A quiet end to a breezy day filled with sailing clouds and intermittent July sunshine…

“Thumb Out” Book One of my memoir trilogy “The Spaces Between” is available now

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Another perfect day. We earned it last February, believe me.

“Thumb Out” Book One of my memoir trilogy “The Spaces Between” is available now

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The RF 100-400mm f/5.6-8 costs a mere fraction of those legendary white whales — it’s made largely out of plastic, and that includes the optics. But it is super light, compact and affordable, and somewhat inconspicuous in comparison. It suits me perfectly and the thing that’s really important to me is the tech that’s built into this camera/lens combination. I’m talking about next level auto focus and the ability to shoot intuitively and quickly in full manual to get precisely what I want, shooting raw files which can later be manipulated with maximum creativity and flexibility.

It’s a real pleasure to not be on assignment. No one to please, but myself. All the time in the world and the lightness of being in the moment.

The R6 Mark II is not a super high resolution camera in the way that an R5 Mark II would be, but you can still crop in with no apparent loss and resolution. An example is the shot of Blaze by the fence line below, where I cropped into an effective 600 mm.

This lens can be used indoors as well, due to its generous range.

I’ve always been a “gear head” and I’ve always loved playing with cameras, lenses, tripods, drones, windsurfing equipment — and going back to my childhood, mechanical typewriter, HO scale trains and even tinkertoys. My mother said she would often find me when I was three years old up before dawn constructing massive creations in my room.

All my life I wanted to be a successful professional and now I’m just thrilled to be an amateur, a hobbyist, or what the Brits call a “punter” - but the key is loving what you’re doing, which is the root of all those words.

“Amateur” comes from the French amateur, which comes directly from the Latin amator — “lover, devoted friend,” from amare, “to love.”

So at its root, an amateur isn’t someone unskilled — it’s someone who does a thing for love of it, rather than for money or obligation. The word only picked up its diminished, “unskilled/dabbler” connotation later, in English, as a contrast to “professional.”

In the original sense, calling yourself an amateur photographer or amateur musician was a statement about motive, not competence.

It’s a nice word to reclaim, especially for creative work — the amateur is the one still doing it for love.

“Thumb Out” Book One of my memoir trilogy “The Spaces Between” is available now

e-book ~ kindle ~ paperback ~ hardcover ~ signed paperback

The first two shots are of what we call Buio’s Rock, a notable slab of granite high on Sterling Peak, visible with the naked eye from our deck. We named it after our golden retriever that died in 2013. The last three shots were in the woods below our deck. Sniper shots of details made notable by shafts of sunlight.

“Thumb Out” Book One of my memoir trilogy “The Spaces Between” is available now

e-book ~ kindle ~ paperback ~ hardcover ~ signed paperback

After a weird smoky, yellow sky and humid stagnant air yesterday, we were treated to a wonderfully windy and sunny bluebird afternoon today. Veronica picked blueberries and I demo’d a massive lens that I will be returning, even though it was fun. I just can’t see it in my bag.

“Thumb Out” Book One of my memoir trilogy “The Spaces Between” is available now

e-book ~ kindle ~ paperback ~ hardcover ~ signed paperback

Golden moments during the golden hour. None last, unless you’re there.

“Thumb Out” Book One of my memoir trilogy “The Spaces Between” is available now

e-book ~ kindle ~ paperback ~ hardcover ~ signed paperback

You may have noticed that I’m enjoying taking photos again. Sorry, not sorry, if I’m over sharing, lol…

“Thumb Out” Book One of my memoir trilogy “The Spaces Between” is available now

e-book ~ kindle ~ paperback ~ hardcover ~ signed paperback

There’s 365 days in a year, but they’re only a handful that can truly be qualified as perfect. Today is one of them. To top it off I had a great night sleep and I landed a lot of planes yesterday, in my mind and in my life. Sometimes your inner weather and the outer weather align and you’re truly happy and today is such a day.

The boys look a little glum because Veronica went to work at her studio. But all will be well after lunch because we’re gonna go somewhere special when she gets home.

“Thumb Out” Book One of my memoir trilogy “The Spaces Between” is available now

e-book ~ kindle ~ paperback ~ hardcover ~ signed paperback

Our black lab is in his 14th year and slowing down noticeably, with significant hearing and vision loss. But he still has the urge for adventure. He just needs supervision and patience. Blaze is in his 8th year and in his prime. Veronica and I are closer to Blue’s stage of life than Blaze’s, so we make up quite a team, swatting mosquitoes and stumbling through the undergrowth and over the slippery stream beds. Sunny, hot and humid with a breeze, plenty of shade and very cool water made our little adventure worth every hassle.

