Being there is what matters

One phase a photographer doesn’t want to hear is, “Hey, you should have been here earlier!” This is just what I was greeted to from the front desk clerk as we checked into the Grand Canyon Lodge.  

We planned to arrive a few hours or so before sunset at the South Rim so that I would have ample time to setup and take pictures of one of the Worlds Seven Wonders basked in what photographers call, “magic light.”

It was so cloudy I didn’t think there wouldn’t be any picture taking possibilities, but the clerk mentioned that weather conditions constantly change around the canyon and he’ll ring the room if there’s a break in the weather.

Settling in for the evening, I attached the camera on a tripod and waited. Sometimes, we’re blessed with a little luck and a few minutes later I received the call, only to run outside to see the canyon surrounded by clouds and being lit by a ray of sunshine. However, I was able to capture a dozen shots before the canyon was once again socked in.

There’s another saying photographers’ use, “It’s 95 percent being there and five percent dumb luck.” In this case that phase was all too true.

A mighty "damn fine weekend"

“Diane, It’s 10:38 AM on Fathers Day and Toshiro and I are on the back deck of our Port Orchard home, located on the Kitsap Peninsula, some 58 miles from Seattle. We are enjoying the last fire in our 10-year-old terra cotta chimenea. After the fire dies, it will become a garden planter.” This  the type of recording FBI Agent Dale Cooper (played by Kyle MacLachlan) dictated to Diane on his tape recorder. As you can tell, I watched one too many “Twin Peaks” episodes yesterday. My son, Trevor, sent me the Twin Peaks The Definitive Gold Box Edition for a combination birthday/Fathers Day present. I know if anyone who hasn’t watched Twin Peaks should download the pilot series and you’ll found out just how fantastic it is. I'd recommend you watch this on a moonless night near a forest, or on your living room sofa chair with a cup of  “mighty fine damn hot black coffee” and a piece of cherry pie.

Today, I received as a gift a half dozen tomato plants and a

pond liner. Guess I know how I’ll be spending the rest of the afternoon.

Many thanks for my family for making this a “mighty fine” Birthday/ Father’s weekend.

What’s gonna be for Christmas perhaps... The complete box set of
“Northern Explosure"?

Making the best of a bad lighting and background situation

My good friend Randy Romo has been after me to take senior photos of his son, Tanner. However, since April we’ve had typical Pacific Northwest rainy and gray weather in the Puget Sound region.

When the weather was good for those few days, Tanner was off playing high school baseball for South Kitsap or for his Narrows Select Baseball team.

This weekend the weather was perfect. I was able to capture some nice senior portraits of my son Colin, dressed in his prom attire, in our backyard. Around 5:30 with the setting sun filtering through the trees and shrubs making for beautiful lighting, I set up a three speed light studio and took some pictures. Now this tuned out nice.

However, the only day I could take pictures of Tanner was Sunday morning at about 11:00. Horrible sun, however, we found a somewhat shady spot in his grandfather’s yard to make some pictures.

I set up three Canon 580 portable speed lights, using CTO warming filters, did a few test shots, adjusted the output flash of each strobe to match the ambient light and bingo - got the correct lighting. Most of my camera and flash setting were ISO: 50, Aperture: 3.5, Shutter: 1/250 and Exp. Comp.: -1.3.

In spite of the sun and background, these didn't turn out so bad. I would have rather taken them in the beautiful evening magic light, as I did with Colin, however some things just don't go your way. Sometimes it takes a little extra effort to get that good “natural” lighting.

Capturing a Memorial Day Flag feature

Being a Navy veteran of nine years nine months and twenty-seven days, I’m somewhat patriotic. My wife, Amy, is a retired Navy Chief Petty Officer and patriotic as well. One year, while in search of a feature photo for an advance article in the paper announcing Memorial Day events, I was somewhat disappointed to find only photos of Boy Scouts setting out miniature Flags at the local veteran’s cemetery. Throughout the years this was a photo I took time and time again. So I spent about an hour capturing pictures using different lenses and from a variety of angles. Still, I wasn’t satisfied, but decided to take a lunch break when rainfall started.

