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Monday Morning

This picture feels a little like a gloomy Monday morning, even though I took it on a Friday.

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Monday Morning
A gloomy morning in Southern France

I took this near our friend’s house at the beach in Carnon. I never tire of these minimalistic scenes because they leave much room for interpretation and reflection — however, calm thoughts were the last thing on my mind when I took this.

gallery images featuring minimalism

I was about to go for a swim and, the water was chilly. Getting in took two types of effort, one of the mind and one of the body. Neither my mind nor body was overly enthusiastic at the prospect. In the end, I completed the swim, which left the rest of the day to contemplate sweet nothing.

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Smugglers Beach

I snapped a picture of some houses on Paradise Island. These are not just any houses, but I’m no name-dropper, so I’ll leave it at that.

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Smugglers Beach
The tip of Paradise Island in Nassau

It’s always fun to look at these fancy houses. But honestly, if I lived in one and tour boats motored by every day, it might lose some of its allure. Nevertheless, it’s not a problem I expect to have soon.

full-size image here

Paradise Island in Nassau is where The Atlantis resort is. Except for a few houses, it’s mostly resorts, timeshares, and a golf course. It’s a fun place to visit, and having a home here is just for that, to visit once in a while.

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Passage of Time

Everything that has ever happened is in the past; we only have the present.

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Passage of Time
Time passes with a long exposure

Smarter people than I have put a lot of thought into this, the prevailing wisdom is that time is not real; it’s just something we made up to record or coordinate. I agree with this intellectually, but when I’m waiting, time seems genuine, if not slow.

abstract gallery

Attention is like a sail. When focusing on something, we move through time quickly. Maybe that’s why time seems to move faster as we get older. The more our attention is focused, the more time seems faster. If now is all we really have, it stands to reason that awareness at the moment is more precious than we think.

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Point Lobos Sky

When I was here, I went a little snap-happy and took way too many shots of the sky. But that’s a known hazard of watching the sunset in San Fran.

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Point Lobos Sky
The sky after sunset in San Francisco

As I look at this, I think if not for the photos, I would’ve forgotten all about it. These are not the kinds of things that stick in my memory very well. However, the picture brings back many details of that night, now nearly five years later.

more seascapes in the gallery

It may sound conceded, but I like looking at my own photos. In part, that’s because they bring back memories of the experience. Maybe it’s a sense of nostalgia because often the memory exceeds reality. I think we reconstruct memories to build a better story. I’m not sure that makes sense, but those are my thoughts.

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Simple Seascape

This image is from Ken Thompson Park in Sarasota on a hot summer afternoon. So hot, in fact, that three minutes later I was back in the car.

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Simple Seascape
A minimalist seascape from Ken Thompson park in Sarasota

There are a couple of reasons I like this photo; one is the minimal aesthetic, and the other is that its same spot I took an abstract picture with an iPhone 5.

Squint
A photo I took with the iPhone 5 in the same spot

The abstract I took during a sunset that was like nothing I’d ever seen. I didn’t have a camera, so I used an iPhone. Not that it matters.

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The two have nothing in common, yet I stood at the same spot for each. It just goes to show what imagination, setting, and post-processing can get you.

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RR Crossing

If you’ve ever had a drink of orange juice, chances are it crossed these tracks. The Tropicana train crosses this river.

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RR Crossing
Tracks crossing the Manatee River to the Tropicana Plant

I live within earshot, so I hear the horn in the morning and at night. It’s part of the soundscape of my hometown. The idea of a town having a soundscape is new to me, but if I were blind, I’d know it very well.

more railroad images

If you look closely at the patterns on the water, you can see the direction of flow. The eddies caused by the supports are on the downstream side. But as this river flows into the ocean, the direction changes with the tide. As the tide changes, the flow is non-existent. But that’s another shot for another day.

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Mood Swings

The weather can be a metaphor for emotions. It can be bright and sunny one day, gloomy the next.

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Mood Swings
A moody day on Longboat Key, Florida

I can imagine wind as a metaphor for thoughts, blowing through the mind, never-ceasing. We draw on the forces of nature to represent our inner experiences. Maybe our internal environment follows some of the same laws of physics; like fluid dynamics.

more images with a pier in the gallery

Anyway, this picture is of two people fishing at the pier on a foggy day. At least, that’s what it appears to be on the surface. Beyond that, it could be something much closer to home.

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Footprint

I would post this photo along with some original words. But it seemed a little too cliché.

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Footprint
A footprint in the sand on Anna Maria Island, Florida

When I look at a simple thing, my mind wanders. That’s a life long habit I’ve acquired. It’s too easy to get distracted with the first thought that comes to mind. Maybe it sounds silly, but it’s a measure of how life is when we cannot focus on something uncomplicated.

visit the beach gallery

When we were children, before our brains developed, we could be easily delighted. Some scientist suspect that the ability to be fascinated with simple things diminishes with the development of the default mode network in the brain. Whether that’s the case or not, it does make me wonder what our developed brains cause us to overlook.

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Bigger Than Us

One of the reasons I do seascape photography is that it reminds me of things bigger than myself. It’s easy to forget that we are part of a much larger universe.

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Bigger Than Us
A seascape from Venice Florida

When we are children, everything is new, and we are often in a state of awe at the world around us. Then we develop thought patterns and an ego. We get through life by constructing a story of who and what we are. But that inward-looking drive comes at a cost: we forget the awe.

more minimalism from the gallery

When I create images with a minimal theme, the open space is a reminder to myself, and anyone else, that we are part of something beyond the daily grind. Once in a while, I like to remind my self of that.

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Midnight Sun

This was taken about three years ago in Alaska. It was around eleven o’clock at night as the sun slowly inched down. Then, just a few hours later it would creep back up.

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Midnight Sun
The midnight sun in Alaska

I took the picture from a ship as we sailed north. This scene was repeated in an endless succession of mountains and untouched wilderness. I was blown away at the vastness of natural landscape here. Until you experience it yourself, it’s hard to imagine. And it’s equally hard for me to convey in writing.

more images from Alaska in the gallery

If you have never been to Alaska, put it on your list. There is nothing like a lot of open space and massive mountain peaks to clear out the urban cobwebs and refresh one’s sense of perspective.