D200-Paul --- Hate the new page layout's photostream  

Thanks for visiting. I am a retired former computer software architect and have been taking pictures most of my life - first with film, now digitally.

We live in Southwest Florida, so the winter months are dedicated to photographing Florida birds while we usually spend our summers traveling to the national parks in the western United States.

Well, I'm finally finished selecting (mostly deleting) and editing the remainder of over 1,000 images that I captured during our trip to Atlanta, Georgia and Memphis, Tennessee. Now we are into planning our next trip: Quito, Ecuador; the Galapagos Islands; Lima, Cuzco and Machu Picchu in Peru. We have selected which islands in the Galapagos we want to visit, how long the cruise and in which yacht to book our cabin. We have booked our Galapagos Islands cruise on the Archipel. In addition, we have booked all our flights plus the hotels rooms in Quito, Ecuador plus those in Lima, Cuzco and Aguas Caliente (nearest town to Matchu Picchu) in Peru. In addition, we have booked our train ride from Cuzco to Aguas Caliente. We are now researching which sights to visit in our various stops. Will keep you informed, but in the meantime, any info you can offer will be greatly appreciated.

On picture editing - I am a photographer, not a photo-journalist. I always shoot in RAW (NEF), always edit (some images more than others) and convert to JPEG for publishing. I am not one of those who thinks that the creative effort ends when the shutter is released and thus will do anything I can to deliver what I consider my best image to the viewer. On my side I have Ansel Adams, one of the best landscape photographers ever and who, during the printing process, burned and dodged his images until he got just the prints he wanted and Leonardo da Vinci who painted and re-painted the Mona Lisa's smile until it was perfect! If it's valid for them to "edit" their initial images, it is certainly valid for anyone else to do so.

On Awarding - I will do my best to "Award Back" those awards given to my latest posted picture on any group. But, I will almost never "Award Back" those who by-pass my latest picture in a group to award an earlier picture which has already qualified for promotion to the next stage.

On Getting Blocked - There are two sure ways of getting blocked by me: 1- Using my photostream merely to advertise yours and 2- Having a picture within one page of mine and giving me a "Fav" and not an award. How can someone like my picture well enough to give me a "Fav", but not well enough to give me an award? It makes no sense to me, yet some do. If someone can explain it to me, I welcome that explanation.

My Gear




My Stats as of March 01, 2012











"My Gear And Me - Member of the Week"
It is a great honor to give this prize to one of our most distinguished members.
Congratulations!!!
From this moment on, you belong to a very restricted group of photographers who have been "My Gear And Me - Member of the Week".


















































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Started on July 11, 2010