Long time psychologist mostly focusing on helping children, but also adults, forensics and criminals, marriage problems, custody fights, alternative schools for alienated and problematic teenagers (mine wasn’t so smooth), school programs and IEP’s for special need students, low incidence childhood genetic disorders, and more. Once I could let go of this, I was more than ready to move into my life long affinity for art. This started when I stumbled upon the circular Monet Museum in France and spent a day watching the huge canvases being transformed as the sun crossed the sky sending different light through the huge windows and changing each painting hour by hour. Also sitting for a day in the Rothko museum in Houston and completely falling apart emotionally looking at the merged spaces between his huge 30x20 foot joined rectangles and squares. Actually, although they did have decompression areas available, they also should have had Rothko therapists there to help some of us (-:

I’m aware I’m sometimes overly enthusiastic in my flickr comments, but they are heartfelt and perhaps partly a result of my not having any world class museums in my state. Flickr provides a virtual opportunity to see great art. Also it's a cool thing to see people getting better at what they do over time.

As for me, I'm not that naturally talented, but have managed to make some small progress, mainly by hard work. I now have a few images I think are good. For the last three years I have been juried into a number of two day art shows. The first two years I sold almost nothing. This summer I stopped presenting my images in traditional frames. Instead I had them printed on metal (aluminum). I mostly sold out the first day. I won first place in a prestigious art show with 350 other artists. I keep thinking they some how made a mistake. (-: What a difference a medium and some creativty can make.

So here are some random thoughts:

What’s with it with the cats. So many photogs here are cat obsessed and create awesome images of their cats. I just join in to it and enjoy the connectiveness and devotion. Month by month I I waited but now I have one. It's a close race which one I love the most, her or my wife. And also, lets have some compassion for the dogs. They deserve an apology for being left out and abandoned. The poor things.

My take on compulsive fav collecting: to share your art can be a good thing.....to do so to create better self-esteem is perhaps a little more misguided.

For me looking through the lens, especially a macro lens, is transformative. Everything becomes lines, light, form, texture, essence, and fluidity. And little by little I am beginning to look at the everyday world beyond the camera in the same way. This is the power of photography.

Although I know my EXIF shows I use Photoshop Elements to edit my photos, I use that for cloning and cropping only. My core editing is in Topaz Studio, which is awesome and offers options not available elsewhere, at least in terms of their ease of use. Best of all, the basic program is free to download. There are of lots of add on specialty edits you can buy for a reasonable price. Although its really not my thing, they offer lots of one click effects that blend photography with traditional painting. A part of me sees this as the eventual end of both.

Covid has resulted in all the major outdoor art shows in my area being cancelled. Luckely I was invited to join a good gallery, which has worked out fairly well. i am also about to finalize an agreement with the largest garden shop in my area to display my flower images. It is an ideal opportunity to generate more sales. I would incourage my Flickr friends who actively sell there photos to consider this.

lastly, now in my later years I am preoccupied with astronomy and astro-physics. The scale of the universe is beyond comprension and changes how ones sees life itself.

Having said all this, why not just take 15-20 minutes every now and then to sit in a private space and look inward and be aware of your breathing, letting go all intrusive thoughts, and see what happens.