Journal

Time Travel

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Shooting landscape photography forces you to get outside and find the beauty around you. Sometimes this means discovering places right in front of your eyes that you just never noticed were beautiful before. Other times this means exploring new places and getting out on a hike or nature walk. For today’s newsletter, I wanted to share a few of my favorite landscape photos from sun up to sundown.

Sosua Sunrise in the Dominican Republic 19.77113761340401, -70.51491387823924

Rare is the opportunity to visit the places I want to go but when I do, the area is scouted and explored beforehand only then does the camera and tripod come out. 

The view of Mount Hood from Trillium Lake, Oregon 45.1608.2, -121.44165

How do I make these rare, beautiful images? There is an app called Photo Pils that assists photographers in knowing when and where the sun/moon are at any point and time. By using a that tripod to steady the camera, and then attach a neutral-density filter to the camera lens to block UV rays and glare. In post-processing the images, I’ll fire up the software and reduce the highlights, then boost the contrast accordingly. 

Smoky Mountains overlook on the Appalachian Trail on the border of North Carolina and Tennessee 35.56392555626713, -83.49724727382223

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“A picture means I know where I was every minute. That’s why I take pictures. It’s a visual diary.” – Andy Warhol

Nassau Harbor Lighthouse, The Bahamas 25.086286857364403, -77.35177315151846

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selcouthist- One who encounters the strange and unfamiliar with a boundless sense of wonder and awe.

Sunset on the Bolivar Peninsula, Texas 29.37149301401335, -94.72877909763226
Sunset on the Hidden Valley Nature Trail in Joshua Tree National Park, California 34.01412933993538, -116.16767922131318
The Milky Way Galaxy over Boca Chica beach near the Texas/Mexico border 25.993379848508418, -97.15022227498714

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“This is one corner… of one country, in one continent, on one planet that’s a corner of a galaxy that’s a corner of a universe that is forever growing and shrinking and creating and destroying and never remaining the same for a single millisecond. And there is so much, so much to see.” – Doctor Who

Travel isn’t always pretty. It isn’t always comfortable. Sometimes it hurts, it even breaks your heart, but that’s okay. The journey changes you; it should change
you. It leaves marks on your memory, on your consciousness, on your heart, and on your body. You take something with you. Hopefully, you leave something good behind.

Hot 

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After three years of owning this MacBook Pro with the  M1 silicon chip, I got to hear the internal fan for the very first time. This machine can take quite a lot, but while I was importing images into Lightroom from an external hard drive, I was also uploading other images to the photo archive site all while typing up some notes. Impressive.

Suspension

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Ever since voluntarily leaving my job one month ago I’ve done my best to keep busy but this is slowing down. I’m grateful to have some dedicated time to complete a few personal projects and work on a few more. But I am in a state of suspense right now.

I recall the Israelites wandering in the desert waiting to enter the promised land and can sympathize.

Purgatorio- part two of the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, written in the early bits of the 14th century, feels familiar as I may be taking slow steps to advance myself forward to Paradiso. 

The Aleph is a point in space that contains all other points. Anyone who gazes into it can see everything in the universe.  

I understand these references are over-dramatic concerning my feelings, but who can deny their own thoughts of a personal situation? I am on the outside looking in. I can seek where I want to go and again, am in a state of suspension in arriving there. 

With circumstances and situations in flux, I’ll just settle in and keep busy awaiting the trumpets to sound so we can march forward and into the Promised Land.

Suspension

by

Ever since voluntarily leaving my job one month ago I’ve done my best to keep busy but this is slowing down. I’m grateful to have some dedicated time to complete a few personal projects and work on a few more. But I am in a state of suspense right now.

I recall the Israelites wandering in the desert waiting to enter the promised land and can sympathize.

Purgatorio- part two of the Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri, written in the early bits of the 14th century, feels familiar as I may be taking slow steps to advance myself forward to Paradiso.

The Aleph is a point in space that contains all other points. Anyone who gazes into it can see everything in the universe.  

I understand these references are over-dramatic concerning my feelings, but who can deny their own thoughts of a personal situation? I am on the outside looking in. I can seek where I want to go and again, am in a state of suspension in arriving there.

With circumstances and situations in flux, I’ll just settle in and keep busy awaiting the trumpets to sound so we can march forward and into the Promised Land.

Mystery

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“We don’t know enough about ourselves. I think it’s better to know that you don’t know, that way you can grow with the mystery as the mystery grows in you. But, these days, of course, everybody knows everything, that’s why so many people are so lost.” 

– James Baldwin, If Beale Street Could Talk

Breaking In The Ricoh

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I took the new Ricoh GR out for a walk yesterday to see how it performs under harsh lighting conditions. The images are just as sharp and vibrant as expected. But ugh, the scenery and subject matter is still the same so not really chuffed about them.

