Sunset just north of Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park in Big Sur
— this was one of the shots that started it all. One of my Stanford friends, asked me to post something on OpenFloodgate.com, his boss' site. This shot was downloaded over 500 times. It sent a subtle message to me: "Maybe I was up to something a little different. Just maybe a style was evolving." Openfloodgate is gone. In the meantime, I've become increasingly more serious about waldo647images.

Sunset just north of Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park in Big Sur
another image from the same series.

A few words about this gallery... It's a journal gallery, meaning that extended captions can be added to make journal entries. The images here have been copied and moved from other galleries on waldo647images, because they're favorite images, and perhaps there is something to add about the creative process that went into their making.

Images and text may be added, or changed.

My hope is that you will find the experience rewarding, and return every so often.

Waterfall, Deetjen's Big Sur Inn — in 1957, I came here with my mother and older brother. I was 10. She wanted to reconnect with some of her artist friends at Nepenthe's, just up the road.

Some 40 years later, I returned to Deetjen's and Nepenthe's with my second wife Sue. In the last 13 years, it's become a special place for us. These chairs look out over the waterfall by the Creekhouse, one of our favorite "rooms" there.

Like Esalen, 11 miles down Hwy 1, this is quintes- sential California — a favorite of many artists.

Big Sur coast, CA — By the time he was 15, Edward Weston said Brett could do everything he could with a camera. It makes me wonder what Brett might have thought about me at age 10, shooting with that Kodak Brownie box camera? Plus-X B W film was a brutal critic of my would-be efforts then, even with the snap-on yellow filter, the only one available! There's a dim memory of Brett trying to explain to me about how to see the image *first*.

Before I got back into photography, I almost took up the cello. A grad student and friend at Stanford volunteered to help me out. "What if I just set it aside, and don't continue?" His answer was simple: "You'll never listen to Classical Music the same way again..."

Sunset over McWay Falls, Julia Feiffer Burns State Park, Big Sur — a friend (from whom I bought my Nikon D80) took a spectacular sunset shot here. Sue & I decided to hang around long enough, on one of our November day trips, to capture this image.

Some 30 yards up Hwy 1, the first two shots above were taken.

This part of the Big Sur coast, extending down past Esalen, is for me the essence of California.

I have the impression, that should I ever move to a different part of the world, and want to return and visit California — I might, then, only need to come here.

Garapata Beach, Big Sur, CA — Sue & I were reframing a photo Brett had given my mother, taken here, that later became a cover photo on one of his books. It had a nice message on the back in his large handwriting, about a nice afternoon they had spent here together.

Recently, I rented a Nikkor ultrawide lens, and this was probably the best shot of that day. I can't help but think about how it all might have looked 50 years ago.

San Gregorio Beach, San Mateo coast, CA
— Christmas Day, what a different experience!


Winter can be very special here.
No fog.
Warm.
Clear.
The water.
The air.
A real sense of being on
the edge of the continent.

Sunset over the Dumbarton Bridge (Don Edwards National Wildlife Reserve) — the Photoshop guru, Vincent Versache said "if the image pulls you through the viewfinder, instead of the other way around, you know you got one!"

As it came alive in Adobe Lightroom, something wrenched in my gut — what I had always wanted to do in that wet darkroom, that never came to be, was happening on my computer screen. And the addiction was formed.

Creative took on a new meaning for me. Each time it happens now, I feel like my life has a meaning and a purpose.

This is what drives my creativity; why I take pictures...

Pleasanton Ridge East Bay Regional Park — OK, I'll admit it, I've got a thing for California inland valleys. John Muir did, too. And many others. The green hills in the rainy season, the golden hills in the summer, the magic at dawn and sunset — all so reminiscent of my 6 years near Los Olivos, in the Santa Ynez Valley. I missed it terribly when I lived back East. It's getting harder to find uncrowded spaces nowadays, but it's still here...


Just look for it... The East Bay Regional Parks have done a great job: http://www.ebparks.org/parks

Lots of open space,
cherish the silence;
watch the hawk
soaring through the thermals
the real magic of California
is still here.

Sunset at Quarry Lakes East Bay Regional Park, Fremont, CA — this was one of the first shoots I did with our Nikon D50 (December 2006). The pundits said digital doesn't have the dynamic range of film, and OK, it really still doesn't, but the possibilites sure are fun to explore.

One of the harder things, as a photographer, is setting aside our expectations, and just letting *it* happen. There's definitely a karma in all of this. My brother talks about the miracles happening all around us, and we just don't see them, because we're on the wrong channel, wrapped up in our samsaric delusion (when my ship comes in, I'll be at the airport).

Creative work (including photography) allows us, and when it's really working, demands of us, that we flip the dial to the e-channel (enlightenment). Dawn & sunset no doubt help a lot, but in truth it's here — all day, all around us, all the time.

As the Zen masters say, Life is short; don't waste precious time!