What it’s all about……..

As I move into the last years of a long career and look back, I have come to one main conclusio;  it was the people!  As a photographer I have worked with a tons of groups, lectured for groups of from 3 to 600, and one of the very best groups I’ve ever had the honor and pleasure of working with was BIOCOMM  (Bio Communications) the oldest and most pretgious gathering of scientific, medical and specialized photographers in the world.  I would be petrified to try and teach this group anything technical!  They are, perhaps, the most knowledgeable technical group I’ve ever known!  They’re also the most wonderful folks you could ever spend time with!  In the photo above if you can find me (white shirt and navy blazer, tallest head in the front row, to the left).  Left of me is Bill Durrence (green shirt and straw hat on his knee), sounds like a Stepehn Foster song tittle!!! ;-).  Bill was a long time Nikon NPS Rep and Nikon School teacher (22 years) who left Nikon just before I joined them.  Bill went on to work for Blue Pixel, the company that took over running the Nikon Digital School under contract, for Nikon).  I knew Bill for many years before he left Nikon and he joined me on a number of Great American Photography Weekends.

When I became the Southern U.S. NPS Rep Bill immediately called me and said you have to ask Bill (Pekala) to assign you to the BioComm group, you’ll love them!  Bill Pekala did and I had 11 fantastic years of joining them for their annual meeting in great locations and running a one day workshop and field session for them,  it was one of the highlights of my year, each and every year!  I did miss one year recovering from Colon Cancer surgery!

I was thilled when I was invited back to speak for them in Savannah, Ga this past Friday.  It was extra special becasue Bill Durrence returned and we had a blast sharing and visiting with such great old friends!  I had dinnerThursday night with Bill and his beautiful wife Barbara and we had a lot of fun talking about the “Glory Days”!

I have been incredibly blessed to know wonderful people like this group, the countless, (actually over 7,000 photo students), and countless other photographers, friends like Jack Graham, Jim Haverstock, Jim Begley, Carl Turner, Dr. Chalres Stanley, Bill Durrence and I better stop now because the list would a very very long indeed!!!!

The point is, no matter how many good or great images I’ve ever made, the people are the real treasure I take away from a nearly 50 year long career!  Thanks guys, I really enjoyed my annual Bio Comm fix!!!!!

Blessings,

the pilgrim