Learning Moments:

Quail Chicks at Carmel Mission, CA

It's the time of year when you need to keep your eyes open. Warm weather brings bare skin, ice cream trucks, fresh blooms, and babies of all types.

I was taking photos at beautiful Carmel Mission this afternoon, when a little bird sprinted across the courtyard in front of me. My first thought was, 'uh oh... someone fell out of a nest'. After watching the little bugger do three hundred-yard dashes, however, I realized that he didn't fall anywhere. This was a ground bird.

Soon, a couple of his family joined him. They zipped back and forth maniacally, like the Keystone Cops. I just sat back and watched, snapping photos on the few occasions that they stood still. The groundskeeper and I had a short conversation about them. He hadn't seen them, so he just stood, smiling with me.

Le Grand Tour D'Asia: Day 24 of 58

Singaporean Chinese Beauty, thanks to plan B!

January 31st, 2010

Learning Moment: Singapore

Today, we strolled the streets of Singapore; though Little India, up Orchard Road, and down back alleys. Tonight, while I reviewed the photos I took, I (re)learned two lessons:

1. Always check your settings.
   Always. Check. Your settings.
   I was using my SLR camera in manual mode the other night and never changed it back to aperture priority. As a result, all 150 photos I took with that camera today were either under or over exposed.
2. Have a plan B.
   Redundant systems are our friend.
   Today, I was carrying my pocket camera. For no apparent reason, I took 250 photos with my pocket camera. I never do that when I'm carrying my SLR. Well, almost never. Because I did take those pictures, I captured the Singaporean beauty above, during a promotion for the upcoming Chingay parade.

It was an important - but relatively painless lesson.

And that, my friends, is the best kind of lesson.

Training is a place where we can experience important, but painless lessons.

My job as a facilitator is to make sure that:

A) The lessons are painless, and

B) You realize how important they are.

When I do that - you learn, I learn, and life is good for both of us.

Le Grand Tour D'Asia: Day 15 of 58

The Monkey God Hanuman in a Kathakali Dance

Friday, January 22nd

Learning Moment: Mamallapuram, India

Last night, we attended the annual Mamallapuram Dance Festival. For US$3, you get to watch two hours of traditional Indian dance in front of Arjuna's Penance - one part of a spectacular World Heritage site.

The show featured dancers from Kerala, in Southern India. There were folk dances, as well as the famous kathakali dance. The costumes, as you can see above, are spectacular. We saw men dance in costumes with five-foot wide boards on their backs, and with 20-foot towers attached to them. It was quite a spectacle.

My favorite part of the night came when the character above appeared. I immediately thought 'that's got to be Hanuman'. I don't know why, but I become unreasonable excited when I see the white monkey god from the Ramayana. Part of it is every kids fascination with monkeys, I guess.

Here's clip of the dance, from YouTube.

It's fascinating to see variations on a theme. In two weeks, we'll be in Bali, where the Ramayana dance will present Hanuman in a more physical role, with a more realistic costume.

Two countries, two versions: both creative and impressive.

Further proof that there can always another twist on a common theme.

We're heading back to the festival on Saturday to see classical women's dance.

Le Grand Tour D'Asia: Day 3 of 58

a quiet Chinese temple

Sunday, January 10

Learning Moment: Singapore

Wandering the streets behind Boat Quay, we found this small, but active Chinese temple.

I took some pictures of the grounds and then took this one inside the temple, before the woman here approached me and nicely told me that no pictures were allowed.

I've never been stopped from taking photos in a Chinese temple before.

It just goes to show that one should always ask, I guess...

A New Year Present for all of you...

2009 was a year that could be described with many words: challenging, interesting, difficult, adventure-filled, risky, disappointing, surprising, and opportunity-filled are just a few that come to mind.

Though I did no business travel - for the first time since 1989 - Angie and I still found plenty of excitement.

I assembled this Learning Moments Calendar 2010 to share some of my favorite learning moments of the year with family and friends. Feel free to distribute it...

Little Things...

Is it a cliche? Yep.

Does that diminish its truth? Nope.

Little things are big. Very big.

But only if you notice them.

