To Those Who Served

“That's what it takes to be a hero, a little gem of innocence inside you that makes you want to believe that there still exists a right and wrong, that decency will somehow triumph in the end”...Lise Hands

There comes a time when we as a country must set aside our political differences and reflect on what it cost for us to first obtain, then retain the freedoms we have.  No amount of words will ever suffice in such an endeavor.  Emotions are often rendered incomplete when translated into written form.  The following photo essay is an attempt to capture first the feeling of gratitude I have regarding those individuals who served, fought, and died to protect all of us, and second to send a message to all veterans...all heroes who placed themselves in harms way so we could live in safety...

Teaching a Photography Workshop

Photo courtesy Ronnie Ryne

One of the more challenging things I've ever been asked to do is to teach a Photography Workshop.  The first time I was asked to do that my initial reaction was..'sure I can do  that...' then I got to thinking about what I actually needed to do to pull it off and I rapidly began to understand just how involved something like that was.

I went over and over all kinds of scenarios...should it be a beginners class...generic...advanced, well as advanced as I could make it anyway...lecture material...hands-on...and so on.  It was hard to focus in on one agenda.  I eventually settled for Generic that would include some basics and tips and techniques.

Photo courtesy Ronnie Ryne

That ended up being the easy part.  Now I had to come up with a viable program that would fit inside a 2 hour window.  Good grief!  Photography concepts are full of material that would probably require a single subject to take a full 2 hours if I thought about long enough, but it had to all make sense for people with a wide range of skill levels.

What I ended up doing was to create a program that was based on many of the same problems I had difficulty with over the years.  As I began to ponder about those difficulties, one recurring idea kept infiltrating my thoughts.  What was the one thing that gave me the most trouble?  As I thought about it, I began to understand that it was not the technical/mechanics of the camera, for those things are rather objective in nature and for the most part, can be learned with a bit of practice and simply reading your owners manual.  No, what gave me the most trouble over the years was learning how to see photographically.

Being able to see photographically requires a different thought process than simply understanding the mechanics of the camera, or to take simple snapshots.  It requires an understanding that light is the key to creating those amazing photographs.  It goes way beyond simply relying on the camera to make all the decisions for you...it requires a blending of how we visually perceive light vs how the camera sees light...the two are not necessarily the same.  Once I began to grasp that concept and apply it to what I was doing photographically, for the first time my photographs began to evolve away from the realm of the ordinary toward the realm of extraordinary...I said it was evolving toward it...I haven't reach it yet.  In fact, the more I evolve toward it, the more I realize that it is becoming one of those journey's that never has an end point.

So with that in mind, I formulated a program that would get the participants to thinking about what they are doing...to possibly change their perspective about photography and remove the intimidation factor related to the mechanics of the camera, and focus their mindset more toward understanding how to see light...how to see photographically.

Although I had previously presented similar material at our local photography club meetings, the first real presentation occurred back in March of 2010 that was sponsored by the county library.  They signed up almost 50 people of which about half showed up.  The program went very well for the first hour until the digital projector lost it's red color and all the sample images thereafter were displayed with a strong greenish hue.  Not exactly the best way to talk about and demonstrate how to see light...but overall it worked out pretty well.

Photo courtesy Ronnie Ryne

Since then I've refined the presentation and have broken it into two sections each about 90 minutes long.  This makes for a much more relaxed presentation as I now don't have to hurry through the material to squeeze it all in in under 2 hours.  The next presentation is coming up next June...it should be a good one as I now know more about how to present it, and have smoothed over some of the rough edges, plus I'll have more time to work through the material.

Getting Away - Watching Blue Birds - A Day at the Pond - A Day Fishing

I had a rather disappointing and discouraging week at work last week.  Everything is fine really, nothing bad happened, but sometimes circumstances and events pile up to where I have to say to myself...'I've had enough'...so I tacked on a couple days of vacation to the weekend for some rest and recovery.

On Thursday Kris and I spent a good part of the day first sitting in the swing under the shade tree in the backyard listening to and watching all the song birds. By mid morning we headed out to the pond a few hundred yards behind our house.

We carried a couple of folding chairs, my camera, and found a shade to sit in.  For the most part we just sat there and talked...took a few photos...talked some more, and enjoyed the the morning and later the cooling effects of an afternoon breeze.

I had fun watching her get excited about taking some photo's...looking for interesting things to zoom in close to like the Lady Bug crawling on  Buttercups, one of the days favorites, and finding parts of the pond that would tell the story of that day.  Too often we hurry about looking for stuff and never see really it in our rush to find it, when by simply sitting and slowing down, the good things tend to come to us instead. That's what happened that day...ordinary things suddenly became interesting subjects to observe and photograph.

We shared the camera...I took a few...but she did most of the picture taking and did a pretty good job of it.  The day at the pond was split into two sessions...the morning, and then again that afternoon for a couple of hours.  Between the two we grabbed a bite to eat and stopped over at Romanza Johnson Park and enjoyed the flowing waters of Trammel Creek.  It was a good relaxing day.

On Friday, I loaded up the canoe, fishing gear, and packed a lunch, then headed over to Shanty Hollow Lake about a 30 minute drive north of Bowling Green.  It's a great little lake perfect for canoe fishing, but alas, the fishing turned out rather slow.  You know, I really didn't care...I just enjoyed getting out.


I spent most of the day there soaking up some sun, and exercising my canoeing and casting muscles.  I didn't even take the camera as I just wanted to unwind and not worry about anything interfering with that endeavor.

Although I enjoy photography and it has become a larger part of my life in recent years, I often feel like I've lost a part of my identity as the traditional activities like fishing and canoeing and even spending a day at a pond have succumb to the trials of making a living far more than I ever envisioned.  I realize circumstances change, our lives evolve as we get older, and often we allow complacency to fill the gaps that develop.  I suppose taking a couple of days to spend a day at a place like the pond, or to revisit those older passions, become more important the older you get.  I'm certainly grateful for having had the opportunity to do so.

Keith