After pulling into our driveway I noticed that the holiday flag strung across the two doors of our garage was captured in the raindrops forming on my windshield. The hundreds of drops magnifying various parts and shapes of the flag immediately lifted my spirits.

Since my wife’s car was parked right in the middle of the driveway (it’s a habit that she has that just pisses me off) I grabbed the macro lens and jumped into the front seat of her car. Meanwhile it was a race against time, as the sun reappeared and the drops were evaporating and disappearing right in front of my eyes.

Remembering a trick I learned while attending Syracuse University Newhouse School of Public Communications’ photojournalism program, I had once sprayed glycerin mixed with water that enhanced the water drops on a swimmer during a studio shoot.

Grabbing a bottle of vegetable oil and pouring some into a spray bottle used to water flowers I headed back outside to spray the windshield. Now the windshield was once again filled with perfect long-lasting drops featuring the flag and I could take as long as I wanted to get the right shot.

Feeling pleased with myself, I headed back to the paper to download the images and put into the system. Because of my effort, the photo story was moved from a section front to the front page.

About a half hour later, I received a call from my very irritated

spouse, who was headed out to pick up one of your kids at school. She had gotten into the car, turned on the wiper blades and my oil-water drop mixture smeared across the whole windshield and she couldn’t see.

Whoops, even through I forgotten about cleaning her windshield, I saved the day by capturing a Memorial Day feature shot.

Making the best of it

Lately, I’ve taken upon myself the ever-lasting task of scanning my vast library of slides and negatives. Remember negatives? While editing the takes has brought memories of traveling to 38 countries, some of those memories remind me of the Clint Eastwood movie, “The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.” In the 4 decades of my photographic journey I have experienced some great assignments and a few not so great assignments. However, one has to make the best of whatever is thrown your way.


I had the chance of covering Pope John Paul II, not once, but twice. The first time, a very good friend of mine, Rick Shaw, POY Picture Editor of the Year a few times and  now University of Missouri’s director of the Pictures of the Year International competition, brought me help in his news paper’s coverage of the Popes Miami visit on September 11, 1987. My assignment was to cover a local Catholic Church’s group bus trip from Ft. Lauderdale to Miami to see the Pope. Now, that was a dream assignment.  Even though I was far from the official podium, I was able to capture the church members reactions, which told a pretty good story.

Two years later I was again assigned to cover the Pope’s first ever visit to the island of Terceria in the Azores, this time for Gamma Liaison and it started out not so good.

In the 1987 visit, the press photographers were given pretty good access and good vantage points in which to capture images during the visit. However, in his visit to the Azores, we were positioned back behind the crowd about what seemed like 1/4 mile from the grandstand. The crowd had a chance to get better pictures than the assembled world’s press.

I had to resort to setting up a 300mm with a doubler and still the pope’s image was tiny in the photograph. I guess the Pope’s press representative heard our complaining, mostly coming from me, and came over to the still photographers. Since I had his attention, I asked him look through the viewfinder and explained what we needed was to get closer, way closer. He departed and a few minutes later returned with Ecce Homo, the Pope’s official photographer, who looked through my viewfinder.  After a few minutes of haggling with the press representative and the head of security, we were granted 15 minutes of photographic coverage the Papacy’s platform. I was now closer to the leader of the Catholic Church than what I was during Miami’s coverage. Not only that but within a few moments after the relocation, the Pope stepped into a sunbeam, which made the best photograph of my assignment.

Life's not fair

Two weeks ago my wife and I were thrilled when we noticed a robin was building her nest in a Firethorn shrub outside my daughter’s bedroom window. My oldest son planted that bush with my wife about 15 years ago. Over the years we’ve watched it slowly grow up the side of the house.

