PixelatedImage Blog

This month’s free Desktop Wallpaper. Antarctica, December 2011.
Click the image to get the full-resolution version. Speaking of resolution…

Resolution or Resolve?
I was going to let New Year’s eve come and go without using the word resolution. But then I started thinking about my own reluctance to embrace the whole topic, and I felt a sermon growing….

It’s that time of year again, when we as a culture gather our collective optimism and in one great seizure of denial we’ll make promises to ourselves that, for the most part, are mercifully short-lived, coming into this world all but stillborn and saving us from changing our lives for yet another trip around the sun. I’m weary of seeing friends making resolutions but seeing no change in their lives, lives that I know are so full of brilliance and potential; so many resolutions, so little resolve, and so very little change.

A resolution is a one-time decision. A mile-marker on our journey, on which we look back when we forget from whence we’ve come and lost sight of where we’re going. But it’s nothing more. The moment you make it, it begins to lose its momentum, and there are very few of us for whom that resolution carries much lasting strength. It’s just the way it is. It’s a strong indicator of a desire, but a poor agent of change. It may, at best, be a compass, but it’s not an engine. And waiting for the magic of January One is just silliness. Do it now. Not tomorrow. Not later.

Over this past year I’ve had greater opportunity to reflect on my life than I expected. Whether I’m “Living the dream” or not, I am unashamedly living my own dreams. But none of them come on a silver platter. They come with intention and resolve, they come rough and demand polishing, and they – all of them – extract a price. But I am amazed at how much we can accomplish when we pay that price, and stop screwing around, living our lives in such ad hoc fashion. Whatever it is you hope for this coming year, don’t stop at resolutions. Find resolve. Then map it out. How are you going to do it? Monthly, weekly, daily, what does this dream require of you? Now do it, and do it with all the strength you’ve got. You have one brief, beautiful, unique life to live, and only a limited handful of matches with which to set your world ablaze. Don’t you dare waste them.

January 2012 Desktop Wallpaper.
You knew it had to be Antarctica on this month’s wallpaper, didn’t you? This is a 2560 x 1600 desktop wallpaper, so it’ll fit everything from iPads to 30″ displays, just click HERE for the full-resolution image.

Heading to Africa.
On New Year’s Day I’ll be on an early evening flight to Frankfurt, then on to Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to join Jeffrey Chapman and 8 others for the next Within The Frame Adventure. We’re heading north from Addis to the ancient town of Lalibela to join thousands of pilgrims for Orthodox Christmas. I was there 5 or 6 years ago and it was one of the most magical experiences of my life. I remember at the time thinking how much I just wanted several days to explore and photograph, but our itinerary didn’t allow it. Now we’ll have that time. Can’t hardly wait. I’ve no idea how accessible internet will be, but if I can do so, I’ll drop a line. Then on the 14th we return to Addis, head to Nairobi and get ready for the Masai Mara Within The Frame adventure, and I’ll probably be off the map until I get home from Zanzibar on/around the 1stof February. But if I can send a postcard, I will. Happy New Year, friends.

I want to join my little penguin friend in wishing you a very Merry Christmas. If you celebrate Hanukkah, like much of my family, then a happy Hanukkah to you. If you celebrate something else, or nothing at all, then I wish you the same: peace, joy, and a new year that is filled with the same. I still celebrate Christmas, and I celebrate hard. It pains me that it’s so commercial, the heart of it being so much the opposite of all we seem to strive for at this time of year. Christmas to me is deeply personal, a celebration of the possibilities and hopes of the deepest longings of our hearts: peace on earth and the making right of all that brings us sorrow. It’s the annunciation of the angel to the world that God sees our tears and chooses not only to wipe them away but to share them. Some days it takes more faith than others to believe. Still, I believe.

2011 was a rough year. Like all years. It was also amazing. I lost, to cancer, a friend who was dear to my heart, and gained others. I mourn her loss, and celebrate the others. I celebrate this world of wonders in which we live, and the fact that not only can I still walk, but I’m still alive. I love this line from a Marc Cohn song: Maybe Life was curious to see what you would do with the gift of being left alive. Indeed. And I celebrate you all, gifts to me from a God whom I still believe to be good and kind, despite evidence to the contrary at times. In this season I am profoundly grateful for what, and whom, I have, both to God and to all those who by choice are gifts in my life. Thank you for every comment, every email. Thank you too for supporting me and my Craft & Vision team; every eBook you buy is a gift to me, keeping me and the 13 other authors and 5 others on my team at least partly fed. Your purchase of my books not only gives me an audience but a livelihood, and I don’t take that for granted, either. From the bottom of my heart thank you. And from all of us over here, we wish you the happiest of holidays, the merriest of Christmasses, and a 2012 filled with peace, joy, health, and the fullness of a life lived in gratitude. Merry Christmas, Friends.

