I was so lucky with the weather to get this photo. In Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, right near Frisco Pier, I’ve learned to wait for good images. They’re always worth it. On this day, the wind was blowing the tops off of the wave crests and the tide was going out, which created a waveless but stormy space between the beach and the cresting waves. The clouds hung very low, moving out to sea. The raw power of nature in the OBX can be felt…and if you wait long enough, captured on film to be revisited again and again. (With a little luck, that is.)

There are some teachers in life you never forget. Dr. Fasinelli was one of those teachers for me. He was a professor at University of Maryland. He taught art, photography and film. He was close friends with Lotte Jacobi. He spoke with a stutter, shuffled one foot as he walked, and had a
degenerative bone disease which caused him to hunch over. The jocks thought Film Classics was an easy credit and would mimic his stutter and laugh at him.

I was a jock, but I saw this man as a gift to those who wanted to learn. After graduating, I had dinner with him before he died. That is when he told me that he flew over 3,000 hours as a bomber/navigator in B-17’s during WWII. He watched Dresden burn and later visited the place after the war.

He never thought being a PhD was important. He didn’t have “Dr.” on his office door like all of the other professors who had that level of education. I learned a bit of everything for him. His film classics are still the bedrock of my visual lexicon.

I thank him every day I shoot…motion or stills. Every time I watch a movie, every art museum I go to, every piece of architecture I look at…I thank him.

Antietam Creek, Maryland. My friend’s son didn’t realize that the dogs smelled the bait in his pocket. He kept moving into deeper water and Mosby and Gizi kept following.

With a busy life it is so easy to rush past what we teach our kids each day. I love the moments when we catch ourselves having as much fun as they are.

This was a blue sky, but chilly August day on the east coast. The waves were changing the direction of light every few seconds and the offshore breeze created rainbows in the sun as the waves broke.

I thought I wanted to learn to surf but what I ended up doing out there in the surf was what I love most, shooting photographs…which for me is like catching the ultimate ride.

I can’t avoid shooting kids in windows. There is always someone who wants to be a ham. RT 66 New Mexico

Emerson is learning how to shoot. With as many pictures as I’ve taken of her, she probably feels like the paparazzo follow her everywhere she goes.

She’s having fun now getting behind the camera. She has a couple of kid-friendly cameras and I also let her play with my old digital ones. The shutter lag with digital can make taking pictures of fast dogs a challenge, but she’s persistent. And I’m…proud.

I love shooting kids with a Lensbaby. They just came out with a great new lens. It is called the ‘Composer’. There is a lot more repeatability with the new one than the older models.

I love this old cowboy saying: “Never mistake a clear view for a short distance.”

Snow has come early this year. Soon we’ll see it in Maryland. I have two new puppies who will see it for the first time. I couldn’t ask for something more fun to photograph.