Category : Pilgrim’s Chronicles

Sorry I don’t have new shot for you today, hit the sack at 10:00 last night, wake up call at 4:00 a.m. (1:00 a.m. where I’m going), wheels up at 5:30 a.m. you get the picture, all day in airports.
It takes a while and several legs to get from Corbin, Kentucky to Reno, Nevada. Not complaining, it goes with the territory. I did want to explain what you will hopefully see this week on the blog. The Reno Air Races are famous for fast moving racing planes, but I love to shoot airplanes on the ground as art, thus Avart. Reno usually has a great variety of airplanes and, if we are lucky, the morning light will help us make some great images, only time will tell.

I’m in the Sky Club in Cincinnati trying to get my day going. This will be along one, but I love this event. I got a chance to visit with my son Wesley, his wife Rhonda and my two grandchildren from Maryville, Tennessee, Elijah and Abigail last night. Before I left Corbin, I took my Corbin based grandchildren, Cassidy and Cade out for ice cream, a grandfather, grand child tradition before I go on the road for a week or so. I also talked to and text Hannah and Ben in Florida. I have six grandchildren, what a blessing!

I love my family and when I’m away from home I would miss them terribly, but you can’t allow yourself to do that. There is work to be done, and spending all your time thinking about your wife and family will only make you miserable. The trick for a traveling man is to keep your eye on the ball until you are ready to return home, then the thoughts of how much you want to be with family can return full force. That’s not to say you don’t think of them every moment, you just can focus on the fact that you’re here and they’re there.

Our relationship with the Lord is somewhat different. You can focus on Him constantly. You never leave Him and He never leaves you. I used to wonder what praying without ceasing meant. I thought who can be down on their knees with their head bowed all day long? Well you can be praising and praying while flying on a plane, driving your car, sitting in a meeting, or checking into the hotel. A moment to moment walk with HIm is exactly that, moment to moment.

I thank God this morning that I’m in the Cincinnati airport. It means that I have a job, that I have someplace interesting to travel to. I know when I get there I will be with good friends and associates. I hope to help a lot of photographers with their needs and have a little fun myself.
My most important mission will be to love everyone I meet with His love. To help people know that someone cares about them and is concerned about their circumstances. I don’t have the ability to change a single persons life, but He does, and He is the one that will affect any change that happens. My job is to show up! That is called obedience, showing up………..

the pilgrim

Tomorrow at O:Dark thirty, I leave Knoxville, for Reno and the Annual Reno Air Races. For those of you that love airplanes this week will be a treat, for the rest of you, sorry! All jobs have their upside and their downside. Working for Nikon honestly is mostly upside. Sure there are some assignments that you would be thrilled if they left off of, but for the most part it is a great job.
What I’m doing in case you missed it is praising God. I’m so blessed to get to do what I do with such great people! This is the annual pilgrimage for Bill Pekala, Scott Diussa, Richard Small, Mike Anskat, and I to this great event. We will be joined by Jose Remos (great military aviation photographer), and Moose Peterson and his family. The fellowship is great and of course you know me, anywhere an airplane lands and takes off, or just sits on the ground I’m in heaven.

O.K. got carried away there a little. My point is that God has truly blessed me to be able to do things that I get to do, with the people I get to do them with. That is a great blessing. I encouraged you over the weekend to count your blessings, I hope you did. If you did I bet it made you feel great, it always does. Recognition of all the good in our lives because of God’s great love for us will always lifts your spirit.

This week I will be shooting a lot of aviation stuff and will share some of those image with you and
share whatever the Lord is placing on my heart. Once again if you don’t love airplanes, sorry.
The good news for the non aviation folks is that this only happens once a year. Well their is Sun n’ Fun in April and my constant sharing about my flying, o.k. it’s not just once a year, so maybe you should consider getting into airplanes!!!!!!!!

blessings and tail winds,

the pilgrim

*Photo note: D700, and you guessed it, my trusty 70-300 AFS VR.

Now the fun begins!

In years past we all owned a lot of filters, but today with the incredible post processing programs at our disposal, we need a lot less of them, in fact I only use a few:

Polarizers for every lens I carry. Polarizers can help deepen your colors, and remove reflections. I prefer Nikon polarizers because I know their quality, I also own some Singh Ray polarizers as well, both are very neutral and do not introduce any color cast. Also it is very important to know that your filters are plano parallel, which means they are perfectly flat side to side. Also the coatings really matter as well. You spent a lot for your top quality lenses, don’t you think they deserve, top quality filters? You don’t need that many, so buy the best.

Variable Neutral Density. Can allow you to use very small aperture for great depth of field and still have very long shutter speeds for letting water have that nice milky affect. The very best available is from my dear brother Bob Singh, his 8 stop variable ND is not cheap, but it is simply the best one you can buy. This filter allows you to use from 2 to 8 stops of neutral density by simply tuning it like a polarizer. Once again very well designed and built.

