bristlecone in the last light, originally uploaded by erin_designr.

another image available during the Katrina relief auction.

I am off to the White Mountains and the Bristlecone Pines on Saturday for a week. This time with 4x5 camera in tow.

Bandelier National Monument Kiva, originally uploaded by erin_designr.

Scanning in some old slides from a trip to New Mexico in 1996. It makes me want to go back soon.

Arches on the outside of the main part of the San Jose Mission. Shot with the little Pentax digital.

front of mission espada, one of the missions in san antonio

This was my first time in Hong Kong—Asia even— and I truly enjoyed it. The people were gracious and welcoming. The food was never ending and worthy of several weeks of exploration. I met many of my Yahoo! colleagues who work across the world and at the UX cocktail on friday night caught up with several bay area transplants and met a lot of other interesting folks.

The photos are divided into several albums—each strip leads to a different album.
Hotel views | Signs | Victoria Peak | Views | Food | Yahoo! Folks | Lantau Island

the largest seated buddha in the world—the tiantan buddha at the po lin monastery. i am in hong kong on business for the week, but took the weekend to be a tourist. more pics coming.

white sands new mexico. shot with kodacolor or something like that back in 1989 with my 35mm Minolta.

chairs and shadows on the patio of the new york public library

another image from florida: the end of the sunset over miami beach.

watching the water

spring trees at the new york public library

from the air over nevada somewhere

More pictures from my recent trip to Austin. Unfortunately it was not for SXSW - which I will get to someday. I keep saying that, just like I will go to Burning Man someday. Despite that, the IA Summit was a good excuse to gather with friends and aquaintances and run around the city eating barbecue and having cocktails (summit pics coming soon).

I am now one week away from leaving AOL. I gave notice last week and next Thursday is my last day. It's kind of weird - the first time in a long time where I am quitting to go onto something new. I will be at Yahoo by the end of the month and am looking forward to the new challenges and new problems to solve.

all the pictures from shooting day one | day two | day three | day four | day five | day six | day seven | day eight | of my trip are now posted

Day two of my ten day photo excursion and workshop is posted. Images cover a visit to Bodie and Big Pine, California. | Day One

Two boulders and half dome

Day one of my 10 day photo trip and workshop is now online. enjoy! | Day two

death valley hills :: february 27 2003

after spending 5 days down in death valley with cameras and fellow photographers, i have decided to take a break from this site to focus time on the craft of photography and on refining my photo portfolio (not online). i'm sure i'll be back after a rest and some creative rejuvenation.

just spent a week in dulles for work. it snowed 7 inches on thursday night. my first snowfall in seven years. these were shot from my 9th floor window of the hotel.

very funny image

The last of the pencam shots from my trip to Virginia. Shot from my hotel room. The day is wet and soggy, but the trees that I see from my room are intense and brilliant. During the week I was there, this red tree was like fire and then began to burn out as the rain pushed the leaves off and they collected beneath. I love fall and it is one of the things I miss most living in California.

best way to see the fall leaves? on the back of a motorcycle! my friend, took me out on the motorcycle for a couple of hours yesterday. we cruised around through the hills and trees and it was awesome. no pics...too fast.

Am travelling to the East Coast this week on business. I actually flew out on Wednesday and was here in the DC area before they captured the sniper. Needless to say, it is a big relief that he has been caught since I am here 4 more days. I took a drive out to Front Royal - Shenandoah Parkway - to see the fall leaves. Things were not to peak yet. The traffic was terrible, so I cut north up to Winchester and then over to Middleburg and through the heart of Loudoun County. I really love this area.

Wanted to share the other color infrared shots from Mono Lake. Since this was my first roll of this type of film, I only ended up with 5 shots worth scanning, and at $32 a roll, I don't think this is something I will shoot a lot of. But it sure is cool looking.

The pictures are in and collected together in a little slide show. My trip was fun and the summit intense. Lots of side meetings for things I am involved in and plenty of gatherings in the bars and restaurants. Not sure I really like Vegas all that much but I barely got out of the Bellagio. It was great to see some of my favorite folks gathered all in one spot - Lou, PeterMe and PeterMo, John, Christina, George, Jesse and Rebecca as well as fun to meet some new folks - Molly, David, Lane, Mike.

If you haven't ever seen the Cirque de Soleil - I highly recommend it. If you are in Vegas - the O show is a must. After our day of summit/conference sessions, several of us went to dinner at Spagos and then to O. No pics were allowed, but I had my camera and I turned off the flash...so here are a couple of shots- I only took four. The images don't do the show justice - I was so dumbfounded by what they could do, I scarecely remembered I had my camera.

am here in Vegas for a conference (see design writings in a couple of days for the conference details). Had a couple of gin and tonics with a group of folks and then we headed out to explore the sights and sounds of the strip. we ended up walking around in circles a bit. crazy place this is.

Once upon a time I lived in Leesburg Virginia. In Leesburg was a small mini-diner called the mighty midget. I never ate there but it was supposed to be a great place to get carry out fries and burgers. Only one guy could work in the kitchen space. Last year I started travelling back to Virginia as part of my job at AOL. I went back to Leesburg checking out my old haunts, was my townhouse still there, what about the woods where I used to walk with Maggie and take lots of photos, how about the Mighty Midget? Alas...

