Shadow Factor

In The Bleak Midwinter

2012-01-20T12:27:00.000-06:00

"In the bleak midwinter, frosty wind made moan, earth stood hard as iron, water like a stone..."
In 1872, English poet, Christina Rossetti wrote a Christmas poem for Scribner's Monthly magazine. In 1905 or '06 Gustave Holst set the poem to the lovely tune we still sing at Christmastime.

Yes, this is a blog ostensibly about golf course photography, but 'tis the bleak midwinter and I hope you will click here and listen and reflect for a couple of minutes.

Midwinter, 2011-12, the noise of presidential politics invades our quiet time, the economy remains frozen and we all – 99% of us – try not to think far into the future. There are chilling reports that the cost of gasoline, and heating oil, may rise beyond any previous record this winter. What are we to do?

"...snow had fallen, snow on snow, snow on snow, in the bleak midwinter, long ago." We aren't the first to suffer. There have been worse times. But these are our times. What are we to do?

We can start by turning down the volume and learning to listen, again. Collectively, we need to sit and listen to the quiet until the throbbing echos cease bouncing around in our heads. Sounds simple; it's actually quite difficult, but very rewarding. Go out at night and look at the stars. Granted it's difficult if you live in the city, where light pollution often obscures the night sky. In lieu of the actual sky try looking at these photos made with the Hubble Telescope, you'll certainly find a fresh perspective on our relative significance in the over all scheme of things.

If you aren't snowbound, go out for a walk, without golf clubs. When you return, flip four months ahead in your calendar and write a note to yourself about what you saw. And when you get to that day in May, drink a toast to yourself – seeker of truth and happiness. "...in the bleak midwinter, long ago."

A Rainbow for Silver Lakes

2011-10-14T10:25:00.021-05:00

The Fourth Hole, Short Course at Silver Lakes, 5:56 p.m. Wednesday, October 13, 2011

On the terrible evening of the terrible tornado outbreak of Wednesday, April 27, 2011, a vast vortex, the mother ship of perhaps a dozen smaller vortices, bore down on the peaceful settlement of Glencoe, Alabama and the Robert Trent Jones golf Trail – Silver Lakes golf course. In minutes, which must have seemed like hours, virtually everything about the golf course changed. Only the clubhouse – with minor damage to its roof – remained standing. Gone were thousands of beautiful hardwoods, tall pines and understory trees like Dogwoods. The maintenance barn, with all its heavy equipment, was obliterated. Several of the upscale homes built near the course had vanished. Only the foundation of a cement block country church – where one person died – remained. The golf course constituted over 400 acres of land; no quadrant went unscathed. One of its most challenging courses, The Heartbreaker, was heartbreaking to look at. Officially the Silver Lakes tornado was categorized as an EF4. However meteorologists will admit there is precious little difference between an EF4 and an EF5, the highest rated and most destructive of all storms. Both leave utter destruction.

I first set foot on Silver Lakes in November 1, 2004; it never failed to impress me. I should say: “She never failed to impress me.” I bond so completely with my subjects, even the cow pastures. I’m old enough, and just hippie enough, to believe they talk to me, and reveal themselves only after I shut up, and allow them to speak. Yesterday, while scouting for restoration photos, I told Silver Lakes Director of Golf, Jason Callan, I felt butterflies in my stomach, actually, it was more like a lump in my throat: the course seemed embarrassed, like an actress made to play a role in too skimpy a costume and all her supporting actors: the birds, the deer and turkey had left. The incomprehensible horror of the storm still rang in the air like the fading “ting” of a Tibetan Tingsha bell.

Yesterday was stormy and I watched each new weather satellite image throughout the morning, hoping for some clearing. By mid-afternoon it looked promising, but clearing in stormy weather can be problematic: the bright sun can warm the moist air and cause more storms to form. Still, it was worth a 90 minute drive from where I live to Silver Lakes. After my tour with Jason I went right to work, looking for angles that didn’t show damaged trees in the background. The course management company has done a astounding job getting what was once a parkland/woodland course turned into a pseudo-links course – the greens are said to be the finest on The Trail. But I would need to be careful, shooting only at the right time of day to cover the remaining blemishes: places where the grass hasn’t fully grown out, or threes look too thin.

