What is this?
I have taken thousands of pictures. When I went to New Zealand
late in 1993, I took 30 rolls of 36 exposure slide film. Suffice it
to say, documenting the trip cost about as much as the air fare!
To showcase some of my images, I've created a gallery that
consists of a set of albums. The links under the heading will take
you to the albums. Each album appears as its own web page and
consists of less than 50 images to be a little more download
friendly. (Or as download friendly as any image gallery can be.)
Note also that the background image does not
appear on the album pages. I found it a bit distracting so I went
with a neutral grey. The viewing area has been maximized as
well by getting rid of just about everything but the main navigation
and the album itself.
Horizontal (X) and vertical (Y) images are separated into
different albums. I don't care for flipping from vertical to
horizontal viewing on devices like my iPhone, thus the
segregation.
I doubt this gallery will ever contain more than a small fraction
of my total image library if for no other reason than I like
taking the pictures, not documenting them!
Frame Worthy
Sometimes, it seems that the photo-gods tap me on the shoulder
and I take a shot that really resonates with me. If I had infinite
wall space and infinite money to afford the framing, these are the
ones I'd frame.
frame
worthy
Landscapes
Probably no surprises here, one of my favorite subjects. The
album consists mostly of grand vistas, but there are also more
close-in shots, just to mix it up.
landscapes
Sunsets
In a perfect world, I could travel at 1,000 MPH and have a
continuous sunset in front of me. I've actually considered writing
a science-fiction or fantasy novel where there was a floating city
that did just that: Circled around its world so fast that it had a
continuous sunset in front of it.
sunsets
Plants
Plants and wildflowers are some of my favorite subjects.
Probably half the pictures I've taken are of flowers. Not only are
plants a great subject, but they normally sit still for you. They
don't scare easily and they don't demure because they are having a
bad hair day. However, they are not completely without challenges.
The wind can make it very hard to capture the image you want. The
lighting in the woods can be challenging too. Not to mention
stepping on nettles!
I've included the genus and species if the image is of a single
subject and I happen to know the botanical name.
plants
New Zealand
In 1993, I took a month off of work, spending three weeks of
that time in New Zealand. Spring in NZ begins the end of Dec. and I
was there before the season started. It's quite a switch to those
of us who grew up in the northern hemisphere to see rain and spring
flowers at Christmas time!
New Zealand, as far as my experience allows, is the most
naturally beautiful spot on the planet. I've been to a lot of nice
places (Hawaii, San Diego, Florida, Vermont, Tonga, etc.) but none
have the entire package like NZ: Hot springs, snow-capped
mountains, tropical beaches, evergreen beach forests, glaciers, all
packed into an area the size of Missouri and Kansas. (I would be
remiss to not mention that, although the Grand Canyon
is the most single awe-inspiring thing I've ever seen, the entirety
of NZ makes it the top of my list.)
I also have to mention that the New Zealanders are amazingly
open, courteous and friendly to strangers. It was a joy to visit
their little corner of the planet. Whether that still holds true
today, I cannot say, but it is certainly one of my treasured
memories.
new zealand
Texas
Texas is a big place. I didn't spend a lot of time there, but I
did take quite a few pictures that I think are worth sharing.
Incidentally, Texas has its own album while Missouri does not
because I've been to way more places in Missouri than I have Texas.
In fact, there will probably be several albums for specific locals
in Missouri as more images get added to the albums.
texas
Miscellaneous
As in life, not everything groups together with everything else.
If this gets too big, it will be split up.
miscellaneous
Site Backgrounds
There are eight possible background images on this site (if you
are not looking at it on a browser less than 767 pixels wide).
Instead of just hitting reload to see them all, it seemed courteous
to show both the full-color and the processed versions.
To achieve the effect, the images were first converted to
greyscale; then, a noise filter was applied; finally, they were
saved with a very low-quality JPEG compression to produce visual
artifacts. For the album images, I loaded to the JPEG with the
noise and compression artifacts and saved it back out as a PNG to
preserve the effect.
backgrounds