Finally have the pics from the Aquarium up. I visited last Friday when I was in Baltimore for the ASIS IA summit. Friday was a lovely warm day (78 degrees). The aquarium was filled with 6th graders on field trips, but despite the large throngs of kids, I saw a lot of really cool things. The images were taken as I moved through the space. I tried not to use the flash, so there are some blurry fish. The lighting was extraordinary and the colors intense. There was a special Seahorses exhibit and a lot of these shots are from that. This aquarium is unique in that they have an Amazon Rain forest on the top floor - complete with lots of tropical birds. The exhibits move from the ocean, to the coastal waterways to rivers as you move up the building. So the images move from ocean creatures to turtles and frogs and snakes and finally the tropical birds.

more...

Spent the weekend in Baltimore at the ASIST IA conference. I was a speaker and attendee. On friday I had a chance to wander around the inner harbor. These are the pics from the day. Images from the Aquarium will be posted separately. It was warm for the first two days and sunny and I enjoyed being back east for a short amount of time, although I didn't get any Blue Crabs to eat.

Words fail me. I cannot attempt to explain the field of concrete corn. Although there is a good historical explanation on the placards next to the field (which I did not photograph). I was warned about it beforehand, but when I came upon the concrete field of corn, I was amazed and astounded that such a thing existed. (Columbus , Ohio)

I am in a hotel (Embassy Suites) in Columbus Ohio. I have a cough, am still on California time and am not used to the heat being on so high. Travelling on business is always fun. Travelling in the winter, wearing a coat when driving, being sick and spending hours in airports is not fun. I had forgotten how uncomfortable it is to get all bundled up, get into your car and attempt to drive and have some mobility through all the layers. Luckily, there is no snow on the ground - I last did that when I lived in Rochester, NY. Ohio is flat and cold in January and there is a field of concrete corn on the way to the Compuserve offices. Pretty cool. Pics to come when I get back.

Subtle signs of winter in the bare and beautiful thistles. Shots taken a couple of weeks ago while in N. Virginia. I took a walk before I hit the airport along one of the bike trails. I had forgotten about thistles and cool they look. They don't seem to have them out here in California.

Flying home from the reunion I feel the waves of nostalgia rolling over me. Tears burn my eyes. I am sad and happy at the same time. I wonder about lost moments and missed connections yet am happy about the choices I have made.

This past weekend was spent back east in Virginia (for my hs reunion). While there I spend most of two days wandering around my old stomping ground of Loudoun County (west of DC) and in Washington DC. It was almost peak for the fall leaves and there were a ton of country festivals as well as the Virginia Gold Cup (steeplechase racing) going on while I was there. I shot the fall leaves and country side so I could have a bit of fall out here in California.

Note: this slideshow crashes Netscape 4x on the Mac

I leave at the crack of dawn tomorrow (at least for the airport) for my trip back east for my 20 year high school reunion. You would think that at this age, with my professional success and two advanced degrees that I wouldn't be nervous...

Spent this past week in Dulles, Virginia on business. Basically visiting the mother ship of AOL. Some pics of my trip are posted. All were shot with the Pencam. The highlight was a meandering drive out to where I used to live in Loudoun County.

Last weekend while in Phoenix for the AIGA Summit, I took a tour of Taliesin West. This is the Arizona branch of Frank Lloyd Wright's architecture school and winter home. He came to Arizona in the 30's after working on some projects there, and bought up 600 acress. He built the buildings and school with his students and they spent winters there - and summers in Wisconsin at the original Taliesin. The school continues today and the buildings are part of the school as well as an active professional architecture firm. These are some of the images I took and they only show the outside, the cabaret theatre and the larger performance hall. Items of interest include the wall sconce in the cabaret theater and the baby grand piano tucked into a cut out in the concrete wall. We did not go into the living quarters of other buildings - although there is a tour where you can.

Leaving on a jet plane at an airport where you still walk outside to board the plane. And so starts a quick weekend to Phoenix.

Have you ever been back to a place you knew a long time ago? I am travelling this week and am in Northern Virginia. I went to high school here, learned to drive here, generally spent the better part of my teenage years here - with favorite hangouts, cool places to drive and play and all the sorts of things you do as a teenager. After college, I moved back here slightly farther out - it required a long drive through the countryside and farms before hitting the small town I lived in. I moved away to go to graduate school nine years ago and havent been back in the area for almost 5 years when I sold my townhouse.

The place is booming. Lots of building, lots of new Barnes and Nobles and Starbucks and Staples. I spent part of the day driving around today and it was eerily weird. I felt like I knew where I was. Road names sounded familiar, the biggies I definitely knew and remembered how they hooked up. But I contantly felt like I didn't know where I was. As if I suffered from deja vu or amnesia but knew I was supposed to know. So many new roads, housing complexes and townhouse rows and stip malls dot the landscape and have replaced the sweeping vistas of the rolling hills that I used to know, I felt like I really was in some other town. It was strangely disconcerting and sad at the same time. I felt waves of nostalgia roll over me as I passed places where I grew up, where I learned about life and where I moved away from so many years ago. They say you can't go home again - and I guess if family is not there anymore and your friends have all grown up as well and made lives for themselves, you really can't.