Then it happened: a huge clap of thunder. A downpour followed and as the rain moved east, it occurred to me there was a chance of a rainbow. It seemed a fitting testament to the tornado, to the lives (human and animal) lost, and to the hard work of getting a beautiful place back in order, that there would be a rainbow. Hope, as always, springs eternal.

The Seventh Hole, Backbreaker Course, Silver Lakes, Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail, Glencoe, Alabama, Saturday, October 15, 2011, 7:15 a.m. Twenty-five yards east of utter devastation.

Lessons about Inertia & The Summer of Love

2011-09-13T11:53:00.008-05:00

It was The Summer of Love, the year was 1967 and the folk-rock band, The Youngbloods, topped the charts with "Get Together." It was a call for unity – and "love" – in a very unsettled time. Here are the lyrics, they might well be applied to today's economic climate.

Love is but a song we sing
Fear's the way we die
You can make the mountains ring
Or make the angels cry

Though the bird is on the wing
And you may not know why

Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

Some may come and some may go
He will surely pass
When the one that left us here
Returns for us at last
We are but a moment's sunlight
Fading in the grass

Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now

If you hear the song I sing
You will understand...listen
You hold the key to love and fear
All in your trembling hand
Just one key unlocks them both
It's there at your command

Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together Try to love one another right now

So what's this got to do with the golf biz? The same thing it has to do with the American economy in general: we are stuck. Inertia has taken over and everybody seems to be waiting on someone else to do something.

Some blame it on the present occupant of the White House, others blame Congress, the banks, the housing bubble, European banks. Ben Bernake, the Fed Chairman, recently said we (meaning you and me) are "too depressed." Who wouldn't be depressed? Business is bad. If you are reading this and disagree, congratulations, for you are most certainly one of the few.

Inertia is a wonderful thing, it holds your golf ball patiently in place until you strike it and you have to strike it if it is to become a birdie, or an eagle. Inertia is also, according to the dictionary, "a tendency to do noting or to remain unchanged..." That may be swell if Mr. Bluebird is on your shoulder and everything is going your way, but not if you are waiting for someone else to make something positive happen.

We may well be our own worst enemies. Our fears may become self-fulfilling. We've got to overcome the inertia that is keeping us from moving ahead. Think of a locomotive pulling a long train. It has to somehow get rolling; it has to overcome the inertia – the combined weight – of all those loaded cars if it is to get to its destination and make money. The engineer applies power and, coupling by coupling, the whole train begins to move. Kinetic energy will help to keep it rolling – very efficiently – to its destination. The economy will work the same way, get it rolling, don't get too greedy, and it will keep on keeping on.

In April of 1939, James Thurber wrote in a New Yorker piece: "You might as well fall flat on your face as lean over too far backward." We've got to take a chance. We can make our economy better, ourselves.

I said.....

Come on people now
Smile on your brother
Everybody get together
Try to love one another right now
Right now
Right now

Sunrise with Bucky

2011-08-07T14:39:00.005-05:00

On April 18, 1941, twenty-four year old Aura J. "Bucky" Miller went to work at the Grand Hotel, Point Clear, Alabama. Over the next 60 years he became, as the late Alabama Senator, Hal Heflin said in Congress, on Bucky's 79th birthday, April 18, 1996: “...he has become the embodiment of hospitality.” He was famous not only for his "Brunch Punch" and mint juleps, but also for his remarkable ability to remember the names of guests, who may have shown up only once a season.

It was appropriate for The Grand Hotel to have a beloved and famous waiter, after all the hotel, which was erected in 1840, had served as a Confederate hospital during the Civil War and a marine training base during World War Two; it had burned down in 1869 and had suffered damage in several hurricanes. A company history doesn't say what Bucky and his fellow employees did after the attack on Pearl Harbor and the hotel, once again, became a hybrid military base, but it’s easy to imagine the young black man, in his dark waiter’s livery serving gin & tonic to white folks at the Officer’s Club and their remarking on what a pleasant person he was.

