Category Archives: Image A Day – 2017

Last year I attempted to publish one new image every single day. I only made it a couple of months. But with each new year, we have a chance to try and turn things around. Here’s to 2017 and a complete run for ‘image of the day!’

January 05, 2017 – The Cardinal

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Bird photography is incredibly challenging, but it’s also very addicting. I’m certainly no expert, but there are times when I will grab my telephoto lens, go for a walk or a hike, and hunt around for birds to try and capture.

I’m not the only one who loves cardinals. They’re bright, vibrant creatures with a very distinctive song. I seem to have better luck photographing these guys than just about any other species of bird, too.

I looked up the symbolism behind cardinals recently. Evidently, they make pretty wonderful animal totems – if you’re into that kind of thing. From what I can gather, the cardinal is supposed to remind us to hold ourselves with pride – not ego pride, mind you, but rather to stand tall, be more regal, and step into our natural confidence.

I can dig that.

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January 04, 2017 – Snowstorm In Arizona

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After a glorious New Years celebration in Sedona, Arizona, we decided to take the long way back to Tucson. Although it was sixty miles out of our way, Flagstaff was too close not to pass through. As we approached the mountaintop city, whiteout conditions descended from the hills, a big black mass of winter fury.

Naturally, once we passed through the maelstrom, it was necessary to stop and get our boots wet. Virgin snow is beautiful, but even more-so to the desert-rat. It’s a rare sight for Arizonans – and even though I’m from Kansas, I have to admit an affinity for a landscape draped in fresh snow.

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January 03, 2017 – Muddy Stream

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Textures – a long obsession of mine.
Without spending too much time being overwhelmingly boring, I will say that I have spent weeks – probably months – of my life with a macro lens in my hands and earbuds piping music into my brain, photographing cracks in pavement, tree bark, broken patches of clay-rich earth, rusty garbage containers, and just about anything you can find on a rusting old car or in a back alley, in order to expand my collection of texture images.

My library is extensive.

Some of these images are used to add grit and texture to other photographs I’ve taken (as overlays and double exposures). Some of them reveal themselves to be stand-alone pieces. The image above just so happens to be one of those stand alone pieces. While hiking through the rain-drenched red mud of Sedona, Arizona, there was a moment when I realized I had been paying too much attention to the mountains towering over me – that’s what always captures people’s attention – and I needed to take a moment and start looking around.

So I trained my lens on the ground, rather than the high peaks. To the streams and the insects, the animal tracks and the budding cacti, rather than the red rock spires that dominate the landscape. And this is what I got – a portrait of the tiny little stream, the stream that traveled a long distance from a large rock formation, from a mist of rain, to soak into my boots and ensure that my feet would be wet and itchy all day long.

Small price to pay to be reminded how beautiful the world is.

The details, the small little things? They really are beautiful. And they really do matter.

“The past becomes a texture, an ambience to our present.”
~Paul Scott

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January 01, 2017 – New Landscapes

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I started this project last year and I didn’t even make it to the three month mark. Well, we just said goodbye to the year 2016, and I’m going to give this another solid run. One photograph a day – or painting, or drawing, or whatever – for the full 365. I’m beginning this series with a photograph taken with my phone, New Years Day, after waking up hangover-free to a rainy Sedona, Arizona landscape.

It was a good hike, with good, loving company. The best possibly way I think I have ever welcomed the beginning of a new year.

I hope you’ll send me some support and positive thoughts, and I will try my best to keep this project on its feet.
Happy New Year!

“Amateurs sit and wait for inspiration, the rest of us just get up and go to work.”
~Stephen King

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January 02, 2017 – Crying Statues

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This image is an echo of a photograph I took almost seventeen years ago in Boston. I was still in high school, shooting black and white film, and I photographed an image of a statue – a weeping Native American woman, a memorial for the Trail of Tears. In the image a white, long tear can be seen dripping down the statue’s face – pigeon excrement, yes, but it photographed quite well. In today’s image, if you look close to this Sedona statue’s face, the rain is running down her face in a similar – albeit much more subtle – fashion.

Like yesterday’s photograph, this one was taken on vacation in Sedona. I was in the company of a lovely woman, swirling rain-clouds, and the unique red rocks of the region. Hiking in the rain, watching the clouds smother the red rock peaks, and the smell of the Arizona desert – a perfect start to the new year.

“Crying is all right in its way while it lasts. But you have to stop sooner or later, and then you still have to decide what to do.”
~C.S. Lewis

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