Business Talk: The Mountains and The Bay

The Mountains: The base of upper Yosemite Falls ©Billy Sauerland

I love having people in my life that inspire me. Particularly about going after what you want, doing the work, and achieving your goals and dreams.

I recently went on a trip to California, first to Yosemite then to San Francisco. My friends Elisabeth “Moe” Barton and Bryant Burnette are founding members and operators of Echo Adventure Cooperative in Groveland, CA outside of Yosemite National Park. Then in San Francisco my friend Keith Lawrence, musician, producer, co-founder and owner of Unicorn Breeding Ground.

During my visit, the discussions would often transition to work, projects, goals and the excitement of what we’re currently working on.  Along with the trials we’ve had, the solutions and achievements we’ve made in overcoming them. This back and forth is energizing, and helps motivate you to get your own work done. While in the mountains talking motivations, current and future plans, business and marketing strategies. Then a few days later while on the bay discussions about artistic collaboration and how working with different artists has a way of making each other better together rather then apart.

The give and take, the seeding of ideas, the whole experience can be intoxicating. If only I can bottle it and take it home with me. There is nothing like being present in the place where big things have and continue to happen. In one case it's the small mountain town right next to one of the jewels of the National Park system, the iconic Yosemite. Where the likes of John Muir and Ansel Adams did some of their best work, helping to form our environmental movement and the way we see it.  And the other, San Francisco, where artistic expressions, social movements and technological achievements have changed our culture and our everyday lives.

The Bay: Baker Beach just southwest of The Golden Gate Bridge ©Billy Sauerland

I love and support my friends, their work, and them achieving their goals. I’m taking that energy home, cultivating and growing it. NOW, LET’S WORK!!!

Below are a couple links for Echo Adventure Cooperative and Unicorn Breeding Ground’s social media, go and check them out.

The Mountains: Echo’s FB Echo’s Insta The Bay: Unicorn’s FB Unicorn’s Insta

I hope all of you have people in your lives that do the same for you. #goanddo #dothework #liveyourpassion

Year(s) of the Asterisk * Part 2 : One decision at a time.

Yellowjacket, getting itself something sweet. 2020/09/06 #yellowjacket #pollinator #goanddo #dothework

A decision down, more still to come.

Since the last post I’ve been a little busy. Cultivating an old routine and making it new again, journaling. Journaling for me includes sketching as well as writing. I do have a fine art and design background, and drawing and painting were my main creative ventures. So I wanted to try and bring back those practices, that helped me develop ideas, that I let slip away. Yesterday, I made a modification to my site, there was an old 365 project that I had started in 2019 and subsequently let die, so renamed and reclaimed as an Image Journal. It’s a place just to upload images for ideas, reference and just to say this is me right here right now. It’s not Instagram, which for me is more of a promotional space. But more of a space for generating ideas, a space to take note of things for future ideas, concepts and projects etc. As well as just to say this is me right here right now. It’s also not a blog exactly, it can link to and probably will at different points, but it generally won't be as formal or detailed as a blog post or series of post.

Ex: Imagine a book with pages that are not lined, where you jot down an idea next to a sketch and maybe a taped image you captured to help illustrate your idea to yourself. Just to remind yourself at later date. Thats kind of what I’m going for. So yes a visual journal, not necessarily daily but will entries made often.

---

Pollinators

Along with the Image Journal, I am also beginning to share images and video that I have captured, that show moments in the woods or wherever I go. This ties in with the general theme of my photography, Where I Go, What I See. Below is an example of that. The still image and video are of a Viceroy Butterfly that I captured during one of my recent visits to Oxley Nature Center. This is particular moment is shared in the Pollinator gallery under the Projects tab. I feel it’s so important to protect our pollinators, all of them not just the honey bees.

