Based on the amount of stuff that I’ve written over these past few years since I retired, I thought it might be time to create a photographic portfolio of my pictures and thoughts on the web.  This is hopefully the first post of many more to come.

I take photographs so that I can use them as a return ticket to spectacular moments in time, moments for me that might otherwise be gone forever. I take photos to recall places  – with greater vibrancy.  Those photos, those experiences have shaped me and made me who I am right now.

I take photos to the bridge distances and shorten time, to provide a legacy to the little things and real life that can too soon be forgotten.  I take photos so that I can feel like an artist on a Tuesday – and a storyteller on a Sunday.   My photographs – are as a grand meaning as they sometimes take on – and to have others, my friends, my family – see just how beautiful this world really is.

Thanks to my camera that fits in my back pocket and another one that hangs off my shoulder.  With just one the click of a button, I can share our truths of our experiences and our days meals with equal ease.   I can visually chart our history and our adventures with pixels made up of micro moments in time.  I find healing from my blog stories and I have hope that you can also find laughter in mine.

Yet I often wondered – in our lives as busy as most of us live – why do we look for pause in the noise, instead of right under our nose – revel in the experiences we are standing in?   Why do I continue to digitally document our lives long after the day’s is done?   Am I distracting myself from the experience by tinkering head-down with a camera?  If there were only minutes to enjoy that pink evening sky, would it be better to serve my life to take it all in – sans camera?

I don’t have the answers nor am I qualified to set rules around when to put the camera away and when to keep on clicking.  But I do believe that I owe it to authentically examine how photography fits into my own life – paying mind to when it enriches and when it detracts from my NOW moments.   I let my camera be my art, and its images be my history.  My lens carries me through new worlds – and allows my pics to live on as possibly a “new world” for others to see.

I tend to study every square inch of the photograph and celebrate its tones and angles.  But I do study my place in these experiences that have shaped me forever.  I save enough room for life to make art for me and me alone.

And then – after all the photos have been taken and I put the camera down. I let the last photo I didn’t take live on in the quiet place of my memories.

And I return there often.

It’s what happens when I hold up the viewfinder to my eye to compose a shot each and every time.  I love taking photographs.