"There is nothing worse than a sharp image of a fuzzy concept."
          Ansel Adams

" Technical perfection is not the goal of photography: seeing life is."
          Ellis Vener

I've been looking at photographer quotes lately, and I want to share a couple that really appeal to me:

"Dodging and burning are steps to take care of mistakes God made in establishing tonal relationships."
    Ansel Adams (of course!)
"Never forget that all the great photographs in history were made with more primitive equipment than you already own."
    Brooks Jensen

I'll share more of these as I find them...

Things seem to be closing in on me! When I looked at my schedule a week or so ago, I had lots of time - time to take it easy for a little while. The next time I looked, I was already late for a couple of things, and everything else was pressing me hard. Between getting ready for my White Sands workshop and getting ready for the Balloon Fiesta Arts & Crafts Festival, I really didn't seem to have quite enough time. And then, I sort of signed up to help a friend move, and we are having a Grand Opening/Open House at the studio, and I am tasked to build a practice broad jump for agility training: and there's not enough time!

So I am going to do the only thing that makes sense: just do what I want. And what I want is to go down to the Butterfly Pavilion at the BioPark and take pictures of butterflies and maybe dragonflies as well.

Meanwhile, you are all invited to the Open House: Saturday, September 22nd, from 1 to 5PM. The location is at Carr Imaging and Jeremy Stein Photography, 3748 Eubank Blvd NE. Come check out the new place; we'll be delighted to see you! There'll be special prices on the art, too!

We're roughly east of the Mountain View Montessori School building. There's a sign on Eubank for Carr Imaging, turn east there and go straight back behind the school. There's a nice map of our location on the www.carrimage.net website, if  you need it.

We're in the process (long process) of cleaning house. I don't mean cleaning to make everything spic & span; I mean cleaning out stuff that we no longer use or need. We haven't done this for a long time, so there is an immense amount of such stuff!

As part of the process, I am going through negatives from long ago, when I had a B&W darkroom and shot and processed an amazing number of pictures. It's like time travel; I look at those people and I remember them (mostly), but they're so young - so appallingly young! And the details I notice - details about the rooms we lived in, the clothes we wore, the casual gestures and expressions - these bring back so many memories. Some of the people are gone now, but here they are, frozen for a moment to live, piecewise, again. Some of these photos and the memories they bring back are almost more than I can stand.

So this is a plea of sorts: save photos of those near and dear to you! Save them in the most long-lasting, safest means you can. That's probably on your hard drive or maybe on CD/DVD's. Then, someday, you and those who follow you will be able to revisit these friends and loved ones, and you will thank me for this advice.

Here's a fine opportunity for some shameless self-promotion. On September 27-29, 2012, I am leading a photo workshop at White Sands National Monument. It is titled "Digital Color Photography at the White Sands," and is part of the White Sands Institute, sponsored by NMSU-Alamogordo, White Sands National Monument, and the City of Alamogordo.

From the brochure:

"Photograph beautiful White Sands, one of the natural wonders of the United States. This workshop will include indoor lectures and field photography sessions, demonstrations, and hands-on tutoring of digital photographic techniques. Early morning and sunset photo sessions, including moonrise, will present unique opportunities."

The cost for the seminar is $200. For more information or to register, contact: NMSU Alamogordo Community Education, phone: 575-439-3842 or go to www.nmsua.edu/communityed/ and click on White Sands Institute. If you have any questions, feel free to call me at 505-328-8060 or email me at jeremy@jsteinfoto.com.

This website has just gone live today, and it seems to me that this is an ideal opportunity for me to have a soapbox from which I can complain, praise, and just generally make a lot of noise for the miniscule fraction of the general population that may accidentally read my ravings.

Since this blog is attached to a photography website, I suppose I should limit my subjects to matters related to photography - shouldn't I? Well, maybe I should, but I don't want to be constrained in that way. Just because I am a photographer does not mean that I think only about photography! Therefore, you may expect that I will comment on anything that strikes me as worthy of comment. Also, I will not promise to post every day or on any schedule whatsoever - I'll comment when something comes along that I want to talk about.

Finally, welcome! I'm happy to have you here, and I will promise to appreciate your attention. Thanks for coming by...