I found two websites today infringing on the copyright of one of my images. Both had posted an image used in a UK newspaper article (as well as most of the article text) as if was simply free for anyone to use. I notified the admin on one and the Google Blogger service on the other and successfully got both web pages completely removed within the same day!

With these two plus another case from earlier this year my current score for 2012 is 3 to 0.

Jennifer and I will be visiting San Francisco soon. It will be a first for us as a couple, though we've both been before individually. For my part, I've been many times, but it's been over 10 years since my last visit. I can't believe 10 years passed so fast... I haven't even been to S.F. since I started shooting digital!

Going back to San Francisco is extremely exciting to me and not just for the normal reasons of it being a great city. It's very, very difficult to create great pictures of a location the first time you visit it as a travel photographer. That is not only true for me, but I've heard plenty of other travel photographers say the same thing. Sure, you may get a few really good shots and may even have beginner's luck a time or two, but it really takes knowing a place and not being in a constant state of "Wow! Look at that!" shock to get past tourist snap-shots and concentrate on finding what others miss. All of that said though, I too will shoot "tourist snap-snaps" when they're right in front of me. Why? To get them out of the way and move on. The majority of them get edited out later. (Before someone brings it up I must put in an exception to the "first timers" rule and that is if you spend a significant amount of time in a single location then even on your first visit you can start creating interesting pictures.)

In the case of San Francisco I've seen nearly (and I do stress nearly) all of the major sights, yet it's been 10 years since I've been there. It will all be new again at the same time. I have never had quite that experience before, though it's bound to start happening more as I keep striking off complete decades (i.e. getting OLD) and revisiting places from long ago.

In my early days as a photographer I often thought that extreme physical exertion was required to "get the shot". I wanted to see the world too of course, but often I would embark on quests that resulted in far more hiking and sweating than photographing. I went on plenty of "quests" in San Francisco, and I never had a car except for one trip on which some friends and I shared a car for some trips outside of the city.

I believe my first kamikaze photo quest was when I took a bus from the financial district to The Palace of Fine Arts, probably the most boring attraction in San Francisco. From there I walked all the way to the Golden Gate Bridge (one of those "it doesn't look very far" moments) and across the bridge. My goal was to get to Sausalito where I knew I could take a ferry back. After crossing the bridge though all I could see was a very busy highway and while the bicyclists were rolling by a steady pace I decided I probably shouldn't attempt walking it. (A safe route my exist, but this was before cellphone maps, so I didn't know at the time.) I called for a taxi and after waiting forever took a taxi into Sausalito, did some more photograph, and then the ferry back to San Francisco.

On another quest a friend and I walked from our hotel in the financial district down to Pier 1 and all the way around past Pier 45, walking up to Coit Tower and back down along the way. It was at this point that we both made one of the dumbest travel decisions of our lives. Because the trolley line was forever long and no taxis were in sight (a line there too I believe), in our naive wisdom we decided to walk back to our hotel, up hill all the way back to the financial district. It was sometime during this harrowing adventure that I "blew out" my right foot, an injury that reappears every time I have traveled since while spending the whole day walking.

There were more. There was the time I took a bus to the east end of Golden Gate Park and walked all the way to the ocean (roughly 50 blocks). There were some non-walking adventures too. Todd and I took a bus out to the Cliff House once. The sunset was spectacular. The time of my life spent on the bus I wish I could have back. Then there was the time that Calvin, Todd, and I spent a fun-filled afternoon vomiting over the side of a whale watching boat in the not-so-tranquil waters outside San Francisco Bay. I've never been happier to get back on land in my life, and I actually like boats. By the time we saw a whale no one cared.

Finally, (well, actually there are more stories, but I'll end with this one) there was the time I was staying in Walnut Creek for business and got up long before sunrise on a Saturday morning and took a taxi to the top of Mount Diablo. I had no desire to hike UP the mountain but I thought going down hill all the way would be fairly easy. It was after scanning the vast view from the peak of the mountain that I realized choosing a direction to go down was going to be very important, especially if I had any hope of being back to my hotel before dark. I had no map, the visitor's center was "closed for remodeling" or something similar, and absolutely no one was around. Quite honestly, if it had not been for knowing that I could always follow the road from which I came back down if I had to... I would have probably started to panic. I think one or two prayers transpired before completely out of know where a park ranger appeared. He had been working off the side of the mountain somewhere. He gave me his personal map of the park that he had owned for many years, and it showed, and followed up with some general directions on what trail to take to another trail, then follow the road, then take this other trail, etc. I think I forgot half of what he said within the next five minutes, but he pointed me to a trail-head that was oblivious to me before and off I went. I took a lot of pictures that day, got extremely sun-burned, and eventually made it to the park entrance just as it was getting dark where I called for a taxi.

