PixelatedImage Blog

This is me being pretentious on the River Nile. In fact I think just telling you it’s the River Nile is itself pretentious. But I talk about being pretentious in the post below, so wanted to give you a visual aid. I applied a pretentious duo-tone as well, just to really drive the point home.

I have to tell you, after a week of writing about vision, I’m worn out. I needed last week – to focus on vision, to get out and play, to take a break from gear talk. But a steady diet of this introspective stuff would be impossible to keep up. You’d have to be a glutton for punishment – like a one of those health nuts that goes a week without chocolate. But  a week of healthy eating, well at least it clears you out, right? What I loved most is that it seemed to resonate powerfully with people – lots of good comments and people using different language to better describe how they see the whole thing. On matters like this I think the questions are as important as the answers, if not more so.

Yesterday was the first chance I’ve had to meet a number of the folks who interact on this blog, and some that just lurk too. We converged on the studio of my friend Kevin Clark, had some snacks and some wine and spent three hours talking, hanging out and playing. Truly a fun time that left me energized and wanting more. 3 hours was just not enough!  So while I probably need to wait a few weeks before we do it again, I’d like to do a repeat in late May when my book is out. We’ll call it a book release party but you and I know it’s just an excuse to get together and write the whole thing off. I’ll bring books to sign, possibly do a reading while smoking a pipe, looking pretentious and  saying things like, “As I wrote in my first book…” and so on. You can have a glass of wine and put up with me being an insufferable bore, etc. Anyways, I had a blast on Saturday – thanks to all of you who came and filled the studio with chatter and laughter. Let’s do it again. (And if you have photographs that are not incriminating, I’d love to see them! I shot about 20 and would be doing no one any favours by posting them!)

I spent today with Ali Rushton, a lovely photographer from Victoria, and the last two nights for dinner with Gary, my producer on World Vision assignments, who was up in Vancouver on business. It’s been a full weekend, and I’m sad to see it end.

Lastly, I’ve now seen four chapters of the book as they’ve come out of layout and they look really fantastic. It’s been a year in the making from start to finish but it’s almost here and I can tell you with great authority and bias that my book team, particularily my editor and designer – are truly the best at what they do.

If there’s one thing this weekend has reminded me of it’s that the photographic community is full of interesting, generous, kind people, and we just don’t hang out enough. I aim to change that. I have some ideas in the works, and i don’t know where they’re heading, but I got me some ideas. Y’all are good folk and I appreciate you.