So it was that, one hour before sunrise, on August, 3, 2011 – already auspicious, being my sixty-fifth birthday – I found myself placing my left palm against the right palm of Bucky’s posthumous life sized bronze statue; we were about the same size. My wife was attending a business meeting at The Grand and I had trailed along as a spouse. When I told a client, whose company owns the hotel, about my situation, she remarked that she could use a new photo of Bucky’s Birdcage Lounge, which is the bay side of hotel’s restaurant and bar. I thought: “I could do that.”

The Grand sits on the eastern shore of Mobile Bay, not far from where the last slave ship, Coltilde came ashore in 1859 and Admrial Farragut dammed the torpedos in 1864. Early mornings in August can be stupefyingly humid, on the bay. There’s a choice, if you plan to make pictures: leave your gear hidden in the car so it can be nice and warm, and humid all night, or bring it into your cool hotel room so you won’t worry about thieves and get some sleep. If you choose the latter, you best rise early so your lenses won’t be dripping with condensation when you want to use them.

The afternoon before I was to shoot, I had determined August wasn’t the month to photograph the exterior of Bucky’s Birdcage Lounge: the sun would be behind the building both at sunrise and sunset. But The Fates have their own kind of humor and I was there, in August. Shooting during the “Blue Hour,” can solve a lot of problems and the Southern light in August is so special it once inspired a famous book’s title. Dusk wasn’t an option: there could be no people in the picture, so there I was, shaking hands with Bucky at 5:00 in the morning, my camera equipment setting about; dripping.

[ At 5:30 A.M., Wednesday, August 3, 2011, according to my Kestrel weather instrument, the air temperature was 87 degrees and the dew point was 87 degrees. That meant the relative humidity was 100 percent and that translated to a heat index temperature of 116 degrees. There was no breeze that morning. ]

My liaison from the hotel sales department, Kevin, lit the fire pits at 6:25, forty-five minutes before sunrise. Seeing fire in that heat isn’t like it is on a cool October evening. But on this occasion it was a blessing: I could hold a lens near the flame to dry it off!

6:45 came; the sky had lightened, the lens had dried: Showtime! Bucky was 85 when he died on August 30, 2002. It felt as though I was making the picture for him, rather than of him. I thought about all those hot, humid days, and nights, he had served cheerfully, making sure all the guests were treated in a Grand Fashion. He was looking after me, too.

"Just look over your shoulders, honey.."

2011-06-27T12:54:00.001-05:00

As the child prodigy Michael Jackson said: "Just look over your shoulders, honey..." You would be well advised to do the same the next time you play golf. A golf course is a gestalt: more than the sum of its parts, although sometimes, some of its parts can be pretty darn impressive. As authoritative, and imperative, as yardage books, (remember those?) with their maps and suggestions, may be, they NEVER mention how beautiful the Fifth hole looks from the Sixth green. NEVER.

But they should. Why? Because life is short and we're inclined to take things for granted. Look around you, even if you've been blessed with great sucess and wealth, seeing something from a different angle can reveal just how blessed you are; how lovely your house, beautiful/handsome your spouse; how wonderful your children, your grandchildren... the Fifth green at Old Edwards Club at Highlands Cove. Just look over your shoulders, honey; you'll see things differently when the pressure's off, when you aren't thinking about what you've got to do.

Then you can think about just how blessed you really are.

Of Indian Mounds and Golf Courses

2011-06-08T19:25:00.009-05:00

The Appalachians are the oldest mountains on Earth. Sometimes soft, sometimes craggy, they extend southwestward from Virginia, North Carolina, Tennessee and South Carolina, putting a toe of their foothills into northeastern Alabama. For a thousand years northern Alabama was home to Native Americans who were members of the Mississippian and Hopewell cultures: Chocktaw and Creek, among others, who who were mound builders. A few miles north of Cider Ridge, Number 16, (shown above) on the outskirts of the small city of Oxford, Alabama, are the remnants of one of their burial mounds. The mound is said to have been built 1,500 years ago.