Viceroy Butterfly, a moment in the woods @oxleynaturecenter

Year(s) of the Asterisk * (06/25/2020)

Lake Greenleaf State Park, Fall in Oklahoma at 12:30 am. ©Billy Sauerland

The above image was taken during a night of camping at Lake Greenleaf State Park, Oklahoma. I was camping with a friend of mine Elizabeth “Moe” Barton. We took the opportunity to go camping and to catch up with each other. She had spent the previous summer in Alaska working at the Kennicott Glacier Lodge, in Wrangle St-Elias National Park. That night we shared where we are at the moment in our lives and where we might be going. She also shared some stories from her adventures that summer, like the one about how a bear cub stole her campfire mojo.

What does that mean? Asterisk* : a symbol (*) used to mark printed or written text, typically as a reference to an annotation or to stand for omitted matter.

In this case it’s omitted matter. What’s been going on since the last post? Both a lot and nothing much, huh? The latter part of 2018 was a MF’r to say the least. Not to go into too much detail, my sister with whom I didn’t have the best relationship with passed away, on Nov 21st, after sometime in the hospital. Then in December my mother went into the hospital with pneumonia, thankfully she recovered and was released to go home. These two events, more so my sister’s passing, triggered some long deeply seeded issues I have with myself and my past. By the time January arrived I thought I had been dealing pretty well, wanting and feeling the need to move on, I moved into my own space for the first time in several years. Up until then I had been renting a room in a friend’s house, sharing an apartment with a friend. I felt good and things where moving forward, until they weren’t. What I had lead myself to think was that I had been processing things well. I even remember waking up one morning in the middle of December thinking I felt good and was doing well. Looking back I believe I was actually in some kind of denial, and that I had actually shifted into a previous mode I use to live in all the time. Growing up my life was always in some kind of chaos, always having to deal with one f’ed up situation or another. So in a strange way, the end of 2018 seemed familiar and oddly comfortable. And that whole frame of mind flowed into the beginning of 2019. Until sometime around late March or early April, when after being alone in my apartment for a couple months everything really began to surface and I began to spiral. It wasn’t an all encompassing debilitating depression, but I could just not function when I didn’t have to. On the weekend I would just not exist then when Monday would come I would function, I would goto work, barely and that’s about it. The 2019 holiday season was pretty low for me. I spent them with my mom as usual, checking all the boxes I am supposed to. I needed to create a break in my behavior, in my thoughts. Then when January 2020 came around, I am not one for resolutions, I began to make some changes. So around the second week of January I joined a gym and began working out, having not worked out on a regular basis since my twenties, it was slow going but I did the work to start the movement forward, ugh. I also started a new retirement/investment account, starting today is better than starting a year from now was my newish mantra. Trying to create a fresh frame of mind and fresh outlook for the future. Then, 2020 happened! F’n 2020! Covid-19 and all that it brings along with social/political unrest centered around justice inequalities and racism in the country primarily involving policing. So here I find myself nearing the end of June 2020, and I’m still tumbling, not a full free fall but not yet stable. Slowly adding fragments of stillness to my day and to myself. Thus allowing me to actually work on the post and possibly to formulate future post. I started this post almost a year ago, I’ve written and rewritten and then just stopped, not sure what to do or say. However I’m needing to do something, either stop everything, including my photography and try something different, or to stand and keep pushing forward with what I’ve already started, or both in some form or another. I’m still not sure exactly what I’m going to do or how, or where for that matter. But something needs to change, things will change.

365* Project...182.5 Re-Boot!

2 IMAGES A DAY TO THE END

The 365project started strong in the beginning, I did have fears that it would not last and then ultimately it would fade and stop. That of course is exactly what happened, unfortunately I was unable to maintain the effort and I became distracted by other things going on in me life. The last month or so I’ve been thinking of a way to reintroduce and complete the project in a meaningful way. This came about through efforts I am making to restart my photo book as well. Evaluating what has lead me to this point, not having completed the projects I have started the last year. I began to refer to the last year, really the last two years as “year of the asterisks,” more on that later.

