15
Minutes of Fame
Because of my passion for nature, devoting my life to the physical
sciences led me naturally to photography. I was
always told:
Do what you enjoy doing and things will turn out just fine.
I'm glad that I followed my dreams because things did turn
out
just fine. As a result of the Internet, I have had the
opportunity to share my views of the world with the world.
The mechanics for taking a picture is basically
aim and shoot and anyone can do this. However, since
photography
is an art form of self-expression and can be very personal,
picture composition, timing (being at the right place at the right
time), and imagination (the sky's the limit) are key elements to a
great photo.
By taking lots of
pictures and keeping only
the ones that inspire your heart and soul, it's then that others will
appreciate your talents and perhaps better
understand who you really are. Although
beauty
is only in the eye of the beholder, we are all tied to nature
because we are all the product of nature. Your inspiration
might
just inspire others to take a second look at the natural wonders of
life.
My exposure (pun intended) to photography took off when Sky and
Telescope used my May
25, 1975 photo of a total lunar eclipse that I took in Paso Robles,
California as the front cover of their August 1975 issue. Under
perfectly clear skies, I thought that it would be a neat trick to take
a long exposure of the eclipsed moon and after about a 5 minute gap, show
it
trailing out of totality along with the stars.
Since then I have
taken all sorts of pictures when the moment seemed
right. Below are samples of some of my favorites.
Besides
photography, I have always been interested in astronomy and
worked on a project to catalog all kinds of astronomical
events.
It is a bit crude in today's high precision standards but
gives
one an idea of relatively how rare a celestrial gathering of the sun,
moon, and the planets are in the sky.
In 1997, a very bright comet named Hale-Bopp graced the skies for well
over a month as a brighter than zero magnitude object. My photos
inspired artist Glen Scrimshaw to paint this image.
Then in October 1998, I received an email from Tom
Bopp.
Finally, here's part of my scrapbook showing some examples from around the
world of how my images were used: (Greek, Japanese, Finnish, etc.)
Here's a sample of various recording artists that have used my images on
the CD album:
A NASA Pamphlet featuring many of my images:
Recent books (mostly
fiction) on which my images were used as front covers.
