The Holiday Season Approaches

Yes, it's hard to believe but it is getting close to the time of the year for re-connecting with that long list of friends hidden away in your Holiday Greetings address book. Millions upon millions of pieces of mail will literally travel to and from the four corners of the globe in order to give yearly updates on what we do, the growth of our kids and the current state of our pets.

Not one to be content with the current offerings at the corner store, I decided this year to produce a line of holiday greeting cards with my own little style added to them. The first batch is out featureing a poor little eagle in a Santa hat waiting for the first glimps of morning in Alaska, scrumptious cookies, brilliant poinsettia (growing outdoors in the Azores of all places) and a couple of others.

My favorite is probably the single aurora image. When we were in Alaska the wife of our pastor saw this photo and called it the "baby Jesus" photo as once could imagine the sky looking like that on that very special knight. So Dar, THANK YOU!

Notecard sets now available

Mother knows best. We all have heard it over and over again but for some of us (me) it takes a couple of hard knocks to the head for me to listen sometimes.

My Mom has told me numerous times how she wished she had a certain image on a notecard. Mom is a big fan of cheering people up by sending a card with a simple message inside. In this day of instantaneous communication using modern technology the art of hand-writing a card or letter is becoming a lost art (and a sin I'm blatantly guilty of).

Finally realizing yet again of just how smart Mom is I have begun releasing a series of notecards featuring my images in full-color on the front and a "ghosted" black and white image inside. Each package contains 6 cards as well as envelopes and are available in a growing number of designs. If you have a favorite image you's like to see on a card simply let me know!

Cheers!

~James

Happy Happy Happy Joy Joy Joy!!!!!

There are times when being a photographer is exciting and the basis for campfire stories: hanging out of helicopters and airplanes, navigating avalanche-prone mountain roads or avoiding an angry mama moose.

But most of the time its work, work, work. Keywording images for stock publication distribution (boring). Cleaning camera equipment or backing up image libraries (more boring). Filling out paperwork for governments or accountants (the worst).

Somewhere in between those two extremes is time spent creating designs based on the images captured during the exciting times (made possible by the work done in the boring times). Yesterday I was in front of the dual-screened devil known as my computer creating note card designs and as usual took a short break to peer through the curtains into the backyard to watch the birds at the feeder. My spirit soared with delight at the sight of fat fluffy flakes of SNOW falling from the sky.

Just a couple of posts previous to this I had lamented at how my winters seemed doomed to be remembered as the time of extreme rain and wind storms instead of lawns filled with the main ingredient of a well-built snowman. Now, a million unique designs a minute were washing away my cares. I was rejuvenated.

Design on, photographer. Design on.


~James