One of our favorite jokes was that Firethorn would deter a child from sneaking in or out the window. Now I was thinking that those thorns would help protect the robin and her eggs.

For about a week we watched the robin carry small branches to be used in building her nest. It was slowly taking shape among the evergreen leaves and needled branches.

You can imagine my delight when on Saturday I noticed a brightly blue colored egg lying in the middle of her nest. Being a photojournalist always in search of producing a documentary, I had set up an EOS MK II Ds on a tripod with a remote release to capture pictures of the egg, and hopefully, the whole life cycle from the hatching to the robin caring for her young baby bird.

While the robin was away, I removed the window screen and clipped away a few branches to get a better view of the nest. Afterwards, I replaced the screen; switched my 70-200mm f2.8 from auto focus to manual and zoomed onto the nest.

I placed the camera in a corner near the closet very carefully as to not disturb the robin.

Knowing that if she saw any sudden movement or heard any sounds she’d most likely abandoned the nest.

After hearing the robin landing upon the window screen I slowly creep into the room to start taking pictures. Since, my camera was already pre-focused, I used a remote to trigger the shutter and captured a few pictures of the robin as she gently settled onto the nest to warm her egg.

However, not all stories have happy endings.

When I checked back a day later, the egg was missing and the robin was gone from her nest. I was hoping that I was mistaken.

While searching among the ferns below the bush and then finally up in the branches of the Firethorn, I found the egg, skewered by those same prickly thorns that I hoped would keep her safe in her nest.  Life’s not fair I thought, being cheated of some promising photos. Throughout the years’ I’ve used that same phase over and over again to my children when life didn’t go the way they wanted.

Capturing danger that lurk from above

 My wife, Amy, often comments on how our dog, Toshiro, a designer Japanese Chin Pomeranian mix, is in constant awareness of his surroundings. There’s not a movement within the backyard or flying overhead that doesn’t escape his gaze.  While, on the other hand, Buffy, our daughters’ Pekingese Pomeranian, looks only at ground level and not at those dangers lurking above.

After cutting the grass and pulling weeds on Saturday, we were all out enjoying a moment of relaxation in the late evening sun. Amy and I in deckchairs, the two dogs soaking up sunbeams, Toshiro’s glaze turned upwards. I spotted a Bald Eagle circling high overhead much like one of those WWI airplanes that flew in search of targets.  As the eagle started to lazily spiral downwards and loomed bigger and bigger with each circling pass, it became obvious that the hunter had spied Buffy sunbathing and was thinking about a dinner of Chinese takeout.

As soon as it made a low pass, no higher than 20-feet above over our rooftop only to land in a tall tree across the road, Amy called to the dogs while I ran downstairs, grabbed a camera and attached to a 300mm and 1.4 converter.

With both dogs safely indoors, it soon became apparent the perched eagle had no intentions of going anywhere anytime soon and we both settled into our respective waiting games, me taking pictures and it, waiting for the meals-on-wheels to reappear unguarded.

For years we’ve seen this particular bird out on patrol, but in the past Pepper, our Dalmatian, was a force to be reckoned with and the kept all raptors at bay.  However, since Pepper had passed two years ago, the eagles’ low-level overhead flights had become more or less a standard routine.

While capturing a few shots of the bird, from it’s lofty perch, looking downwards with those keen eyes, the situation started to get more interesting, when a single crow started cawing and dive-bombing the eagle.  Crows are fiercely territorial and will heckle and hassle any bird, big or small, that invades its’ space so I was able to get some shots of the crow buzzing the mighty hunter.

After a bit, the eagle finally grew tiresome of the harassing crow, swooped down from the limb to a make low-level pass near the trees bordering our fence line.

While it made an flyby overhead I was able to capture some really sweet pictures of the bird flying right at the camera as it made one final pass before continuing on in search of easier unsuspecting prey.