Well, it seems that recently my regular HTPYL work has been eclipsed by a big round plateful of other stuff—you know, the usual litany… some health stuff, family stuff, a couple of presentations to prepare, conferences to attend, other travel, etc.
But the intervening stuff has passed by us now and it’s full sun ahead!
So I’m rededicating myself to our beloved How To Photograph Your Life community and getting back to some exciting new stuff we’re working on for you all.
I’ve been thinking about my purpose and what we do here at “HTPYL” so want to share with you…
It’s difficult for me to put my finger on exactly where this all started. First, came the cameras. That much I know. But then, some short years later, I realized that helping other photographers—and not necessarily younger— to achieve and satisfy their vision, was as worthwhile as what I could do with the camera. In fact, helping photographers older than myself reach places on the photographic food chain they felt may have been out of reach were probably some of my most satisfying teaching moments.
Sometimes my involvement ebbs and flows a little bit. That’s putting it mildly. But the desire to be there for so many talented and worthy photographers has never diminished. (I’ve been doing what I call the Fan Photo of the Day for over 10 years. and then, for all kinds of personal problematic reasons, I have stepped aside for a while, and let it rest on the vine. But it keeps coming back, in its slightly new form that will keep all of us, I hope, energized and educated.
Education is actually a fairly accurate term for what goes on around here. And I do mean that in the most joyful, positive way. It’s not just me with a fancy photography degree sharing what I know. It’s so many other amateurs and semi professionals giving everything they have, too.
If this is coming across as some kind of plea for photographers, willing to give of themselves to other less, experienced practitioners it would not be completely far off. But mostly, we’re looking for people to join our community who want to lose themselves in the beauty of the most incredible machine ever made. I don’t say those words lightly. a machine that can record not just any human face, but the most important faces in your world is by definition the most important you will ever know.
I’m getting a little chill up my spine writing this. I hope you can feel one, too. We’ll soon be inviting you to the next iteration of our community and some exciting free programs coming up. We hope you’ll join us. Come along for what we have planned. Participate and share. Spread the goodwill. Make new friends. It’s all going to happen. I’ve seen it hundreds of times before.
F8 and be there.
p.s. I didn’t make it to the area of totality, but the view from our neck of the woods, with the clouds (and they were key), made for a pretty dramatic display in the New York sky (3 hours from totality). I shot this with my iPhone 15, with the exposure cranked as dark as I could get it to go with manual exposure, and zoomed in to 5X. Drama ensued. I protected my iPhone lens with a pair of eclipse glasses!
How bout you? Get any good eclipse photos? If so I’d love to see. Share them here in our Facebook page.