Okay, it's a stretch compairing indian mounds and golf courses, so stick with me.

In the postcard photo above (from the Telecommunication and Film Department of the University of Alabama) we see what resembles an elevated tee, but it's actually an ancient indian burial mound, circa 1200 A.D., located near the western Alabama town of Moundville.

Now, look at the photo below, made from the Fourteenth Tee at Shoal Creek. Couldn't it have easily been made from atop an indian burial mound? There.

Golf courses have always been huge excavation projects, as were indian mounds. Today, talented golf course shapers driving bulldozers, take plans that an architect, like Bill Bergin, who designed Cider Ridge, and do what armies of Native Americans once did with digging tools, made from rocks and sticks and backpack baskets woven from bark or some other kind of vegetation, to haul soil up, and up, until a 100 foot tall, or taller, mound was built.

Now imagine a peaceful time some 800 years ago. You live by the beautiful Chocalooclo, a creek that runs fast, deep and cool, even in the summer. It is spring and the golden light of the late afternoon sun makes everything you see beautiful. You are standing atop a 150 foot tall burial mound and you have a panoramic view of the friendly ancient mountains. You tee up and select your club: an expensive – "Whole sack of oyster shells!" – beauty made of local persimmon wood and marble. You grip it and address the ball; you draw a bead on the flag 700 yards away. You waggle your tail, and go for greatness!

Oh Happy Day

2011-05-10T17:08:00.004-05:00

Last Thursday, while scouting a course that's about 65 miles from my home, I made a note to: Be by the creek at Number 5 at 6:45 a.m. The following morning was cloudy so my next opportunity would be Saturday. At 4:45 Saturday morning I felt every one of my six and a half decades as I tried to summon the strength to get out of bed. But if I didn't get up, and go shoot that picture, I would hate myself all day; possibly longer.

A peppy man, way older than I, greeted me at the cart barn and gave me the key to a brand new Club Car. It was unseasonably cool and Chocccolocco Creek (Creek Indian word meaning big shoals creek) was warm and steaming in the cool air. The scouting thoughts proved correct and the sun was right where I thought it would be, plus the "smoke" drifting off the creek was causing sun rays to form: Move fast Kemo Sabi.

My trusty Gitzo tripod, a friend of at least 25 years, found its place without my help; everything was going great. I looked through the camera and: Spssssh! the sprinkler came on! Holy Golf Course Superintendent! – but he had said not to worrry – then it went off! Somewhere, someone had pressed the wrong button! Oh Happy Day!

It's "Canada Goose" Thank You

2011-04-23T12:57:00.007-05:00

The third day of my job at Magnolia Grove dawned in pea soup fog. Visibality improved enough by the first tee time to let a coulple of guys go out and pretend they were in the British Isles. But it was no improvement for photography, even an hour later when the fog lifted to become gray, shadowless, overcast.

I began a slow tour of the course; somewhere out there the sun was at the perfect angle and magic might happen. Thankful that the cart was electric and not one of those noisy old gas models you find here and there, I was soon enveloped by the fog. I quietly drifed past the players; past the barely visible maintenance men and their noisy machines; glided like a ghost past the swamp where woodpeckers drummed; over the railroad tracks, where the course, Crossings, gets its name, and through the charmng covered bridge at the Fourteenth, and there she was. A single Canada Goose standing as she had stood for the past two days, on the Fifteenth fairway.