This photo is a closeup of a ladybug in Half Moon Bay. Easy to overlook, but very cool to watch over the course of 5 minutes.

Tonight, Angie and I walked to La Paloma, our friendly neighborhood Mexican Restaurant. When we got there, we saw a yucca in bloom. Beautiful. Fortunately, we noticed it. It stood about 4 feet above our heads. If we had taken our car, we would have never seen it.

On the way home, I was plucking fruits and flowers for Angie. I grabbed a persimmon. I pulled some small flowers and tossed them to her. Finally, in our complex, I got a handful of little purple flowers and presented them to her. "Do you know what those are?", she asked.

I looked at them and realized I was holding lavender. Really? I took a deep breath.

Really.

Very cool. Lavender is growing in our complex.

I love lavender - in my top five scents, with sandalwood, frangipani, and pizza.

I'm sure there's another, but I'll save one spot for the unexpected...

Visual Ethnography, Art, Obsession, and Inspiration

While in New Mexico, I renewed my fascination with the photography of Edward S. Curtis.

If you don't know his name, you certainly know at least a few of his remarkable photographs.

I just finished reading "Shadow Catcher: The Life and Work of Edward S. Curtis", an excellent overview of the man's obsessive journey to capture the Indian way of life. 

He spent 23 years (1907-1930) chasing these images and basically went broke in the process. 

It's a dramatic story, to say the least. 

But not a sad one. 

From all accounts, Curtis loved what he did and did what he loved. From this I take inspiration.

He was, without question, a remarkable man who produced remarkable images.

In regards to his work, I'll quote George Bird Grinnell, who said, "The results which Curtis gets with his camera stir one as one is stirred by a great painting. When we are thus moved by a picture, and share the thought and feeling that the artist had when he made the picture, we may recognize it as a work of art."

Amen, brother...

Christmas Countdown I

It's going to be quiet Christmas here, as Angie went back east to visit her parents for the holidays.
When she returns, we'll head to Hawaii to celebrate the New Year with The Bangles.

In the meantime, I'll be hanging out in San Jose, working on some projects.

At work, I'm finishing up a comic-book version of one of our classes.
At home, I'm continuing a massive scanning project (I've sent all my slides to ScanCafe, but all the B&W negatives are left to me - I'm at 2000+ so far). It's a slow, but extremely rewarding project, as I get to look back at my friends and experiences.

I love photography, as it gives me an opportunity to capture images of the world I love, and omit images of the world I don't love.
If anyone ever wonders what the world looks like through my eyes - I wish I had a dollar for every time I've heard "What world do you live in?" - they can just look at my images (hues.smugmug.com)

For example - Angels are everywhere in my world.
I took this photo in San Jose del Cabo, Mexico - so Feliz Navidad!

Pictures from Mexico

Angie at Playa Santa Maria

The best of my photos from 10 days in Cabo San Lucas are now posted on my photo site at hues.smugmug.com.

Click here to go straight to the Cabo photos.

You'll find surf, sand, sunsets, some skin, pelicans, turtles, a mission, ceviche, margaritas, turkey legs, christmass goodies, and a hummingbird in a pear tree.

Enjoy!

From Cabo: It's the Little Things that Matter...

Today we hiked up Fox Canyon, in the Sierra Mountains West of Cabo San Lucas.

I always hope for dramatic wildlife spottings - mountain lions, coyote, poisonous snakes... but that's rare.

We did see a coyote, but he took off before we could take photos. So, as is often the case, the highlights were found in the little things.

In this case, my little green friend was the highlight of the day. He didn't like being handled. Every time I caught him, he escaped. But I'm persistent. Finally, he posed for me.

Ladies and Gentlemen: my friend, the frog.

From Cabo: Hummingbirds, Photography, and Learning

A hummingbird at Plaza Mijares, San Jose del Cabo

A few days ago, I mentioned that pelicans are one of my three favorite birds, along with kingfishers and hummingbirds.

Today, I was lucky enough to be able to photograph a hummingbird feeding on flowers in the Plaza Mijares.