Diopter Close-up lenses. While these technically are not filters, they are actually two element close up devices that when used on telephone lenses of high quality, will allow close-up work virtually the equal of Micro/Macro lenses. Some of the best ever made were Nikon’s 3T & 4T and the 5T & 6T.
Sadly they are no longer being manufactured, you may get lucky and find them on eBay or at some dealer that has drawers full of older filters, if you find some scoop them up, they now sell for a lot more than they did when sold as new. Canon also makes some that are excellent, the 500D is 77mm and is a favorite with shooter using telephotos with that filter size.

Because of Capture NX2, Photoshop CS5 and Lightroom 3, I no longer have any need for split
neutral density, warming and cooling filters and color correction filters. I do have and use a
Expo Disc, which looks like a filter but is used to get dead on white balance. That’s about it.

How about protection of your precious glass? Well a lens hood will do a lot more to protect your lenses than a filter. While I have seen dropped lenses where the filter broke instead of the front element, I’ve also see filter break and severely scratch the front element. If you’ve ever had a front element replaced you know how painful that can be in the wallet. If you are shooting in blowing sand or on a beach with heavy salt spray then maybe a protective filter makes sense, but it makes more sense to not take your camera out and shoot in a sand storm or heavy salt spray……

Here is a good rule; “Never put anything in front of the lens if you don’t have a very good reason to place it there.”

Now an assignment for the weekend: Make a list of ten great things in your life that you are so thankful for, then dwell on how good God is to have blessed you so wonderfully, and then get on your knees and thank Him……..

My list:

1. My salvation, forgiveness, and relationship with Jesus Christ.
2. My wonderful partner and the love of my life Sherelene and the family she has given me.
3. My wonderful grandchildren, what a blessing to get a hug from any one of them.
4. The truly great friends I get to work with, and share my passions with.
5. The gift of flying, just how long I waited, and how sweet it is now.
6. The gift of making images, what a great life it has given me and how much I’ve seen.
7. My health, as bad as it is some times, I’m still on this side of the grass.
8. That my needs are met, I’m employed, I have a home, food, and life’s necessities.
9. A great past to remember fondly, a present to cherish, and a future hope for eternity.
10. The joy of seeking God’s wisdom and then sharing it with you.

1. O.K. I cheated one extra, thank you Lord Football season has finally started.

Blessings,

the pilgrim

Links:

http://www.nikonusa.com/Find-Your-Nikon/Photography-Accessories/Lens-Filters/index.page

http://www.singh-ray.com/

http://www.bhphotovideo.com/c/product/87503-REG/Canon_2824A002.html

*Photo notes: Top shot, studio image for previous book, 2nd Image, St. Francis of Assisi, Ranchos De Taos, NM Nikon D70, 12-24 Nikkor f4, Rocks on Olympic National Park beach, D2x, 70-200 AFS VR, Cascades in the Great Smoky Mountains, D2x, 17-55 AFS f 2.8.

I was watching Fox News the other day when they were reliving the Katrina disaster. A striking scene was all the people on the top of houses surrounded by flood waters, stranded. If something didn’t happen many of those people would have died, but then, in flew helicopters to drop a line and pull them to safety, they were saved. That is what is called being physically saved. No one ever objects, in fact, we all cheer, when we see those helpless folks being lifted to safety. However if you walk up to a person on the street and say, “excuse me sir, but are you saved?” Well you know what that can lead to. The fact is we have a physical body and a spirit as well. From today’s devotional in Charles Stanley’s Pathways to His Presence, here is his take on our spiritual state:

People fall into one of four categories:

We are saved and we know it.

We think we are saved, but we’re not.

We don’t claim to be saved

We are not saved, but would like to be.

Let’s take a minute to clarify the meaning of being saved, spiritually. You can believe in God or not, but if you don’t believe in Him, it doesn’t make Him go away. If you believe in God and you’ve read the Bible, you know that all of us have fallen short of what God wants us to be, that’s called sin. Yes we are all sinners, yes, all of us. Are some worse than others? Sure, but it doesn’t take away your sin, if your next door neighbor is a serial killer. God wants all sinners to be forgiven, 1 Timothy 2:4. How can we be saved? We can’t earn it or be good enough, we have to accept His Son Jesus and accept His forgiveness, John 3:16. He has told us that we must confess our sins, accept His Son, and confess Jesus before man, Romans 10:10. (Ex. The Pilgrim’s Chronicles)

So it is pretty simple, acknowledge your sins, confess your sins, repent, (be genuinely sorry for your actions), accept the forgiveness offered though Christ. Tell others this Good News. Enjoy eternal life.

So if you were on the roof and the flood waters were about to wash you, your house, and your life away, would you grab hold of the line lowered to you?

Why save the body and let the spirit go?

the pilgrim

*Photo note: F5 film camera, 80-200 f 2.8 ED lens, Fuji Velvia film. Layered landscape at Lake Powell, sunrise.