This past weekend Len sent Ann and me a short e-mail.  It contained a link to a video by Andy Mumford, a British landscape photographer living in Lisbon (Portugal!!!!) and it was about photographing in iconic locations.  (Thanks Len).  Ann and I watched it that night - it contained insights, some we were very familiar with, others that led us to thinking differently about our upcoming trip.  One of the subjects he discussed was going to iconic places with expectations and preconceived notions about particular images you’d like to make.  That got me thinking about one iconic location where Ann and I went to and, in the end, wound up coming back with the iconic shot.  Without us even knowing it!

Last Sunday Ann and I decided to revisit some more images from our previous travels in anticipation of our upcoming trip.  I decided to develop from scratch and then print a couple of images from Devil’s Garden, one of my favorite places and one we’ll be returning to on this trip as well.  Ann was more broad in her thinking and decided to include an image from our Redwoods trip - definitely not a stop we’ve planned for our next adventure.

Ann and I are still refining ideas for our fall trip (Hayden Valley in Yellowstone??) and, of course, some of that involves revisiting our images from previous trips (well, more for Ann than me given the number of things on my plate and her being productive while I’m working . . . ).  In her reviews (which have also produced a number of re-found images!) she came across a shooting the shooter image from our last trip to Snow Canyon.  And that, they say, has the makings of a blog post.

What’s in a name?  It’s often a curious question and sometimes you’re surprised when you find out.  Then again, some names you really don’t want to know the background of and, because of some residual juvenile hang-up (some may say juvenile inner personality), you really have no desire to visit.  Take for instance, every time I’ve seen a “Mosquito Lake” on a map, I’ve had no desire to explore there.  Well, Ann and I have been spending a lot of time on YouTube and Google Earth (as well as paper maps) exploring potential places we’d like to live (well, more scout out in January to see if we would like to live there).  And it was during one of those sessions that I was reminded of just how juvenile I can be.

I know it’s a bit pathetic to kind of re-do images, but this isn’t quite that.  When I was teaching photography, one of the exercises I would give my students, usually before they really had a chance to make photographs of their own, was to pick out a photograph (or two, or three) and try to see how many different images within that one image they could find.  That exercise helps to think about things like framing, composition, what to include in and outside of images.  It doesn’t work for all photographs, but when it works well, it’s a fantastic exercise.  Well, Ann and I had our own little visual exercise this week.

A few days ago we were driving down our hill on our way up to Portland to take care of some business and, as we passed a corner, Ann chuckled.  I asked Ann, “What’s so funny?”  She replied, “Oh just remembering . . . that time when . . . .”   I finished her sentence, “The 3-legged dog?”  And we both burst out laughing.  “Hans and the three-legged dog” is one of my favorite stories.  I love telling it and given that Ann and I spent the next 5 or so minutes talking about Hans and feeling so good remembering him it warrants an on-line recounting.  He deserves no less.

It had been a long morning of printing and the last blog post was just the beginning of our output.  Ann’s next image came from our stint at Capitol Reef National Park last fall, just before the hurricane rains came.

Ann had a 4 day weekend over the Fourth of July, and we took advantage of the extra time to wok on some images and, more importantly, print some images.  So many images, in fact, I’ve decided to break it up into two blog posts.

The last blog post left off with me unsatisfied with the sky in the black and white image.  Well, once something like that gets in your brain, it’s hard to let go of, so the easiest thing for me was to take some time with the image and to see if I could improve it.  And this is the result.

I’ve posted about this before, but it’s come up again so it’s time to think about it again.  That is how does one treat the question of whether an image is better in color or in black and white?

I’ve been juggling a lot of balls this year, and just as I began to feel like I was up on things and can add a couple of more (ones that I take pleasure in), I go and drop a couple.  Thank goodness they weren’t eggs.  So this morning, when I read something while eating breakfast, I decided there’s something I can do for pleasure, and get it done in one quick swoop.  So . . . .

It was Father’s Day last weekend and Devon came down to celebrate it with us.  When they asked me what I wanted to do to celebrate I came up with an innovative idea - let’s print some images!  In part because Devon deserved to not return to Seattle empty handed, and in part because Ann has been working on some images from our trip last fall in anticipation for our trip this fall.  And given that my desk computer was in the shop, it was an all-Ann printing session!

It’s been too long since I’ve posted, in part because we haven’t been on any real adventures, though it’s not for lack of wanting.  Life, it seems, wants to take all of our time this year and . . . to put it bluntly, life is succeeding.  Not all of it has been burdensome.  We recently visited Dad and family in Arizona, which was a relaxing break from way too busy work schedules.  Only for me to return to a hard drive that was dropping sectors and is now in the shop.  That has thrown a wrench not only into my work life, but my photography life - I can’t even work on images, or print, or . . . .  Two weekends ago Ann was working on images from our trip last year and it gave me an idea, why not write about our planning?  There’s a lot of it!