I look through all of those scanned transparencies now and wish I had taken far more pictures and spent less time walking. It also makes me angry that I had not mastered the professional transparency film that I was shooting at the time (though some negative film too). I really missed the exposures on some incredible shots. However, I also licensed some of those pictures in the years that followed. In fact, one shot that I took on Mount Diablo has sold multiple times. I remember when I came upon the scene after walking for hours down the mountain and thinking, "Wow, that's a great shot". It was also right next to the road, even though it took me a lot more effort than just driving through to get there.

A good friend of mine, Aaron Brewer, is holding an opening reception tonight for People Clearly Annoyed By My Presence -- tonight at Maxine's Gallery in Hot Springs at 8pm. Please come by if you can! Here is the event page on Facebook.

If you can't make it tonight his work will be on display for the rest of the month of May.

This is what happens when you flirt with the waitress at the cafe across the street for a bit too long...

I'm not an early riser. I find getting out of bed before sunrise to be very distressing and physically disturbing. Add in another country and jet-lag, and it's nearly impossible for me. However, on this morning I somehow made it. Very little goes on in Paris in the early morning except for little old ladies buying fresh bread and cheese to go with their wine later in the day. I decided to walk to the Louvre because it was the closet thing from our apartment that might have people milling about. My impromptu plan was to photograph the area in front of the Louvre, the Jardin du Carrousel, and the adjoining Jardin du Luxembourg.

I no more that turned the corner when this female jogger wearing a bright red "photograph me" top came running by.

Sometime, I guess, getting up early is worth it after all. As long as it doesn't become a habit. Here are a few more pictures shot that morning.

See more in my Jardin du Carrousel gallery.

This one falls under "it's better to be lucky than good". A few weeks back I was parked on the side of the road in the Ozark National Forest with my camera setup on a tripod shooting a (boring) photo that included the highway curving off into the distance. Looking through the viewfinder out of the corner of my eye I saw something moving... then... Oh wait!!! Cyclists! I unlatched the camera off the tripod and panned as quickly as I could as the three of them whizzed by. I fired off 8 frames at f/13, 1/40 of a second... All of the frames where blurred except one, but it only takes one! In this shot the back tire of the first rider is tack sharp. I like the fact that the front of him is blurred a bit and the two riders in the back are blurred more, adding to the sense of motion, but a good part of the first bike is super sharp.

You know you are away from most tourists in Paris when you walk into Buttes-Chaumont Park and see a scene like this:

Buttes-Chaumont is one of the most "undiscovered" places in Paris. It's 61 hilly acres are shared between those who want to lay back and do nothing and joggers who want a fierce workout.

There's a 105 foot high man-made waterfall as well as a lake with a man-made island. The clifftop summit of the island has a unique view across Paris to the Sacre-Coeur.

Paris Archive

I have been building an archive of Paris Stock Photography available for licensing for the past ten years and continue to add new work.

During our last stay in Paris this sculpted relief marking the entrance to the "Propriete de la Societe des Cuisiniers" was across the street from our apartment on Rue St. Roch. There are two of these supporting columns on either side of the doorway. Notice from the date inscribed -- 1917. It's relatively young compared to the building our apartment was in across the street which was built in 1650. You can tell by looking at the man's face that he's not looking forward to holding up the building for another 300 or 400 more years, OUTSIDE none the less. One day he probably hopes to retire to a museum.

I just discovered that both NationalGeographic.com and TravelandLeisure.com have published a couple of my images in the past few months for slideshows. National Geographic used one of my pictures of Oahu, Hawaii for their "Ten Best U.S. Beaches of 2011" slideshow, and Travel+Leisure used a picture of Casco Bay, Maine off the coast of Portland for their "World's Most Beautiful Ferry Rides" slideshow.