When before the beauty of a sunset or a mountain, you pause and exclaim, “Ah,” you are participating in divinity.
— Joseph Campbell
I went out for a walk and finally concluded to stay out till sundown, for going out, I found, was really going in.
—  John Muir
Light is God’s way of saying “Hello!”
— Harry Hitzeman

2008 Leaf on 2009 Moss, Spring 2009

Around Christmastime we joke about the Seinfeld holiday of Festivus.  “Christians have Christmas, Jews have Hanukkah, and then there’s Festivus for the rest of us.”  There is a Festivus ceremony called “The Airing of Grievances.”  I prefer to engage in the “Airing of my awstruckedness at the realization of my good fortune.”  And these are — as related to my love of landscape photography — the following:

  • Being alive in a time where I can fly to almost anywhere in the world, or just step out into my back yard.
  • Being able to take as many pictures as I like with “free film” (digital files).
  • Getting immediate feedback from my camera about the technical qualities of the image I just captured, and being able to see immediately the result on a LCD screen.
  • Owning a computer and internet connection and image editing software so I can magically develop my photos in ways that even Ansel Adams could not do, and I can share my images with the world easily and quickly.

But most of all, having a really good Capricorn excuse for going outdoors (or into skinny slot canyons) and enjoying and appreciating the magnificent beauty all around us.

Let your beauty shine, too!