Happy Thanksgiving

I’ve been unbelievably negligent in both photography and blogging in the last month. Things have been hectic in most every regard. It’s so amazing how life comes crashing in at times and creates frenzy and chaos that consumes hours and drives out opportunities to stop long enough to contemplate what we have. It’s Thanksgiving morning, and I had a chance to get out and walk the forest. I was alone but surrounded—squirrels and wild turkey were all around. As I stood in the falling leaves and soaked in the solitude, it was easy to realize what the noise of the last few weeks has obscured. I have a lot to be thankful for. We all do. A kind and generous God. A loving family. Great friends. A good job. God given talent to create. A country where freedom is still celebrated. And a group of soldiers I’ve never met still willing to fight to keep it that way.

I wrestled a Sunday afternoon away from the hubbub recently to go shoot some autumn leaves. And for the therapy of looking through a camera lens. One of my favorite places to photograph near my home is a giant slab of granite (think part of Stone Mountain big), a creek, and a series of small waterfalls. It’s out in the county, lost in hundreds of acres of forest. Unfortunately, the water in the creek was very low, so the usual waterfalls were minimal. To get this shot, I had to lower and spread my tripod as far as it would go and submerge it in the shallow creek, with only the ball head and camera above the water. It’s a 1.3 second exposure at f16. As you might image, I got wet and muddy. But with any luck, this shot will end up on a magazine cover in the next month, my fourth cover in the last two years.

For all of you who find yourself on this blog, Happy Thanksgiving. I hope you can find some quiet time to contemplate what you and all you have been given. And if you’re consumed by the photography bug like me, find some camera time soon.

Savannah Sunrise

I've often written about Savannah, Georgia. The place simply oozes history, charm, and character. There are many wonderful places to stay and an extraordinary array of great restaurants. But one of the most awe-inspiring scenes is the parade of massive container ships that navigate these waters. The Port of Savannah is a tremendous economic engine for the southeastern United States. Day and night, these colossal ships come and go, and the sound of a tugboat horn sends me scrambling for my Nikon. I'm just a sucker for the power of the river and these ships. And this behemoth could have just delivered my new flatscreen TV. After all, Christmas will be here before you know it.

I took this shot early one morning a couple of weeks ago while standing on my hotel room balcony. In fact, it was the morning of my birthday. Despite a very late night of music and "networking", I managed to rise early enough to see this container ship slipping out of port into the rising sun. Getting the image sharp was easy, as the sun was far enough up to force a quick shutter speed (1/500) while allowing a tight aperture (f11) to capture the industrial facilities on the horizon. The challenge was not overexposing the sky while trying to pull some detail out of the silhouetted ship.

Rest in Peace, Larry

Last week, I had a request for a copy of a photograph of a couple I took for a corporate newsletter in August. That part seemed fairly routine. What caught me by surprise was the reason. The husband in the shot had passed away two days after I took the photo. My image was the last photograph of him. I was a little shaken by the news—this was a first for me. I had only met the gentleman—his name was Larry—just that one morning of the quick shoot. But he seemed like a really nice man. Without hesitation, I quickly ordered a set of prints from my favorite lab and burned the image to disk for Larry’s wife and family.

Ironically, I read last week where an Annie Leibovitz image of John Lennon and Yoko Ono is going to be auctioned in October. The image was taken by Leibovitz in December 1980 for the famous Rolling Stone shoot. Leibovitz wanted to photograph Lennon alone, as no one wanted Ono in the images, but Lennon insisted. Just hours after the session, as he and Yoko returned from dinner, Mark David Chapman gunned Lennon down in front of his building. Leibovitz’s images were the last taken of John Lennon alive. Another image from the shoot, one of a nude Lennon with his body wrapped around a clothed Yoko Ono, graced the cover of Rolling Stone’s tribute to the murdered star. That magazine cover has been ranked as the top magazine cover of the past forty years.

I don’t for a second pretend that my image of Larry and his wife is in the same league as Leibovitz’s shot of Lennon and Oko—or that it’s even art. But I’m honored to have taken the photo and to know that it might serve in some way as a legacy for their family. And I think about the weighty responsibility of photographers who take critical images, often of others final moments—war correspondents, photojournalists covering atrocities around the globe, or those snapping images of the World Trade Center after the first jetliner impact on 9/11. It puts a different perspective on everything when you peer through that lens.

Rest in peace, Larry. It was truly an honor to have met you.