, took naps, had lunch and proceeded to photograph around the lake again, well into the night. If you haven't made it to Crater Lake, do yourself a favor and get there soon. It is stunning, beautiful and well worth the trip. Come back tomorrow for a free wallpaper you can download and enjoy on your computer. Until then, enjoy a couple more of the photos I took from the day below. I took many more photos of Crater Lake, but those will be in future blog posts.

Diamond Peak

Odell Butte at night

Recovery

Natural Light Black and White

A year ago began a difficult time for me. I went through a rough emotional patch as I opened myself up to working through some emotional baggage.

To add to the emotional journey, my artistic path was a crumbled mess as my artistic career was ended before it had a chance to begin.

I was angry. Angry at my failure. Angry at who I became. Angry about where I was at the time.

I was sad. I was sad about where I my relationships were. Sad for myself.

I was depressed. Not like common everyday sad. Nope, I was in a deep dark hole that was spiraling out of control.

I shut down. I walked away from just about everything I once loved. I was a shell of the man I was the year before.

I made some bad choices that negatively affected many around me, causing those people to remove themselves from the situation; in many cases, rightfully so. I don't hold grudges against them and understand their self-preservation motives.

But what many of my friends didn't see was I was afraid. I saw myself falling away. I saw what I thought my dreams were falling into the abyss. I saw myself turning on myself; hating myself for my failure. One of the last poems I wrote, dated August 23rd of last year was this poem.

The artist lied
In the dreams that were dreamed
In the hopes that were hoped
In the words that were worded
False bravado of a weak spirit

The artist ran
When the rough got rougher
When the lows got lower
When the hard got harder
Real cowardice of a weak mind

The artist hid
From the scariest of scaries
From the challenge of challenges
From the liveliest of lives
Failure to see the reality of reality

The artist died
When the walls got too high
When the view got too grey
When the light got too dark
Selfish suicide of a creative mind

The artist transformed
Now a clone without a soul
Now a drone without a heart
Now a dancer without legs
Codependent in life he moves

That poem summed up my frame of mind at the time. I dealt with those feelings, those self images for several months. I was in a self-centered, self-propelling crash course to self-destruction.

A new path

Once fall moved in I began getting my shit together. I refocused on what was important to me. 

I worked on making my marriage strong again. 

I worked on making my relationship with my kids strong again. 

I worked on making myself capable of doing what was needed to provide for my family while continuing to create.

I refocused myself. I focused myself back on giving. Giving back to my community. Giving back to my friends.

I refocused myself. I focused myself back on teaching. Teaching others to create for themselves.

 I refocused myself. I focused on creating for the pure sake of creating. No monetary agendas. 

Creating is what is important to me; it always has been. Creating is the core of who I have always been. I had forgotten that. I had forsaken that. I had stopped creating altogether because I couldn't get paid for it. I had turned myself into a whore; a whore who couldn't make a living doing it.

Forsaking what is true about you is one of the most self-destructive things a person can do. When you aren't true to yourself, your confidence waivers, your presence becomes false and your soul dies. People see that; they feel it when they are around. 

Play Me, I'm Yours

It took a long time to find myself again. I am still on the road to finding myself; reinventing myself. It isn't an easy road, but being true to myself allows me to accomplish whatever it is I set my mind to.

I work during the day to support my family. I accept that it is a banal part of life. So I try to balance that with the things I love.

I create at home.

I never got around to dealing with the emotional baggage I carried, but maybe I am not supposed to. Maybe that baggage is what drives me to be who I am. Maybe that baggage helps keep me grounded. Maybe baggage isn't all bad all the time.

I have my friends to thank for getting through the rough patches of the last year. I have my wife to thank for getting me through the last year. She was very patient and understanding even when she didn't know what to do for me.

For the sake of creating

This blog went though a dark period a year ago. It is not something I am proud of, but it is something that will remain on the blog. It may be dark, but it is truth.

Today this blog is used to share the joy of creating. It is used to inspire others. I don't make money doing this. My intent is share and educate others. My intent is to give.

