I’m thankful for the insatiable desire to learn……..

The single greatest gift I’ve ever gotten as a photographer is the inspiration to want to learn more!  From John Shaw and the late John Netherton who set the bar so very high, to Scott Kelby, and Jim Begley who showed me just how much more there is to learn, each of these people and many many more have shown me just how much vision can be stretched!  Tony Sweet showed me how to see with “better” more artistic eyes. Chuck Summers taught me how working very hard and never stopping or giving up, can make your work infinitely better!  Freeman Patterson and Bryan Peterson taught me how to see the same things everyone else sees, and ignores, and find an image in them.  My students have taught me that no matter how much you think you know, you’re, at best, only getting started!  Sam Garcia and Jay Maisel have mentored me in learning how to see the extraordinary in the ordinary!  Scott Diussa showed me how to travel with eyes wide open, Fred Sisson taught me to be curious!  Jim Sugar and Joe McNally  showed me that even a single flash can breath magic into an image.  Jim Haverstock and Raymond Jabola showed me how having a gentle spirit transaltes to gentle, and profound images.  Arthur Rothstien taught me that one camera and two lenses is more than enough!  Ansel Adams taught me that it’s o.k. to manipulate a print!!!  The folks at Nik and Topaz software taught me that no file is ever finished until you imagine the possibilities!  The list could, and should,  go on, but you get the point.  Learning is addictive and necessary if you want to get better every day!

I thank God for those friends that have shown me how to see the world differently, and feel more deeply for my subjects. I thank God for waking up every morning wanting to hold a camera in my hand.  I thank God that everywhere I walk I see countless things that can be a photograph.  So this mornings exercise is to walk around the building I’m staying in in St. Thomas and shoot whatever I see that interests me, “photographically”.  I will push the publish button when I have a few keepers!

Today’s Prayer:  Father thank you for all those mentors, countless in number, that you have allowed me to meet, and learn from their vast experience and kind tolerance of my great visual hunger.  Thank you for giving me that hunger, to want to learn more, experience all you have allowed me to live out in these 66 years!  Thank you Father for opening my eyes!

the pilgrim