Sweet Salvation! I had feared the worst but I was saved the torment of eternal frustration thanks to you-know-Who. I had gone against Nikon's good judgment and decided to clean the low-pass filter on my D-70 by myself. Daring, I know but I'm a rebel like that. Anyway, I did it before my trip and imagine my horror when I uploaded my images and saw streak marks on every single image... all one hundred-plus of them! I was freaking out. I mean how much does a low-pass filter cost anyways? One million dollars? I don't know and I don't want to know! So I called the guy that makes the cleaning stuff and he told me to get back in there and scrub... not too hard and not too soft. So I Goldilocks my way through six or seven cleaning pads and managed to remove my prior sins, er mistakes. Whew! What a relief.

Todays image is one of the dirty images I was able to resurrect after an hour with the clone tool and magic band-aid. There were four scenes of Jesus' life painted on oil tanks in Long Beach, Washington, which is also home to the World's largest frying pan.

I read an interesting article in LensWork tonight. It had to do with people who go out and photograph together. It immediately reminded me of two of my friends Jon and Darren ( http://www.darrenclarkphoto.net/blog/ ). They shoot together frequently. I'll leave it at that because I know Darren looks at this sight every once-in-a-while. When I was in Maine at the MPW, I used to go shooting with a fellow classmate, Lyssa P.. We enjoyed the same haunts but our work wasn't even close to similar. People were always amazed that such different work could come from the same location. I remember us always thinking that was funny. I mean nobody sees the world through the same set of eyeballs and our life's experiences influence our perception. Even if we stood in the same spot, I doubt very much if our images would look the same. Back in the good ol' days, when I was teaching, I would make my students all photograph the same thing... shoot a whole roll of the same thing, to boot! They were always amazed, as was yours truly, at the different ways one subject could be approached. That's a lesson for you to have Darren. Make your kids go to Driggs and photograph the Spud Drive-in. If they do it in the Fall before they close down, they can also enjoy a Gladys burger!