In my business you'll will make many – many – trips around a golf course in a single day. You learn the short cuts, go in reverse order, often trying to be two, even three places at once. The Fifteenth Hole on the Crossings course at The Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail at Magnolia Grove is a par 4 / 423 yard beauty, so it was on my "Go Back Often" list. Each time I arrived the goose was waiting...somewhere.
[ In the image below she's out of view, down at the water's edge. ]

Like most birds, Canada Geese mate for life, they are monogamous. Some birds (I won't name any names, here) are called "Serial Monogamous," meaning they stick together for just one breeding season. When you see a Canada Goose alone, day after day, it usually means something happened to its mate. (The urge to anthropomorphize is almost overwhelming.) Noted ornithologist, David Allan Sibley states that "...divorce in unsucessful pairs occurs occasionally." (Note to humans: it ain't just us.)

It's nearly impossible to detirmine the gender of a perticular goose and it can make you rue the day your ever tried, but I detected a strong feminine vibe from this gal, especially when I decieded to photograph her. First she would wonder off a few feet, then glance back over her sholder at me. I would move closer and she'd move a few steps away. I sat down, she stood still. Détente! She began to preen, I clicked away. Five minutes, max. Then she stretched her legs, rose up on her tip-toes and pumped out her huge brest. The noise and wind was startling when she flapped her powerful wings, three times; was it goose-speak for "beat it, buster"?

And that was that.

This coming week of April 28 - May 1, the course will host the Avnet LPGA Classic and thousands of fans will tromp across the bridge on the fairway that is her home. Maybe it's just as well she doesn't have little ones to worry about this year.

Shooting The Bird

2011-04-18T13:35:00.004-05:00

Writing about birds for a golf course photography blog is fraught with puns and I'll do my best to stop with the title, which set the bar pretty low.

Today's specimen is a Great Blue Heron (Ardea herodias) that I saw wading in the lagoon, at Lagoon Park, in Montgomery, Alabama. When he saw me pointing the camera with its 300mm lens – which probably looked a lot like a gun – he launched and flew right past me. (The word heron is Ancient Greek and is masculine gender; apologies to Ms. Heron.)

Herons are a big deal in many cultures: Native American tradition says "the Blue Heron brings messages of self-determination and self-reliance...." It was the creator of light for ancient Egyptians. Herons represent strength, purity, patience and long life in China, and in part of Africa, the heron communicates with the Gods. And lordy they are patient. They will stand in one spot for hours as long as no one gets too close.

If you are a regular reader of this blog, you know that I'm all over what wonderful nature places golf courses are. If you don't "birdy" the next hole you might still hear, or see, a beautiful bird that improves your outlook. In fact, [heresy alert] you might even just go out and enjoy the walk and let the ball have a little fun of its own. The emotional and cardiac improvements will be well worth it. And you won't cuss as much, potty mouth. (You know who your are.)

It's something to think about: the whole gestalt of golf. If you play golf religiously, you might as well behave like you're in church, where some shouting is allowed – even expected – but you're always reminded where you stand in the over all scheme of things.

And remember the heron: he's patient, focused and always gets his fish. Don't take too long to hit your ball, everyone might not be as laid back as we are. We don't want to make them to holler and make gestures.

An Eagle on The Tenth

2011-03-28T13:16:00.005-05:00

Recently I had the opportunity to photograph Bear Trace at Harrison Bay, in Harrison, Tennessee, for GolfWorld Magazine. Part of the Tennesse Golf Trail, it's a beautiful, 7,140 yard, Jack Nicklaus Signature Course, nestled along side the Tennessee River on – you guessed it – Harrison Bay. Besides all the usual visual treats one would expect on a Nicklaus Signature course, there is something else: wonderful wildlife. White Tail Deer, so tame they virtually come right up to you for a bite of your enegry bar; Wild Turkeys gobble in the surrounding woods and there's an American Bald Eagle's nest on the Tenth Hole.

The day of my shoot, every player on the course knew about the nest and the mother sitting with her eaglets. But the real talk was about The Father: a huge, elegant thing, so far beyond ordinary "bird" you could practically hear The Stars and Stripes Forever played by the New York Philharmonic as you gazed upon him.

