Monthly Archives: February 2024

 

My second favorite love besides photography, (of course the Lord and my family and friends rank above even those two things!), is music!  When Sherelene and I built our home in 1978 I set aside a small room upstairs as a teaching room with a built in screen and a sectional couch around the walls.  Over the yearI taught a good number of classes in this space.  Later it became a catch all equipment room, but a couple of yers ago I decided to set up a music listening room.  Audio gear has always been a hobby and I cobbled together a system and organized it.

 

My teaching partner and dear friend, Jack Graham has a fabulous system in his home and it inspired me to set mine up.  Jack is really into vinyl and his system is really high end stuff, mine not so much, but I love the sound of mine and it works for me.  My system is a mix of old vintage stuff and some new modern pieces as well.  My main speakers of 1980’s era Polk SDA2 speakers, 40 plus years old but they still sound fantastic!  Sub Bass is handled with a Emotiva Sub Woofer.  I drive them with a Emotiva Base 2 Power Amp (250 watts per channel) and Emotiva PT-1 pre-amp, both high value and very clean sounding. I have about 50 albums and a very nice Technics turntable that was a gift from Jack.  My main music source is CDs of which I have well over a 1,000.  I use a vintage ES Sony CD Player and a Rotel Tribute CD player as well.  I also stream from Apple Music off my iPad Pro.  The smaller speakers are Klipsch 600M Reference Premiers.

 

My music is very eclectic, from Sinatra, to 50s 60s Rock and Roll, Blues, some country, contemporary artists, Classical, and Symphonic as well. I recently added a Eames (Reproduction Chair) to relax in for long listening sessions!  It’s taken almost 7 decades to piece it all together, but I’m really enjoying it!  Come by and I’ll play some music for you!

 

Blessings,

 

the pilgrim

 

As I prevued images I shot in the past, it always works out that 90% of the time the ones that jump out at me are the ones with great light!  Very often I go out in great light and look for subjects!  I found these four recently when looking at a trip to Portland’s Japanese Garden’s work.  Study the light and how they added to the texture and shapes of these subjects, hope you enjoy them!

 

 

Get out there and find some images today!

Blessings,

 

the pilgrim

 

Many years ago my wife and I established a workshop company, The Great American Photography Weekends.  I hired many of the very best known nature/Landscape and Wildlife photographers of that time period to speak at 2o0 person events across the US.  The company had a very long life and over that time period we serviced over 7,000 photographers!

 

Such luminaries as John Shaw, Art Wolfe, the late Galen Rowell, the late John Netherton, David Middleton, Bryan Peterson, Jim Brandenburg, Jack Dykinga, David Muench, Larry West and George Lepp where just some of the great photographers that worked with us.  

 

Of all these wonderful shooters, John Shaw stood out as the best “teacher” of the group!  Not only a legendary photographer, John could make even the most difficult to understand concept of photography simple and easy to understand.  The photo above is of a photo lesson we included in a set of “Photo Cards” for field use.  It is still a great set of reminders today about composition!  Enjoy!

 

Blessings,

 

the pilgrim

Photograph by Tony Rogers

 

It was Mark Twain that said, “The thing about garrulous old people is that they come to a certain advanced age and then climb up on their soap box and tell the rest of us how they got  there!”

 

I plead guilty, but it is with the best of intentions!  Yesterday I turned 78, and it has me thinking…… so if you will give me a minute to crawl up on the soap box, I’ve got some things I want to share!

 

It seems to me that after almost 8 decades of living, I have come to some truths I want to share with you.  Accept them or reject them, at least give them some serious thought before you discard them.

 

5  Things You Need to Have a Meaningful Life:

 

1.   Faith in something bigger than yourself.  You don’t have to live very long to figure out that you don’t have much control or maybe even no control over the things that happen in this life.  If you can’t count on yourself, then who do you count on?  Sorry, but your friends and family are no better qualified to figure all this out than you are!  Face it, there is a God and He made you, loves you more than you could ever understand and cares about where your life here on earth is going!  Trust Him, He will never let you down.

     

 2.  The path to peace is forgiveness.  We’ve all been hurt by others and it is easy to hold on to the hurt and develop grudges and often, if left long enough, turns to bitterness and hate.  Hate does not only kill the one we hate, it kills us too. If you want to shed baggage that is hurting you and others, forgive them. 

 

3.  If you love yourself more than you love others you will never find joy.   Joy in life comes from the love of others.  Healthy self worth is good, consuming love of self is a fatal trap.  You can never truly be an advocate for others if you place your self interest above them.  When I was young and immature, when I met a better photographer than myself ,(which was often),  I was threatened by them and held it against them, over time I came to realize that other’s success did not subtract from mine and that I could be genuinely happy for them and their success.  Life became so much better when I let go of too much self love!

 

4.  One of the most endearing qualities you can have is being appreciative.  You should spend much of your day thanking God and others for their acts of kindness.  Few of us realize how many people have contributed to the lives we enjoy, thank them, they deserve it!  It will make their day…..and yours too!

 

5. To have a few real friends, be a good friend to them.  It is often said that in life we rarely have more than a few truly great friends, many acqaintances, but just a few real friends.  A real friend is a treasure to enjoy.  If you are lucky enough to have one, be a faithful friend to them.

 

Well, that’s about it for today, I hope these ideas connect with you and that they make your life better, that’s the only reason I do this!

 

Blessings,

 

 

the pilgrim