It was a beautiful day, and I was headed home … or so I thought … from a fruitful shoot on the eastern side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in northern California. (Here are two of the many photographs I took there, one overlooking Mono Lake, the other peering into an old, vacant barn near the village of Lee Vining – yes, that’s the actual name.)               No matter which route I took, unless I was content to go via Cape Horn, it would send me through Yosemite National Park. Although I can think of far less scenic passages, at the time I was not interested in taking any Ansel Adamsesque photos of Half Dome or anywhere else in this awe-inspiring park. Rather, I was desirous of getting home as expeditiously as possible. Because traffic was more brutal than I had expected, I was able to emerge on the western side in about an

We realized beforehand that discovery of fall color in Oregon in mid-October was dicey at best, but we saddled up anyway. It was the only time Pat could take time off from work, and we were pretty well assured that alluring foliage or no, other objects – namely, old barns, old cars, old trucks – not dependent on the vagaries of Mother Nature would be there to capture … assuming that we could find them. Moreover, we figured that even if worst-case scenario prevailed, it would be an enjoyable drive, a chance for the two of us to get away at a time when kids are back in school and highways and byways are less traveled. There was added inducement as well. Research indicated that within the state’s borders there were covered bridges galore. Although I have shot many covered bridges in the past (see gallery), all of them were –

“Hi, Dad,” said the voice at the other end of the phone. It was my daughter Jessica, the professor at Boston College. “I am attending a conference in Bar Harbor the last two weeks in July and have rented a house. It’s three bedrooms, and I wondered if you and Pat would like to come.” If ever a rhetorical question was asked, this was it. Answer: “Is the pope Catholic? You bet.” This was in April, affording us ample lead time in which to ferret out a lower-fare round-trip flight to Boston. I filled out the airline reservation online, then did likewise for a rental car in which to scamper about Mount Desert Island and environs, camera ever at the ready, needless to say. Jessica said she and Cortney would be driving separate cars, as they needed room for baby Kennedy, who then would be five months old, their three – yes, three

As a photographer I like to think I am adventuresome, ever in search of the road less traveled, literally speaking. In the years my wife Pat and I have driven from our home near San Francisco to our cabin in the mountains we have taken several different routes through the hinterlands north of Lake Tahoe. Here is a picture of it after a dusting of snow. Unless one has oodles of time to kill, gas prices are low and the tires have plenty tread, there is no practical way out of Truckee save for Hwy. 89. Thus, on our most recent excursion, Hwy. 89 it was, through the sleepy hamlet of Sierraville (pop. 207), perched at the intersection of Hwy. 49. (Sleepy, that is, save for the ever-alert town cop, who routinely parks his cruiser alongside the main drag, radar gun beamed at oncoming traffic in hopes of finding reason to

Photographs displayed reside in individual galleries within website. Clicking on a given image summons host gallery. Return by clicking on back arrow in upper left corner. I ascribe it to the luck of my being Irish. It was this past winter when I started pondering the possibility of taking an extended expedition in the South, poking about, as is my wont, for Rural Americana photo ops. Although I went to graduate school in Georgia – back during the Civil War days – I hadn’t spent any appreciable amount of time there since, and none whatsoever to take photographs. No time like the present, I told myself, so I sat down and mapped out an itinerary that would take me to Tennessee, Arkansas, Mississippi and Louisiana. Starting point Nashville, ending point New Orleans. Looking at the calendar, I figured a good time to go would be sometime in May, when the

We were zipping along Highway 101, just south of San Jose, when out of the corner of my eye, in a field off to the right, I espied what I optimistically thought would prove my first bingo photo op of the day – a very old, very rusted pickup truck. I was driving too fast, maybe 70, to notice the make, but the very sight of it made me start salivating. “Perfect,” I said to myself, “perfect.” I did not expect to stumble upon so fine a Rusted Relic candidate so close to a major metropolis and so close to the highway. The challenge presented was twofold: 1) Leave the freeway at the next exit and circle around on country roads, and 2) Once subject spotted, to make my way to the vehicle, camera in hand, and, as always, scanning for any possible interference, such as, say, a snarling canine and/or having

No sooner did I return from Oregon (see post immediately below) than I got myself a much-needed haircut – SuperCuts, as always – repacked my bags and found my way to San Francisco International Airport to board an American Virgin airplane. Destination: Boston, to visit my daughter Jessica (left) and her partner Cortney, and, not incidentally, to seek out fall-color photo ops. When the hardwood trees back east were at their peak color, in mid-October, I was knocking about Bend and environs. Productive trip, and I am glad I went there when I did, but it came at the expense of what I had hoped might result -- a portfolio of killer photos of Mother Nature dealing us earthlings a dazzling palette of foliage hues. Knowing that any remaining color would lie north of Boston, I set sail in Jessica’s BMW 330i (nice car!), thinking I might get all the way to Burlington,

My wife Pat and I had been looking forward to a road trip north that had been on the calendar for months – an excursion to Bend, Oregon, to visit longtime friends Al and Cathie Poncia. This is how far back the acquaintance goes: Pat’s parents and hers – all four now deceased – had been buddies since the 1930s. That’s how Pat first came to know Cathie, through the parents. I entered the picture much later, in the mid-1980s, after Pat and I married. Pat and I saddled up on a Saturday morning in mid-October, eager to spend time with the Poncias, whose principal residence is a cattle ranch in Marin County, north of San Francisco. Although they make it in one very long day, we elected not to overdo it, spending the night in Mount Shasta, a pleasant-enough burgh tucked snug against the majestic, 14,000-foot-tall mountain after which it