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Showing posts from 2022

Snakes in Tennessee

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Every year indoors people make dangerous plans to go outside the walls of their own home. With no context for ever having been outside, their number one concern is rightly snakes. Forums are full of "how do I avoid snakes" questions. I wrote this simple guide to help deal with snakes. Being outside in Tennessee is literally no different than swimming in a sea of snakes. You want to learn to keep your head above the snakes, because you cannot breathe snakes and you will suffocate. Treading snakes is little like treading water, but only if the water were snakes. Avoid snake rains entirely. You'll want to be inside when it is raining snakes, which is about 50% of the time. If you learn to tread snakes, congratulations, you're halfway to enjoying the eternal bliss that is Tennessee! Oh no! That snake is poisonous! What do you do? 1) Eat the snake 2) Swim away slowly 3) Eat the snake 4) Swim violently in the snake sea to frighten t...

Photographer Resume

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If you're looking for my portfolio of what I consider my best photos, please go here . In the beginning of my photography career I identified as an artist and wanted a digital camera to so that I may pursue those creative needs. However, I realized that I lacked a specific subject matter, and without direction, this hobby would be short-lived. Fortunately, I discovered some inspiring photographers and began to replicate their work. Over the years, it has been an enjoyable journey documenting nature primarily in the Upper Cumberland region of Tennessee. Recently, I decided to extract some statistics and graphs from my published work on Flickr to identify potential trends. I am sharing this information not to boast, but to illustrate the creation of a dynamic dashboard using Google Sheets. The data is actively obtained from Flickr, analyzed, and transformed into multiple graphs and raw data. For this analysis, Albums relate to specific dated events, for example, 2021/08/08 ...

Lessons from a Photographer of 15 years

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I have been taking my interested in photography seriously for the past 15 years, during which I have shared approximately 13,000 photos online , and captured at least ten times more (excluding time-lapse videos ). I have invested significant effort into organizing and describing my extensive collection, with a focus on photographing a region of the country that has largely been overlooked by previous generations of photographers. I specialize in capturing landscapes that feature various natural elements, including caves, waterfalls, natural arches, rivers, and other natural features, as well as historical and prehistoric cultural sites.. My objective is not to become an influencer, but rather to earn respect in the field of photography, use it to make the world a better place, and if I am very fortunate, earn enough revenue to support my hobby. From this journey, I have learned a few lessons that may be beneficial for individuals embarking on their own photography career. Some of m...

Caver Resume

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The table to the right and the charts below are dynamic, and part of a larger tracking system I've created to allow me to organize my caving trips. Within the Google sheet I include date, who I was with, and links to external references like Flickr, or Facebook. Many old time cavers have journals, this is the same practice, modernized (with some benefits and some losses). I provide this data publicly to: Encourage other cavers to better catalog their own trips. Provide myself with a better mechanism to track my own caving activies.

Springtime Macro Fever

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This time of year I get excited for the emergence of native wildflowers. I enjoy using iNaturalist to aid in documenting what I find, and I especially enjoy the technical aspects of macro photography (which I am admittedly not really great at). Here are a few photos that I've taken in the last few weeks that I thought others may enjoy.