So that the numbers add up to what the original project would have contained, there must be an accounting of the missing images. So the idea of two images a day, beginning at the half way mark on day 182 or near the beginning of day 183. There are already 15 images posted for the project, one with an asterisks, there will be some forgiveness near the end of the year. As of right now I do not know what that forgiveness will be however for now I want to re-establish a regular regiment without too many variables to try to make it easier for the new routine to become established.

Exit Glacier, Kenai Fjords National Park, Seward, AK

As I am working on this blog post I am watching “National Parks Adventure” on Netflix. It is a McGullivery Freeman IMAX film, if you haven’t seen it I highly recommend it. Seeing images of National Parks featured in the program makes me want to take a big road trip so badly. One of my dreams has always been to travel the country and photograph all the parks. The tag line on my website, “Where I Go, What I See.” This is something that I have always held close, wanting to share what I see, what I bear witness to. From Exit Glacier in Kenai Fjords National Park to Bison in the Tallgrass Prairie Preserve north of Pawhuska, OK.

Bison, Tallgrass Prairie Preserve, Pawhuska, OK

This, in a lesser way, is what I want to try and achieve with the 365* project, to share “Where I Go, What I See” on a daily basis. The images may not be grand or awe inspiring but they will be true and honest, to share the truth of the day and place.

With that, I move forward with true and honest intent to be open to what may come everyday until the end of the year and after. To not be re-active but pro-active in my efforts and outlook.

13 days 12...11...10...9... to the Re-Boot!

13 days until it starts, until I begin again to capture “Where I Go, What I See” everyday. Stay tuned for more information on what in the world that actually means.

Cottonwood, Little Sahara State Park, Waynoka, OK

Revisit, Re-edit. Kenai Fjords National Park

Kenai Fjords National Park. I spent the day with my mom and niece out on a boat in the fjords. Watching for whales, sea lions & birds, the later made up the majority. However the landscape took the prize, it never let you down with its beauty and immensity.

I was revisiting images from that trip, this image particularly I like. But I do want to see it both in color and black and white. I think it will work in both versions.

This version shows the surreal aqua blue, lush greens and grey black stone that divides the scene. The bright coolness of the colors give a bright freshness to the air. While the clouds in the distance give a hint of mystery, making you wonder what is still to come.

During this trip into the fjords I was constantly reminded of a quote by Muir, “One learns that the world, though made, is yet being made; that this is still the morning of creation…”

The B&W version gives a bit of hardness that was not there in the color version. Relying solely on the textures of the foliage and the patterns in the water to convey the story of the scene. However this version, because of the lack of color, is mainly divided vertically between light and dark. Where the color version is divided both vertically and horizontally via the transition from various greens to grey and black to aqua blue.

With all of this being said I still like both versions. What do you think? Let me know in the comments below.

Hana 2019

I don’t do a lot of senior portraits, but when a friend and former coworker asks, I do them. But I am thinking of changing that. Two years ago, I did a portrait session for her son and this year I am photographing her daughter, Hana.

Hana was wanting to do do something a bit more creative and fun. I’m always up for different and fun. It often will force me to do something challenging. This took the form of a composited image. We had decided to meet at a local park at nine in the morning. I was hoping that the area we were to be shooting would still be in shade, but no luck, the sun was hitting it with all its morning glory. I wanted to get the shots needed for the composite first thing, before larger numbers of people started to arrive.

There were far more images shot than just these four, but these are the four images I used for the final composite. I wanted to take a minimalist route to the final image. I could have taken more images, but I find simple is best. After, working the images individually in Lightroom, I then combined them together in Photoshop, to do the final blending and fine-tuning the alignment, until I got to the final image.

The rest of the morning we spent walking the park, getting images in predetermined areas that Hana wanted to get an image in.

On all these images I followed a basic editing flow, maintaining the look and style of all the images. With that being said there were specific things that needed to occur with each individual image for it to turn out. But working within a general framework, I think I was able accomplish bringing out what was special with each image.