Some photographers adhere to the theory that one shouldn’t pre-visualize photos before getting to an assignment. They think that they should be sort of a blank slate and capture their photos in sort an extemporaneous fashion. This helps one to see things with a fresh eye and capture things that are creative in their originality. [...]
My wife has relatives in Alabama who, on more than one occasion, have told her that they wouldn’t want to move to California because of all the earthquakes we get here. They say: “We don’t know how y’all can live out there.” I’ve felt only two earthquakes in my lifetime. The first when I was [...]
Rule number 6 of the “unofficial rules of photography” is “Always have a subject. Gary Fong, who worked his way up from a staff photographer at the San Francisco Chronicle in the ’70s to its Director of Photography in the ’80s to its Director of Editorial Graphics Technology in the ’90s and is now Chief [...]
A few months ago I covered the cutting down of the National Capitol Christmas Tree near Dardenelle in the Stanislaus National Forest. It was about a 2-½ hour drive from Stockton so I had to leave around 4:30 a.m. for the early morning start time of 7 am. I’d like to say that the it [...]
There have been years in the past where summer temperatures had started in May, but this year the month of June started off with unseasonably cool temperatures in the 60s and low 70s. We even got a little wet from a couple of days of light rain. It took a couple of weeks, but summer [...]
There’s an old saying that goes “March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.” This spring, in San Joaquin County at least, March came in like something a little feistier than a lamb, a billy goat perhaps, with some relatively gentle rain showers. Then it turned into a raging lion around [...]
“Look at your feet. You are standing in the sky. When we think of the sky, we tend to look up, but the sky actually begins at the earth.” ~ Diane Ackerman
“…What to do? What to do? What to do? The outlook was decidedly blue But as I walked through the foggy streets alone It turned out to be the luckiest day I’ve known…” – A Foggy Day in London Town – George and Ira Gershwin
“All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey I’ve been for a walk on a winter’s day…” California Dreamin’ – John and Michelle Phillips Even in sunny California when you’re caught in the cold, gray grip of Ol’ Man Winter the hope of sunshine can sometimes seem like a far off dream. True, [...]