The image on the left was taken a few weeks ago during an outing with my photography club. One of our members hosted a late night shooting event for the Perseid Meteor Shower. 

I took this image with no monetary intent. I simply saw something beautiful and wanted to capture it for the pure sake of making a beautiful image of a beautiful subject. 

I hope there is one thing that I share with my readers above all other things. Whether you are a pro, amateur, hobbyist, or somewhere in between, create for yourself. Just make time to create for you. 

This is who I am at my core and it is starting to show again.

Luck - The Good and the Bad

Sunset on the Water

Seneca, a first-century Roman philosopher, once said luck is when preparation meets opportunity. That is a great explanation of good luck. Bad luck on the other hand is the cause of one of two things; the lack of opportunity or the lack of preparation. 


I take ownership of my own luck, at least as much as I can. If I am not prepared it is my own fault. That's right, my fault.


If I know there is something that I want to photograph, I make sure sure to do what I can to make myself available to do it. 


Sometimes luck means I have to abandon something else that I want to do, like stay at home and have a quiet evening with my wife. But each and every time, luck requires me to say yes to opportunity when it comes knocking. 


And opportunity knocked on my door yesterday. And I said yes.

Faded Brillance

My friend, and fellow photographer, Liz Smith, called me up yesterday and asked me if I heard about the possible Aurora Borealis happening. I said, "No". 


She asked if I would be interested in going out and shooting it. I said definitely. It has been a goal of mine to just see an Aurora Borealis since I was a kid and learned about them. One of the biggest challenges has been my luck.


See I have spent my entire living at or below the 45th parallel, that is halfway between the North Pole and the Equator, in Oregon. As luck would have it, the Aurora Borealis don't dip down to the 45th parallel very often. 


Another bit of luck is the fact that I live in the state of Oregon. If you are not from around here, there tends to be considerably more overcast days than not here in Oregon. That is not a complaint, but simply an observation supporting my story of luck. I don't complain about the weather like so many others I know. I love cloudy skies during the day because cloudless skies are boring for a photographer.

Starry Sunset

To be an aspiring astrophotographer living in a perpetually overcast state like Oregon usually can be, is sort of bad luck. Being an aspiring astrophotographer looking to photograph the Aurora Borealis and living beneath the 45th parallel is a double tap to the bad side of luck. 


So when opportunity presents itself, even if it is only a thirty percent chance, I jump on it. Thirty percent was the chance that the  Aurora Borealis would be visible at the 45th parallel.


The skies were clear; opportunity. The sun had sent a sizable, M-Class, coronal mass ejection (CME) right at us; opportunity. I made myself available; prepared. I tracked the coming solar storm online; prepared. But alas the Aurora dream would remain such, a dream. 

The Aurora Borealis never made an appearance at the 45th parallel because the CME was not strong enough; no opportunity.


But I didn't let that take away from the beautiful evening and great company of my wife and Liz. 


We even had a surprise encounter with another photographer friend, Nathan Smith and his wife and son, Heather and Noah.


All of us made the best of the Aurora Borealis show, sans the Aurora Borealis, and had a great time and captured some amazing images of sky, both during and after sunset.

In the end the Aurora Borealis never made the opportunity available. But I made some beautiful photographs and shared a beautiful evening with some wonderful friends and my wife. It was a lucky day after all.


Are you prepared? If not; Why not?

My Photography Influences - Who Inspires and Motivate Me

About a year ago I took a course called the Artist's Way. The course was modified for photographers and the participants were all photographers. The course opened many joyful and painful doors me and helped achieve a goal I had as well as helped establish some great creative growth habits which I still employ to this day. In the end it, while it helped me grow and overcome some of my own personal road blocks, but it didn't appear to have a lot of influence on my work. if I had to do it over again would I? Yes I would. I would take it for the first again in heart beat. Would I recommend it to someone else? Yes I would, with the advice, "If you are wanting to overcome your creative bad habits, this course is for you."