“Thumb Out” Book One of my memoir trilogy “The Spaces Between” is available now

e-book ~ kindle ~ paperback ~ hardcover ~ signed paperback

“Thumb Out” Book One of my memoir trilogy “The Spaces Between” is available now

e-book ~ kindle ~ paperback ~ hardcover ~ signed paperback

I took a stroll along the road in front of our house today trying to familiarize myself with my new portrait lens.

I was lucky enough to run into a neighbor I hadn’t seen in years and despite his protestations managed to snag a pretty decent portrait of him.

The blueberries are getting ready for their big moment and Blaze is wondering why he’s not walking with me.

But Veronica already walked him and I’ll walk him later — so he’s pretty much covered.

“Thumb Out” Book One of my memoir trilogy “The Spaces Between” is available now

e-book ~ kindle ~ paperback ~ hardcover ~ signed paperback

It feels really good to be getting back into photography. The winters are so long in Vermont when summer finally comes it feels like you’ve died and gone to heaven.

Tomorrow is going to be another hot one. I am looking forward to making more photographs.

“Thumb Out” Book One of my memoir trilogy “The Spaces Between” is available now

e-book ~ kindle ~ paperback ~ hardcover ~ signed paperback

Last night I put the 800mm on the top of the cottonwood down the road a hundred yards — a hundred feet up — and waited. Two crows came in against a sky that couldn’t make up its mind between dusk and storm. A thunderhead lit gold behind them. They were watching the sun set. One was grooming the other, then flew off. The remaining one waited a beat and then followed.

It’s the same story the crow told me, it’s the only one he knows.

Here’s what I keep turning over. We tend to read that line as the crow being simple — nothing to say but the same old caw. But the crow is one of the most intelligent creatures on the planet. They recognize human faces, use tools, solve problems, and warn each other about danger. They hold a grudge for up to seventeen years. And this is the part that stops me cold — parent crows teach their young which humans to fear, so a bird that never met you can already carry the verdict on your face.

That’s not a simple animal. That’s a being with a long memory and strong opinions about who you are.

So the one story the crow knows — maybe it isn’t simple at all. Maybe it’s the whole thing compressed into something ancient and efficient.

Like the morning sun you come, and like the wind you go.

You arrive. You leave. No time to hate — barely time to wait — and in between there’s only the one real question the whole song is circling toward, the one Hunter saves for last:

Whoa-oh, what I want to know is — are you kind?

Not are you smart. The crow’s got smart covered. Not are you strong, or right, or winning. Are you kind. The crow remembers your face for seventeen years either way. He’s just keeping track of which kind of person you turned out to be.

This morning a robin landed on the fence rail, orange chest lit up, asking nothing of anybody. Different bird, different story. But I think it’s the same question underneath.

Are you kind. It’s the only one he knows. Maybe it’s the only one worth knowing.

“Thumb Out” Book One of my memoir trilogy “The Spaces Between” is available now

e-book ~ kindle ~ paperback ~ hardcover ~ signed paperback

“Thumb Out” Book One of my memoir trilogy “The Spaces Between” is available now

e-book ~ kindle ~ paperback ~ hardcover ~ signed paperback

The snowmobiles have packed the Rail Trail pretty flat, and Blaze quickly discovered just how deep the banks had drifted in. He persisted and took a perilous romp down anyway (watch til end.)

We have a few more warm days and some serious rain coming, so hopefully all the snow will soon be gone.

What matters is what came next. I committed to daily photography during my morning walks with my two golden retrievers. Most of these walks stayed within a few miles of home. A handful ventured maybe seven miles out. Some were taken right in our yard, which looks out at the Green Mountains.

I posted hundreds of images on SmugMug, hoping someone might buy a print. Nobody bought so much as a 4x6 in an entire year. Kind of reminds me of the three years I’ve spent writing my memoir, Surfing the Interstates — not selling, not attracting subscribers.

But none of that is the point. The daily discipline, the slow noticing — that’s the reward. Voyaging through your own reality and paying attention to it is a far greater treasure than anything you can sell.

My mother understood this. She gave me life and the keys to my creativity. She got me my first typewriter and let me pick the wallpaper for my room at Ledge Acres — I chose a parchment style with sepia prints of sailing ships. She took me to Fox & Sutherland’s in Mt. Kisco, where Emile helped us pick out my first camera. I went on to become a lifelong photographer.

Her father and I share her initials: Alexander Joseph, Agnes Joan, Andre Joseph — we’re all AJs.

During the last three years working on my memoir, I often thought if her last words to me: “Everything is going to be alright.”

The greatest gifts are bequeathed by love.

