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The About page has a new look — I hope you'll take a moment to read it and leave a comment.

One thing the new page addresses is that I've been largely absent from photography since 2025. The reason is a good one: I've been immersed in drawing and painting. I'm currently working toward the Botanic Art and Illustration certificate at the Denver Botanic Gardens, and I spend a good deal of time nature journaling as well. The media are graphite, colored pencil, and watercolor.

Drawing from observation forces a different kind of attention to light and shadow — slower, more deliberate — and I'm convinced that will eventually deepen what I bring to the camera when I return to it.

The elephant above is my most recent drawing, done in graphite. He's an Asian elephant at the Denver Zoo, and the drawing is based on a photograph I made of him a few weeks ago. I was drawn to the challenge of rendering the texture of that extraordinary skin and the subtle way light falls across the head and shoulders. I'm pleased with how he turned out.

I hope to be back behind the camera before too long. In the meantime, the pencil is keeping my eye sharp.

Monastery of Christ in the DesertA remote Benedictine monastery situated below a cliff face on the Chama River near Abiqui, New Mexico

The Monastery of Christ in the Desert is a Benedictine monastery located in a remote area (at the end of a 13 mile one lane dirt road) about 30 miles Northeast of Abiquiu, New Mexico. It's on a section of the Chama River that has been designated a Wild and Scenic River. Abiquiu is where Georgia O'Keeffe lived and worked in the 1940's and 50's.

The monastery was designed by a Japanese architect in the Santa Fe style. That means the building and the sandstone behind it are almost the same color. The building just blends into the background. This black and white image has been processed in a way to better segregate the building from the background.

Currently there are around 15 monks at the monastery. It also has overnight guest facilities. The monks generally observe silence except during services. Guests are expected to similarly observe silence. I was recently there for 5 days of solitude, which was nice.

Sacred Heart Catholic ChurchRiver North area of Denver

It has been fun processing this image. This church is in Denver's River North area. I've always thought it was a distinctive and distinguished looking building with interesting architectural details. For the past several months I've been focused on drawing as a new pastime that is very enjoyable. That's the reason fhere have not been blog posts for several months.

The ShardGlass spires reaching
Through clouded skies, time flowing
River keeps silence

The title of this image is The Shard and the caption is:

Glass spires reaching
Through clouded skies, time flowing
River keeps silence

The idea here was to reate a black and white cityscape of London's modern skyline along the Thames River including The Shard and City Hall (the rounded structure) to the left. And to use a long exposure of several minutes to create smooth, dramatic clouds and water, giving the composition a moody, timeless quality.

Littoral SymphonyOregon - 2023

Littoral Symphony

This is a beach scene on the upper Oregon coast taken in November 2023. The title comes from a combination of two things. A geologist might refer to the scene as “littoral”. And to  me, the scene has a rhythm that reminds me of multiple instruments with different tones. 

It’s a moderately long exposure of about 6 seconds, which was long enough to give a sense of motion, both in the sky and water.

My intent was to express the organic nature of the sea and adjacent beach immediately after a storm. It had been raining for several days and as it turned out would rain for several more days after this.

Waterscapes I PDF PhotoBook CoverClick on the image to download the PDF PhotoBook. Downloading may take a few minutes.

Waterscapes I PDF PhotoBook

I've just completed my first PDF PhotoBook. It's titled Waterscapes I and includes 16 recently completed waterscapes. Please download it using the link above. To downloand click the link above or click on the image. Downloading the photobook may take a few minutes.

The book is optimized for Acrobat on a computer. Some of the navigation buttons won't work in Acrobat on a tablet so it's necessary to use Acrobat's navigation controls when viewing on a tablet.

I produced the book as a way to prepare for Denver's Month of Photography portfolio reviews. The portfolio in the book will be reviewed by six reviewers (museum curators, gallery owners and curators, photobook publishers) on March 15, 2025. Since it's a PDF photobook it will be easy to make a revised version with any suggestions from the reviews that I decide to implement.

Thanks to Brooks Jensen at LensWork for the inspiration to create the book and for his PDF photobook workshop, which was a big help in getting familiar with InDesign and Adobe Acrobat features that I wasn't previously aware of. The book is based on Brooks' template provided in that workshop.

Vertical ConcertoSteel spirals climb high Glass notes ripple through dark air Towers sing skyward The curved glass and steel elements create a visual rhythm that sort of mirrors musical notation – each horizontal line of the building's facade acts like a staff line in a musical score. The interplay between the tower structures suggests an interplay of musical instruments The black and white treatment enhances this musical parallel, reminiscent of piano keys. The curved forms even evoke the shape of classical instruments, particularly the cylindrical body of a woodwind or the scroll of a string instrument.

This black and white image is of a group of rounded buildings in Downtown Houston. The buildings were originally offices of the now disgraced and defunct company known as Enron. The lines around the buildings bring to mind a musical score. So I’ve applied a musical theme.

The Haiku accompanying this image is:

Steel spirals climb high
Glass notes ripple through dark air
Towers sing skyward

This image is from 2015 when I was living and working in the Houston area.

The image was created with a superwide angle lens @15mm.

FlowSouth Platte River - 2021 Eddies 2South Platte River - 2021 Eddies 1South Platte River - 2021 This is a series of three long exposure images of eddies and flow in the South Platte River at the confluence with Cherry Creek in Denver. It's necessary to catch the river at a time when the flow is such that it will create eddies with white delineation. Sometimes the river runs too fast and sometimes too slow to get these images. The exposure times were several minutes using neutral density filters.