Photography is one of my addictions, for many reasons:

• photography is a tool I use for making memories (as opposed to capturing them)
• I enjoy the technical aspects
• I find viewfinders to be an excellent tool for seeing
• I find the process of interpreting a scene fascinating
• I enjoy working with the environment - light, shadow, clouds, people
• Tracking and anticipating the movements of people and wildlife is challenging. It combines the skills of an anthropologist, a naturalist, a psychologist, a musician, an athlete, and sometimes a seer
• I constantly learn through all of the above

This was a challenging shot.

The hummingbird was shy. People were milling around and scaring it away.

There were too many flowers in bloom. The hummingbird was flitting erratically from one to another and then back. It was difficult to predict where he would be next.

The light was contrasty. The hummingbird spent much time in shadows, where a good photo was impossible.

I sat around these bushes (there were 4 of them in a 50 foot stretch) for about 40 minutes. The hummingbird spent about ten of those minutes around the bushes. During those ten minutes, I took ten photos.

While this is not an award winning picture, I'm quite happy with it as a record of a beautiful day, an extraordinary creature, and my efforts to capture both.

Weekend Getaway: Coyote Ugly? I don't think so...

Yesterday, we hiked in Henry Coe State Park. It was our first visit to the park and the weather couldn't have been better - 80 Degrees and sunny. We only saw three other hikers on the trails, so it was a nice quiet fall hike.

We took the Frog Lake Trail, to Middle Ridge, to the Fish Trail and then returned to headquarters. Oak, Manzanita, California Buckeyes, and Pine were our companions throughout the trek. Here's the Park map.

Although we hiked 7.5 miles, the highlight of the trip occurred within 200 yards of our car. The ranger station and campground area has a resident coyote. This coyote isn't domesticated - let's call him acclimated. He hangs out around the campground, but you can't get within 20 feet or so of him. Still, that's as close as I've ever been to a coyote and that's pretty cool.

He seemed to really enjoy sitting under this tree.

This coyote is notorious for stealing backpacks, fanny packs, and anything else with food in it.

We weren't camping, so that didn't concern us.
We were pleased to spend time up close with such a beautiful animal.

Creative Thinking Through Metaphors

One of the easiest ways to get creative is through the use of metaphors.

Unfortunately, it's way too easy to fall back on cliches when we brainstorm metaphors.

That's why I love using metaphorical images. We lay out 100 or so ambiguous images and ask the group to pick an image that serves as a metaphor for their challenge. After one person shows an image, I'll even ask others to contribute what metaphor they saw in the image. There's usually a big difference.

Today, addressing staffing, one participant picked up an image of a leopard. From that image, the team came up with 'hunting talent', 'scanning the horizon', 'staying hungry', 'tracking leads', 'working in teams', 'moving fast', 'being agile', and 'prowling the popular watering holes'.

Not sure if that last one was about staffing or their Friday night plans...

Either way, the images gave us some power ideas that we wouldn't have reached otherwise.

Three Reasons Why This Was a Great Sunday...

1. The NY Football Giants won a thriller over Cincinnati, in overtime, to go to 3-0. (if you didn't know, I'm from New York)
2. The NY Yankees won the final game played in Yankee Stadium, while giving the 'cathedral' the kind of farewell that only the Yankees seem to do right. As Derek Jeter said to the fans after the game - "Pride, Tradition, and the best fans in the world..."
3. In between #1 and #2, Angie and I squeezed in a nice walk at Alum Rock Park, where I caught the snake pictured above. While it smelled like demon spawn (seriously, I've never smelled anything this bad... I immediately had to wash, twice), it was a beautiful snake, and very generous with the whole 'forked tongue' routine for my camera. When I got home, I found out - courtesy of my Audubon reference book - that garter snakes emit a musk when irritated.
   So, I've been musk'd!
   

The Bali of Dreams...

This is a picture of Balinese women preparing for a an odalan, which is the anniversary of a Balinese Hindu temple.

Today I added more than 60 of my favorite Bali images to my photo site at hues.smugmug.com.

This is a young monkey at the Ubud Monkey Forest.
Bali is one of my favorite places on earth. It's a target-rich environment for a photographer, filled with 'eye-candy'.

The heat forces you to slow down. The sheer volume of stimuli begs you to be present at all times. It's the antidote to civilization.