Ramblings

Happy Easter!

This photo is from Pam Chambers, Communication expert and artist. She's amazing in both right brain and left brain pursuits. Check out her site: http://pamchambers.com.

Punk palms

May desktop wallpaper

We were on two programs - one in St. Martin and one in Palm Beach. Had a blast. I posted our desktop wallpaper an wanted to share the photos taken on those programs. Here's the link: http://www.eyeoftheislands.com/RLSGalleries/May09/May09.html If you want to be added to our mailing list, please let me know by commenting on this post. I'm happy to share!

Volcano - Wildlife coming through our yard

I'm in Volcano for a couple of days. This evening as we settled down with a drink, a pair of Kalij pheasants walked through the yard. Grabbed a shot of the male.

Desktop wallpaper for February

Whew! Got the images for February's desktop wallpaper up.
Here's the link: http://www.eyeoftheislands.com/RLSGalleries/February09/February09.html

Desktop images

We uploaded a few images for friends to download for their desktops.

http://www.eyeoftheislands.com/RLSGalleries/Holiday09/holiday.html

Please comment if you download them. Feedback is great.

Faded Beauty

A friend of mine gave a matted print of this to Obama when he was here.  Maybe he'll hang it in the White House. Yeah, right!

Hotel Lanai

A friend of mine purchased the Hotel Lanai on Lanai.  It's an old style wood building with eleven rooms.  Hotel Lanai has always been my favorite place to stay.  Four Seasons Manele and the Lodge at Koele are very nice, but Hotel Lanai is what Lanai is all about - small, quaint.

We stayed on Lanai for a couple of days to photograph some sights for notecards that will be given away to guests at the grand opening.  We could have used more time, but we can't be away from our dogs for a long time.  Latte's ears are infected and need constant vigilance.  We made the best of it and got some great shots.  Here's a link to the gallery:  http://www.eyeoftheislands.com/Client/Lanai/index.html.

I'll properly label the photos later. 

Zen Mountain Monastery

It's a good thing I'm playing catch up. Since I'm not doing anything exciting right now, it gives me an opportunity to write about other things.

This summer, I took some time off to go to a photo retreat at Zen Mountain Monastery.  It's location is Mount Tremper in the Catskills in New York State.  The abbot there is John Daido Loori.  He trained under Minor White, one of the great masters in photography.  His training with Minor White opened the world of spiritual seeking and zen.  Daido Roshi's book, The Eight Gates of Zen, is the book piqued my interest in zen.

The monastery is an old Christian monastery in a beautiful setting.  The schedule was to sit zazen every morning from 6 - 8 AM.  Then there was work practice for a couple of hours.  Daido Roshi gave a talk in the afternoon before sending us off on a photo assignment.  After dinner, there was zazen until 9 PM and then lights out.  The schedule was very much like sesshin or a zen retreat.

I was drawn to the monastery's cemetery, Nirvana Forest.  A lovely, peaceful place surrounded by pines.  The grave markers were simple wood as you would find in temples in Japan.  Taizan Maezumi's stupa is there.  An article on the ZMM site says that the first creature buried in the cemetery was a dog. 

Here is a link to photographs...in the forest, at the cemetery.

Yosemite in Autumn

Things have been so crazy.  I decided to do an exhibit of my China images, I'm leaving on a backpacking trip on the Big Island, and our assistant has left on maternity leave.   

Kris and I did have a relaxing vacation in Yosemite after I returned from China.  We spent five days shooting and relaxing.  I haven't had a minute to blog so I thought I'd share our images...

http://robinscanlon.typepad.com/photos/yosemite_krisrobin/index.html