About

My fascination with photography began when I graduated from college and I asked my parents for a camera as a graduation gift. They graciously bought me a state of the art Minolta 35mm film body. I learned a lot using that system although I don’t have a ton of results that I am proud of from that era. I did learn the basics of exposure and composition, though. Digital photography gave me the instantaneous feedback I needed to truly improve my craft. Instead of having to wait for two weeks for my Fuji Velvia to come back from the lab, I was able to instantly evaluate my results with the on camera display. When I switched to digital I also switched to Nikon. As I hung out with more and more photographers I realized that the Nikon community was one I respected immensely. I’m sure that Canon makes wonderful products, but I get great results from my Nikon gear and wouldn’t switch.

My love for all things Apple began in graduate school. I was working full-time and pursuing a graduate degree in Business Information Systems. In the mid 1980s I bought a dual floppy Mac and a 20 megabyte hard drive. The Mac cost $1,500 and the hard drive cost $1,000! A 20 MB hard drive would hold thousands of typed pages. Why would you need more space? Now, one file from my D700 takes 12 to 16 MB of space. I’ve owned countless Apple products since then and seen Apple rise, fall, and rise yet again. When digital photography took off in the early 2000s, my background in IT and love of photography were a perfect fit. I was now able to do things with images that I could do in the darkroom but were much more conveniently accomplished on the desktop computer. I own Lightroom and Photoshop, but most of my post-processing is done with Aperture, Nik software, and Photomatix Pro. The constant introduction of digital editing tools is fascinating to me. I love to find ways to better represent what I saw in the field on web sites, prints, and other applications.

I love to shoot. Some of my favorite days of the year are ones where I am up well before dawn to capture a sunrise from a new vantage point or when I am waiting for the light to turn just right during the last few minutes of the day before sunset. My favorite type of photography is shooting landscapes and nature scenes. But, I also enjoy shooting architecture, concerts, abstracts, and sports. I’m still working on my portrait skills, but I hope to add those to my bag of tricks some day soon as well.

My hope is that I can convey the beauty of God’s creation through the images I capture. If you can sense the grandeur, color, and drama of the scene I witnessed through an image I capture, I’ve succeeded as a photographer. I hope you enjoy this site a fraction as much as I enjoyed capturing the images.

10 comments

  1. Hi Rick – I just nominated you for a Beautiful Blogger award. You may have already received one in the past because you have a great blog–but you’ve made an impact on me so that’s why I nominated you. You can choose to celebrate your wonderfulness or ignore it–it’s up to you; however, you might like to see what I wrote about you on my site.

    http://walkinginprettyshoes.com/2012/08/09/and-the-award-goes-to-walking-in-pretty-shoes/

    No worries if you’re not into the award thing. I still love your blog. 🙂

    Cheers,

    Tammy of “Walking in Pretty Shoes”

    1. Tammy,
      Thanks very much for the award nomination and your kind comments. You write with such energy and passion. It’s inspiring to me. I’m very happy that you find my blog entertaining. I post just to have a creative outlet. Finding that others enjoy my rambling thoughts and photography is a bonus.

      With gratitude,
      Rick

  2. Hey Rick,

    This is Tague’s nephew, Josh.

    I am loving your blog and photos. It’s inspiring to an aspiring photographer.

    Thanks for sharing and keep up the nice work.

    Josh

      1. Hey I was noticing that you have used lightroom and aperture. I am trying to decide which software to get. I am all apple guy, but I have heard great stuff about lightroom. Why have you used aperture more? Would you recommend one over the other for a guy starting out?

      2. I use Aperture because I’m an Apple guy too. Lightroom probably has 90 percent of the market, but Aperture doesn’t run on PCs so that accounts for much of the market share. I actually prefer Aperture, but the products are actually pretty similar. Aperture is cheaper ($79 in the App Store). I would suggest that you download both and try them out. They both have 30 day free trials.

        It’s good to hear from you, Josh.

  3. Hey Rick,

    I am looking at getting either lightroom or aperture. I have all apple stuff so I was leaning toward aperture. I noticed you use aperture but also have lightroom. Does aperture do everything that lightroom does?

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