A tip from my friend Deb: Check out the sidewalk art of Julian Beever. Really great work.
Also, a sneak peak: When I was in Newport a couple weeks ago, I photographed Castle Hill Lighthouse at the request of Kayla, a visitor to this site. Well, she didn't so much ask me to shoot it; rather, she asked if I had shot it. I hadn't, but was booked for a shoot in Newport anyway, so offered to take on the lighthouse, too, while I was there. Sort of a commissioned work without the commission. Anyway, I don't have the photo posted to my Print Gallery yet, but you can see my take on Castle Hill Light here.
I just returned home from an 8-day family-reunion cruise in the eastern Caribbean. When I travel, I almost always bring my camera gear, but this time I let it stay home. I wanted to just spend time with family.
But now I'm back in Connecticut, focusing on the rest of my summer schedule. Late summer is generally the busiest time of year for me. I do a good amount of pro tennis photography, and the men's and women's tours are in North America from July to September, culminating with the US Open in New York.
A more immediate matter involves dust. African dust, to be specific. There's a huge (by "huge," I mean the size of the United States) cloud of Sarah Desert dust blowing over the Atlantic Ocean. It's due to make landfall in Florida over the next few days. The dust will have a dramatic impact on the color of sunrises and sunsets. So, if you're a photographer in the southeast U.S., get your cameras and tripods ready. For more information, see these twoarticles.
Last weekend I was in Newport, R.I., photographing the annual inductions at the International Tennis Hall of Fame. This year's inductees were Jim Courier, Jana Novotna, Yannick Noah and Butch Bucholtz.
While in Newport, I also photographed Castle Hill Lighthouse just after sunrise. I'll post those photos in the coming weeks. I did the shoot sort of by request. A woman named Kayla sent me a nice email complimenting my photos and asking if I had any images of the lighthouse. I'd never worked there, but offered to do so seeing as I'd be in Newport anyway. Alas, I now have photos — 18 inches away from me, on my light board — of Castle Hill Light.
Also, I have recently had an article published, in the July 2005 issue of USTA Magazine, a Tennis magazine supplement. The article, "Shooting Stars," is a tutorial for tennis fans hoping to snap great photos of pro players at a tennis tournament.
Lastly, the American Society of Media Photographers has taken a public stance against proprietary file formats for digital cameras. I hope this is a situation soon resolved.
I've been pretty busy the past few weeks. In addition to some other projects, I've had three shoots in New York City, requiring 150 minutes of round-trip road time per trip.
Let's call it a warm-up for next month, when during the tennis US Open I'll be making the same trip every day for two weeks.
In other news, NASA's Deep Impact space probe photographed a stunning high-resolution image of the comet Tempel 1 a little more than a minute after it collided with a smaller probe. Check it out.