I am a Ninja. Antarctica, 2011. Photo by John Birch

I am officially going off the grid on December 19. No more twitter, FB, blogging, or otherwise. I turn 40 on December 24, and will be offline, cuddled up, and celebrating 40 years. I’ve already got a wallpaper posted for January 01, and that’ll go up as the new year turns on the east coast of North America. From there I’ll post postcards as I can; I’ll be in Ethiopia and Kenya and Tanzania until February 01, then I’ll be back in full force. See you then. And until then, my very best of the season. Cheers!

Over a year ago I released Vision Is Better, essentially an eBook version of this blog, and it’s become one of the best-selling titles under the Craft & Vision umbrella, which I think is (a) awesome and (b) amusing. I’m not quiet about the fact that Vision Is Better, and now Vision Is Better, Volume 2, is really just a great re-hash of this blog; the last thing I want is to quietly sell you something you could get for free. The reason we offer it is because, well, you really can’t get this for free. We’ve taken the blog, pulled out a ton of the somewhat dated content, announcements, and general chaff, then we added a couple previously unpublished essays, took out some (but not all of the original typos) and had our Design Ninja, Luke Taylor, re-package it. And it’s yours to access on your iPad, or laptop, whenever and wherever you like. No surfing, no frantic looking for a wifi signal, no huge data bills just to find that essay you want to re-read.

Vision Is Better 2 is similar to the first in that we’ve collected the best essays from the blog, and bundled them together. It differs because this year was profoundly different for me, and so there’s some of that journey too. If you read this blog (and you do, don’t try to tell me you don’t!) you know this year wrapped itself around an unexpected life-changing adventure for me, and some of that is in there too. So is the Life is Short stuff. And the usual rants. And bigger photographs than what you get on the blog. Frankly, it’s what this blog should be, but isn’t because I’m busy and these walls don’t just fall off themselves, you know. (Inside joke which you will totally find hilarious if you buy this ebook.)

If you read this blog (see comment above!) then think of this as your yearbook. If we meet in person I’ll sign it. If you do not read this blog (ahem), then you’ll still want it because, I believe, it can make you a better photographer. No, not like that new lens was meant to do. If there’s one thing I believe will make us all stronger photographers, it’s mindfulness. Intent. (Please don’t make me use the word “vision” again.). The subtitle for Vision is Better was Free the Mind, Free The Camera. This time it’s Free The Mind, The Camera Will Follow. Same, same, but different, (as they say in S.E. Asia) because the reason I continue to write remains the same: the way we think is the way we see, and we’ll make better photographs when we spend as much time honing our minds and our hearts as we do memorizing the buttons on the camera.

As you can imagine, there’s a ton of pages in this thing. If you love this blog and don’t want to shell out $5, it’ll still be here as it always is. Free. But if you want to access this content over and over again, in a format that’s easier to read, a little more intentionally curated, and includes a couple essays I’ve never published, then it’s all yours, as it always is, for only $5. Unless you buy it this week, then it’s only $4. And of course, those of you with a subscription to the Craft & Vision Community, this is yours to download for free this month.

Save $1 – Pay just $4 if you use coupon code VIB4.
Save $3 – Get the Vision is Best Bundle for $7 if you use coupon code VIB7.
Save 20% – Get 5+ PDF eBooks for less if you use the discount code VIB20.

These discount codes expire Wednesday, December 21 at 11:59pm (PST).

Emily, just back from the final trip to the outfitters and ready for February.

A friend once told me to watch the Pixar movie UP. Aside from the fact that I was crying like a little girl within the first 10 minutes (be warned), there was something about it that resonated powerfully with me. Part of that was the exploration of the idea of adventure. The phrase “Adventure is Out There!” is sounded often in the movie, like an anthem, and while that adventure generally refers to the journey of the unlikely heroes to Paradise Falls, South America, it’s also clear that, for at least one of the characters, the greatest adventure was love. It’s touching, and it should be no surprise to anyone the comes here once in a while that I’ve come close to having Adventure is Out There tattooed over my heart.

