The Deep End

Well...(I wonder how many new blogs start with that word.)...for quite some time I have been thinking about sending friends an email with a selected photo from my archives to...to do what? Share them, for one. What else are you going to do with thousands of images in slide pages or on a drive? Who knows, someone might actually find a "real" use for an image. :-)

The big reason is that I have a huge backlog of images to process and I am still learning how to use PhotoShop at more than a novice level. I've even recently gotten the notion into my head that I actually am starting to know what I am doing, but I love the discoveries I am making at least weekly when I find a new way to do something, or that a particular thing can even be done.
That and it is a way to share some thoughts with whoever cares along the way.

So why a blog? Why not stick to the original idea of sending out an email to a short list of friends and family? Leila and I just saw Julie-Julia and one thought struck me as I watched...a blog requires a certain amount of commitment. I've been procrastinating about this for ages...life is busy. Newsflash...it is not going to get less busy.

OK...on with the show.
Today's image is one of two kayakers that paddled their way through my viewfinder as I was grabbing some shots of a very fine morning at Lake MacDonald in west Glacier National Park. We were on our way back to California after having spent a week with my family in Canada, and 5 days along the West Coast getting there. I had slept under the stars (and a few clouds that made their presence known via heavier-than-dew droplets at about 3 am) and woke up to this surreal setting.
Why is it my first image? I happened to find www.dpreview.com while looking for something and ended up seeing the "Challenges" section. I still have no idea what the "Challenges" are about yet, but one of them had the theme "Summer 2009". Heck, why not submit an image? Which one? Well, on the topic of commitment, I had promised the couple who so thoughtfully provided me with a wonderful subject in what was already a "surreal setting" to send them a copy of the photo I had taken. I finally honored that commitment yesterday by processing that image for the Challenge, then sending the couple a copy. Then, today, I received such a nice response from them. Made my day. In the email they also asked where one could find out more about my photography...not easy as most of my work lies stored, but what is "out there" hangs on a few walls, adorns a few magazine covers and more pages inside, and, earlier this year, most of an auction catalogue. "Time to get this thing in motion."

At risk of making this post too long, I do also wish to acknowledge the encouragement and inspiration of my friend, Ted Grussing, whose gorgeous images I have had the privilege of receiving every weekday since last fall. Check his work out at www.tedgrussing.com and at www.tedandcorky.com.

With that, until tomorrow,
Mark