Even before I took the course there were several guys I worked with regularly and continue to do so today. These guys always were and remain my greatest creative influences. We all shoot different things for the most part. While my primary focus is fine art photography, two of them primarily shoot sports and portraits. The other two are focused more on portraits and weddings and into a fine art realm. I thought that I would share a little about each of these characters I call artists, collaborators and least of all, friends.
I can't start this list off without first touching base on the person who really encouraged me to pursue photography. The person who really sparked my photography lifestyle was a good friend named Shawn Soderstrom.

Sadly Shawn and I don't see each other nearly as often as I would like to as our paths in life took two different directions. I greatly admire and respect him for the person he is and look forward to the day our paths can cross more frequently. He was one of the biggest encouraging influences I had when I first started experimenting with my camera. He even loaned me his spare DSLR for six months, until I bought my own. 

I cannot say how much his influence is represented in much of my work, even today. Thank you Shawn for the friendship. I miss you my friend and hope to start shooting with you more frequently... soon.

I will start with Chris Sabato, simply because I have only one photo of him. He isn't in front of the camera nearly as often as he is behind it.

Chris is an accomplished sports photographer who also plays a little in the portrait arena. He is energetic, geeky (in a good way), and always fun to have on the scene. Chris has a habit of standing over another photographer's shoulder using a 300mm or 400mm lens, shooting the scene. We have termed this "Sabatomized", as in, "Looks like Nathan is being Sabatomized." I haven't been able to collaborate with Chris for a few months, but he is always active. Check out his work on his website. The influence Chris brings is his eye for detail and seeing things that many others do not. Chris is a wonderful storyteller with his photography, hence one of his photos winning the People's Choice Award in 2010 at the Salon of Photography showing. 

Next up is Michael Conkey.

Michael is, if nothing else, a character. But is still so much more. Michael's passion is sports photography, and also does some portrait work as well. If you ever have a question about beer, Michael can likely answer it. I would say that he is a beer enthusiast, but that would be like calling Rusty Wallace a driving enthusiast  Recently he started letting his beard grow out, hence the shots above, and we have been having some fun with it, the beard that is. Michael really influences me in his willingness to do just about anything for the sake of fun and creating artful images.

Chris David, what can be said about him that hasn't already been said? He is an amazing family man, dedicated father and husband. Oh and he has something like 25 kids, actually I think it's really 8, but I can never keep count because they never stop moving.

As a result of his family oriented nature his passion is for photographing families with a little leaning into sports as he shoots Roller Derby for the local league which his wife is a roller in. Chris's influence on me is his meticulous nature when he is creating. From making sure the scene is dead on to making his lighting is right where he wants it, Chris nails the details and that inspires me.

Chris is also very personable, something I lacked just a few years ago. He is a behavioral expect of some sort, but has taught me so much on how to interact with people that I have just met. He is also quite comfortable in his own skin, and that rubs off quickly on others. Check out his work on his site, linked above.

Nathan Smith is a portrait photographer, with a strong lean into fine art.

Nathan is a creative genius that brings a ton of energy to everything he does. Nathan has some fantastic creative bursts that he shares with everyone and loves to see others succeed. He is also geek, but Mac geek, although we don't hold that against him. Nathan has influenced me in many ways, primarily in his get out and shoot it attitude. He also shares his creative exuberance and deep technical knowledge so freely with just about anyone who asks. The way his creative mind works enthralls me and keeps me thinking on my toes both on and off the set. Check out is work on his site, linked above.

Last but not least, is my wife, no photo included. She is the creative ground to my artistic side. She gives me simple but honest feedback on my work. She keeps me honest in my own work and encourages me to pursue my dreams. She is my life and love and I can't say anything more than that. No photos, because if she ever did look at this site, she would kill me, the only thing she hates more than her photo taken is to have shared.

I want to close this by saying thank you to all of them for everything they do, day in and day out. And while some of us may go months without working together or even seeing each other, when we do get together, it feels like no time has passed at all. Thank you guys. I value your friendships and your passions. I am grateful to have been given the opportunity to get to know each of you.

Bring Christmas in Right

Friends, wife and my dog... the three things that love me unconditionally. That is who I spent my Christmas Eve and first three hours of Christmas with...

Merry Christmas to everyone.