In February, a year after I started the adventure that went wildly off the rails, I’ll resume my road-trip, but it is not a resumption of the adventure; the adventure never stopped. No adventure ever goes to plan, and if it was adventure I wanted when I set out in my ’93 Land Rover Defender, JESSIE, it’s adventure I got. I made photographs in the rain all the way down the Oregon coast with my friend Dave Delnea, until he got into the Poison Oak, became so hideously deformed he was scaring children, and had to leave the country. I photographed and camped in Death Valley with my best friend and manager, Corwin, and then through Monument Valley and Zion, and into New Mexico, camping the whole way, and photographing as we went. I drove to the Gulf of Mexico. Spent time in New Orleans. Hung out with friends in Atlanta. I flew to Italy and fell in love. I also fell off a wall and shattered my feet. I came home and crawled my way through healing until my bones mended and I went to rehab. And then a couple days after they let me go home I jumped a plane for Laos, Cambodia, and Thailand, where, among other things, I joined 8 new friends as we floated down the Mekong River in a long-boat. And then there was Oaxaca, and Roatan, and then Antarctica. So much of it was unexpected, so much didn’t go to plan. And all of it was gloriously life-giving. And as strange as it sounds, I truly wouldn’t change a thing. This has been one of the most extraordinary years of my life.

I don’t want it to end. Being nomadic is teaching me so much, and while I’ve been sojourning at my family home for the last few months, and while I learned to walk again, I got more time with my family than I’ve had in 20 years. You can see why the idea of returning to so-called normal doesn’t really appeal. So on February 01, I return from travels in Ethiopia, Kenya, and Tanzania, and pack EMILY (above. I’ll do a Jeep-geek post some other time) and head out.

Adventure is out there, but it’s also in here. It’s an inner game. What separates adventure from the mundane is an openness to the unexpected and a willingness to embrace it, laugh your way through it when you aren’t gritting your teeth, and learn from it. It’s not a freedom from fear, it’s an unwillingness to let it have even one day of your already beautiful, short, fragile, one-of-a-kind life. It’s being present, 100% in your art, your relationships, the way you raise your children, and the way you open your heart to strangers. You can do that from a hospital bed, unable to move, and you can do that from the base camp of Everest. It’s a choice, a posture of the mind and heart. It is not the exclusive domain of the privileged, the healthy, or the strong. It is for all of us that, if you’ll pardon the worn cliche, are willing to hear the music and have the courage to dance without shame.

Tonight we launch Vision Is Better 2, the follow-up of the first one of the same name. It’s 44 essays, almost all previously published here on this blog, about the photographic life and craft. It includes much of my own adventure from this year and lessons learned. And it includes a couple un-published essays. Essentially it’s a sweet re-design of the best blog posts from the last year, available in one place, off-line, and always available. It’ll be available right here on the blog, with discounts as usual during the first week after launch. Whether you chose to buy the book, or not, thanks to you all for being part of this amazing adventure. Some of you were with me, in this blog, Twitter, and FB, through my darkest times, and made them lighter. Some of you were with me in Italy when I fell, in Laos when I made my first scared steps back to traveling, or in Antarctica as I experienced what it feels like to create work I love for the first time in a long while. Thank you so, so much. You remain my fans, friends, and family, but more than that you remain, in the most sincerest terms, my heroes. Thank you.

Well, that’s a wrap. I’m sitting in Houston awaiting a flight to Toronto, then one more to Ottawa. I left Antarctica on Wednesday and with the Drake Passage and flights, it’s so far taken 4 days to get home. But what a trip! I hope I’ve already expressed on how much fun this trip was, how much I enjoyed being able to bring you along with me via the blog, and how grateful I am for your comments and encouragement. This trip was a working trip for me, a return to intentionally exploring and creating, and it blew the doors off my expectations. After all the travel I really had less than a week to work, but what a place in which to do that. Antarctica is something special, a place I already long to return to again and again.

Practically, I shot with two bodies most of the time. For all my talk about going light I eventually caved in and brought my 300/2.8 and 24mm tilt-shift lens. I didn’t take the tilt-shift out once, and I could have done just fine without the 300/2.8. I was much more interested in the wider landscapes, so the 16-35/4.0 was on one body all the time, and the 70-200/2.8 on the other. Penguins don’t run away, so proximity’s not an issue. I suppose had we seen many whales I’d have wanted the reach of a 300mm, but there are smaller 300mm lenses than the massive, and expensive 300/2.8. I might consider taking one of those next time. I could have used a tripod once or twice, but was glad to have left it behind.

The big “must haves” in Antarctica are a good supply of lens cloths, and an easy way to waterproof your gear. I saw alot of people with rain covers, but those do nothing to stop the rain, snow, and spray from spotting the front of the lens,which was my biggest struggle and rain covers drive me insane. If it’s raining so hard I need to protect my gear, it’s impossible to keep the front of a wide lens clean, so I don’t bother. I just brought a couple large OR (Outdoor Research) dry bags, clipped to my lifejacket, or shoved in my pockets when not in use. Simple and cheap and easy to cram a camera into when the waves got choppy and threw spray into the zodiac.