Our 1865 farmhouse on 25 acres in Armonk, New York, was the world entire. Everything that would later send a 21-year-old out the door with a backpack and a guitar was built here first — the wonder, the fractures, the silence that crept in room by room. These illustrations reimagine that lost world, moment by moment: a childhood paradise that became an adolescent prison, told in images that carry what words sometimes can’t.

This is the backstory to Surfing the Interstates: A 1973 Hitchhiking Memoir. The before.

Rusty brought home a deer haunch.

Climbing the big pine and surveying my kingdom.

That Christmas when we all got skis and the presents filled the living room. It was epic. Looking in from outside the living room window into the Christmas tree environment there. And seeing the lights standing out in the deep snow and the warmth of our home. Nana putting on the tinsel one strand at a time. Ever so carefully. And then you show up and try to do it and she’d be like, no, you have to do it like this. It was beautiful the way she did it.

Nana’s grand mal epileptic seizure in the living room. And my mother telling me to go get a spoon, a wooden spoon. Just the sheer terror of watching that.

Peeking in on Jimmy Matsudo, our Japanese gardener, meditating in his room. I think he was just wearing shorts and had cones of incense on his knees. He was in the yoga position. He let them burn all the way down without flinching.

Jimmy Matsudo telling me if you hurt your leg to lay on your back and put your leg up in the air and shake it.

Playing on the cliffs out back and then falling. And when I landed, I saw a rock right next to my head, like a big rock. If I had landed a foot the other way, I’d probably be dead. Also knocked the wind out of myself and came running into the house sucking air.

Nana telling us, oh, you want to smoke? I’ll help you smoke. So we rolled cigars out of shopping bags and lit them. Boy, we never wanted to smoke again after that.

Nana, if you hurt her feelings, would give you the silent treatment for a few days. The sheer torture of that withholding.

The beer party up in the field. All the cars went up on a perfect summer night. You could hear them raging. My father called the cops. One squad car goes up. All the teenagers’ cars come back. And then the next day my brother and I walked up there and found all these empty beer cans and a few full ones that were warm from being in the sun and we sprayed each other with them.

Waking up early to go on fishing trips with my father and the Murphys. The excitement of setting the clock and getting up and finding the worms and going fishing was such a huge thing.

Playing in forts.

Jimmy Matsudo teaching me how to make cuttings of Marigolds, then place them in the sand tray so they could grow roots.

The Murphy’s train set table with realistic mountains, tunnels, all the artistry and time that Roger put into that train thing was amazing.

Catching a glimpse of the giant snake in the Murphy’s basement.

Dutchess, the Murphy’s German shepherd attacking me as I was walking down the driveway. Sinking its teeth into my left thigh, leaving two deep puncture wounds. Roger screaming at me, “you were scared shitless.” Yeah I was, thank you for reminding me. Another time it bit my brother in the face and then later it bit someone in town on their buttocks and had to be put down.

Carving sports cars out of balsa wood in my room with sailing ships wallpaper I picked out.

Molding my own soldiers. And then the mold was wet and the lead popped back out and landed on my hand. Right between my thumb and my forefinger on my wrist. Took all the skin right off.

My mother taking me to see Emile at Fox & Sutherland to get my first camera

Getting my first typewriter. I think it was a Royal. I fell in love with it.

Getting a skateboard and having those cool slip-on sneakers. Riding the new pavement on Byram Lake Road.

Loved my pompadour. And my blue jeans.

Going to Yankee Stadium with my father. Yogi Berra, Mickey Mantle. How much I loved the Yankees.

Horseback riding lessons at Sunnyfield Farms. The Palomino horse I loved. That time falling over the handlebars and getting the wind knocked out of me.

Rolling the station wagon out of the driveway. Joy riding and then getting busted because somebody saw me and told my mother.

My father telling me that I couldn’t have tea or coffee until I was 14. Thinking it would never come.

Going with my father to North White Plains to get the racing form on the weekend. Along with the Herald Tribune. And then he made me read the articles to him in the car. Like a 45 minute trip.

Going to Aqueduct Racetrack with him and hating it. That time I found the $20 on the ground. And the screaming of the fans as a two minute race unfolded. Surge of that energy. Toxic.

Going to the yearling sales in Saratoga with my father, and seeing the way he would admire the rich swells like the Phipps and the Melons. Him telling me the best way to become successful is to find someone who is highly successful, and become indispensable to him…

My father taking me to West Point for a tour and me hating it.

My father telling me that since I had to go to Vietnam that I might as well join ROTC so that I could go as an officer, not a grunt. Me refusing, saying i’d rather flee to Canada than die in a rice paddy because of the “domino theory”

The time my father almost caught that giant brown trout in the mianus gorge. He was wearing waders. I had the net and he was telling me to get over with the net and then just as I was about to get it, it flipped off and got away.