I crave something new and interesting to capture. I’m done documenting Tulsa.

Standard color mode and high contrast B&W mode

Document > Create

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In the early years of my photography hobby, I would venture out and search for the most creative shots I could find. Using various tips and techniques that I had read about, I would try creative angles one day. Then the next outing would creatively use monochrome shots or some other techniques after that, and so on.

I would then send the 36-exposure roll off to the developing lab and eagerly await the prints while expecting something mesmerizing and unique to return. It very rarely returned unique or mesmerizing. The average return on film investment was about 2 images out of a 36-exposure stock. Expensive! Yet somehow, someway, I was hooked enough to go out there and try again.

When I acquired my first digital camera in 2001, I would venture out and search for the most creative shots I could find. Using various tips and techniques that I had read about, I would try creative angles one day. Then the next outing would creatively use monochrome shots or some other techniques after that, and so on. I would then race home, plug in the SD card and boot up the photo software in anticipation, while expecting something mesmerizing and unique to return. It very rarely returned unique or mesmerizing. The average return was about 20 out of 100 images taken. Thank goodness digital photography is cheap! Yet somehow, someway, I was hooked enough to go out there and try again.

Over the past twenty-three years, my attitude has changed- hmm…about twenty-three times. These days I am less concerned about creativity than I am documenting travels, events, and my life around me.

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Nowadays, I am shooting less portrait photography, which honestly, is the only time I want to be creative. I miss both creativity and people!

So, if I focus more on documentation and less creativity, the attitude, and equipment has changed to match. I no longer own a mixture of mirrorless and DSLR cameras with about five lenses for each one just in case. I don’t have to worry if I forgot to pack the telephoto lens, just because I might use it. Now I can be content with bringing one camera and one all-purpose lens if I choose to.

Recently, technology has been a big factor in these decisions as well. Photo equipment with amazing advances inside, the minimal size and weight of these things to assist in you lightening your kit and allowing me to relax and enjoy.

Did I just spot a tender moment on the street? Snap. Ahh, a new mural to document—Snap. This is out of place and would be interesting to capture— Snap.

Now I am getting into documenting everything in photos. I’ve found I can simply relax and walk away from a photowalk knowing there are some keepers on that SD card, instead of forcing myself to shoot something that may not be there only to walk away frustrated.

Another bonus- I’ve come to realize that all of this has been documenting and creating not only a visual daily journal, but also a complete body of work to be proud of.

The “La Flor Dominicana” Factory Tour

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Hello and thanks for subscribing to the newsletter!

Because of recent news of events on the island of Hispaniola, I’ve recalled a lot of memories from a few years ago when I was invited to photograph, document and serve the ongoing Christian missionary works based in Santiago de los Caballeros, Dominican Republic. Towards the end of the trip, I had an opportunity to head north to the Caribbean coastal town of Sosua for some R&R, but in-between the two cities were mountain jungles and tobacco plantations.

Welcome to the jungle

Our gracious host and founder of the mission insisted we stopped for a cigar factory tour, and of course, this was accepted!

The La Flor factory tour follows the path of the tobacco leaves from the fields to the packaging of handmade cigars. The first thing I noticed, was the aromatic tobacco in enclosed spaces. Then I noticed, but was not allowed to photograph, the floor announcer. His job is to simply read the newspaper and magazine articles into the factory microphone to entertain the workers. Imagine a news barker with a derby cap, smoking La Flor’s finest with outstretched arms holding up the paper and talking through his cigar into the microphone.

I was then allowed to select from a stack of conditioned, classified, browned, aged leaves and then hand them off to the smiling worker. She then began the long process of turning a leaf into a freshly rolled cigar.

I followed my leaves around the various stages from station to station, watching and photographing workers as they blended, bunched, pressed, rolled, sealed and then allowed me to slide the La Flor Dominica ring around my fresh cigars. The entire process took about an hour to craft my box of the Caribbean’s finest.

Uninformed individuals would say that Cuban cigars are the best, I disagree. Cubans are only sought after because they are illegal in the USA, and I think they smell and taste like Castro’s dead feet. My clandestine incursion onto Cuban shores is a story for next time.

Oh, and because Haiti and the Dominican Republic are neighbors and both currently in the news, here is a young Haitian toddler playing in the road, on the Dominican side apparently abandoned, shortly before I snapped this photo. There are strong racial tensions between these two countries, and I found this to be the only fault I could find on the Dominican side of Hispaniola. I was blessed to see the missionaries find him shelter and food. Just look at that handsome face.

Until next week, – Chris