My biggest worry was that shooting beside so many photographers would either stifle my creativity or produce similar photographs, but it was amazing how much alone time I had to shoot, and how so many photographers created such different work. I’m coming home with a body of work I’m thrilled with, and am already making plans to go back. One of the big thrills was meeting so many of my readers and having a chance to share meals, shoot together, and explore this amazing piece of our planet together. Thanks for hanging out with me!

Two more images from the trip…

Gear is Good. Soup Is Better. Courtesy of John Paul Caponigro.

This much fun should be illegal. Antarctica, 2011

*I’ve put my complete packing list into the comments, so read down if you’re interested.

One last postcard from Antarctica. We’re on the Drake Passage now, and heading back to Ushuaia before I start the long journey home. What a trip this has been. Daily trips in the zodiacs, time spent on land with fearless penguins and seals, and more time to make photographs than I’ve had in a long time. I’ve got a selection of about 100 final images, from which I want to pull a body of work, perhaps 30 final photographs. Sadly, I’m saving most of those for another project, so it’ll be a while before you see them, but I hope it’ll be worth the wait when you do. I also plan to put together a small Blurb book of the trip. This is the first time in ages I’ve worked on output of a personal nature, instead of putting it out there immediately for consumption.

We saw a small pod of Orca, the Antarctic Killer Whale. Amazing that I lived in Vancouver for 15 years and had to come to the Antarctic to see my first Orca. No photographs to speak of, just the magic of seeing them out there in the mist.

Thanks so much for joining me on this journey, it’s been an incredible adventure, one I hope to repeat every year. I can’t imagine never coming back to this beauty. When I get home I go in for what I hope it the last surgery, and the last you’ll hear about my feet. Then I’m off to San Diego and the Napa Valley to spend my 40th birthday and Christmas. I’ll post something again when I’m home in a few days.

Today was a blast. We spent the morning in “the Iceberg Graveyard” and the afternoon on Petermann Island. The afternoon landing was incredible. Easily the most beautiful landing so far. I brought only my 300/2.8 lens with me, which turned out to be a mistake, but I made some fun penguin portraits before returning to the ship to swap my 300mm for a 16-35 lens and and do some landscapes. Here, because so many of you seem to like penguins as much as I do, are a couple more in the series I’m working on.

Petermann Island is the furthest point south on this adventure. We’re currently heading north towards the Drake Passage and while we hope to land again tomorrow, it’s all dependant on weather, which has not been in our favour. This is likely the last postcard you’ll get from me before I’m back home, and that might take a few days. I’ll do what I can to get one more postcard out before the journey is over. Thanks for joining me, it’s been really fun getting these out to you and reading your comments.

One quick postcard before leaving the Iceberg Graveyard in which we’ve spent the morning chasing ice and seals and dodging a blizzard. The seals were tough, but not for the usual reasons. Most of the time wildlife runs away or buggers off. Not here. Here they just don’t give a damn and it’s all you can do to get them to open their eyes or lift their heads. I came close to throwing snowballs at these seals, just to get their attention. I’m not proud of it, but a man’s gotta do what a man’s gotta do. (Kidding about the snowball…mostly.)

We’ve been floating now for something like 5 days, but I haven’t looked at a calendar. Time here passes very differently, in part because the light just sticks around for so long, and in part because so much of this incredible landscape blends into each other after a while. So much beauty is almost overwhelming. I woke this morning to a cold morning, adrift in a sea of white ice, pulled the covers over my head and went back to bed. I’m still there waiting for the wake-up call and the motivation to pull on the wool and fleece and go find coffee. At the risk of oversaturating you with these vast landscapes, here’s another from a day or two ago. Click the image to see it a little larger.

Thanks so much for joining me on this adventure. I’ve read all the comments and emails, forgive me for not replying. Bandwidth and time are in short supply.

I’ll give you three guesses about January’s Desktop Wallpaper.

I’m on a boat, ice-breaking through the Lemaire Channel in Antarctica, the snow is blowing in huge flakes on high winds. Spent this afternoon on a zodiac, again, chasing light and ice. Amazing place. Came back to the boat and had a martini (possibly two) iced with the clearest ice – straight from the antarctic ocean – I’ve ever seen. And now it’s almost 9pm and we’re in a sea of ice. I’ve never been in such an infinite, serene, wild place. Anyways, here’s one more postcard, click it to see it larger. Hope y’all are well. I’ll reply to comments and Twitter etc., again, when I’m back in a world that doesn’t charge $1.50/mb.