There's a tall tree – a snag, actually – about fifteen feet to the west of the tall pine where the nest is. Dad sits at the top of the snag keeping an...eagle-eye on the whole situation. Course Superintendent Paul Carter told me about a recent altercation involving the father and an inmature male eagle. (Inmaturity, you gotta love it!) It was noisy and lasted more than a few minutes. What a show it must have been! Most of the time the scene is mostly domestic with dad supplying freshly caught – still wiggling fish – or some kind of meat.

I got my photo of "E Pluribus" just after he glided from his perch, going to get mom and the kids some fish for breakfast: Probably Perca flavescens: commonly known as perch. (Note the right eye warily watching me. Awesome!)

We are blessed on almost any golf course with the opportuinty to commune with Nature. Sometimes, at the end of the day, no matter what numbers are on your score card, you'll remember the outing forever.

"Shall I Compare Thee to A Summer's Day?"

2011-02-02T19:18:00.023-06:00

It's the worst of times for those of us who love to photograph grass; we dream of green fairways, emerald putting greens. But it's February, and most of Earth's land mass is north of the equator, and it's winter up here. Air travel being what it is, New Zealand, South Africa, South America, India and the countries that make up southeast Asia don't call. (Australia? They've got a world of problems right now.) So we languish; cleaning up the computer hard drives; sending out promos; wishing spring would come early.

It's a time to go through one's journal and fondly recall beautiful summer days taken for granted. That could never happen – ocean breezes, luxuriant grass, vibrant blossoms, taken for granted? – but it does. Twas William Shakespeare who asked: "Shall I compare the to a summer's day?" He knew the value of a blue sky, 80 degrees, 30 percent relative humidity and a gentle breeze. So should anyone ever compare thee to a summer's day, it's not that you're "hot and sweaty," it's better than that.

Someone has figured that the average lawn in America has approximately 8,712 square feet. Squish the 11th hole on the Ocean South Course at Pelican Hill, in Newport Coast, California (shown above) into a rectangle and it would be roughly "lawn-sized". If Ye ol' 11th had Kentucky Blue Grass growing on it, it's possible there might be as many as 320 blades per square inch, or 46,080 blades per square foot! Do the math: 401,448,960 blades of grass in the avarage front yard! I don't know how Blue Grass and Bermuda compair – bladewise – but next summer when you're waiting for your tee time, think about it. Billions and billions!

Last week, at the PGA trade show in Orlando, there were whispers – well, not totally unfounded rumors spouted at happy hour – that golf courses may have to start going brown in order to become more green. It costs a fortune to keep all those blades fed and happy. And if a golf course is spending a fortune on fertilizer, guess who they are going to ask to help out? You baby. And golf courses are facing more regulation regarding everything their maintenance departments spray. But I digress, the object here is fond memories of last summer.

For a moment, just put yourself over a gleaming white Pro V1 there on the 11th. Feel the same luscious breeze that's flapping the flag and filling the sail on that boat. You've gotten the green light; go for greatness. You the man!

Consider the Spider's Web

2010-12-16T18:42:00.008-06:00

Many people don't like spiders – you may be one of them – but I have come to praise Queen Araneae, not to kill her. It's almost always a girl spider that you see, because they kill and EAT their male counterparts after canoodling. That's not exactly praiseworthy in my book, but hey, it's the way spiders do things.

A spider of the genus Araneidae, or Orb-Weaver, wove the web shown above. On spring and fall, mornings, their little webs often sag under the weight of thousands of dew droplets. What a feat of engineering, determination, confidence, and hope:

ENGINEERING: Her choice of material – her only choice, actually – is silk. Silk that is quite possibly stronger than steel or nylon – of equal diameter. She anchors her web in three places, making a triangle. From there she weaves the spokes, and the spirals... careful not to get caught in her own trap. [Amazing spider web info here. And The Wonder of Spider Silk, here.]

DETERMINATION: When a little spider looks up at some tall plants she has to determine that she's in the right place and that she can do what has to be done. After an hour, or more, of work she determines that she has finished and can wait for dinner to come to mamma.

CONFIDENCE: It can be argued that a spider isn't a sentient being and therefore has no concept of failure. "Failure is not an option," (Gene Kranz in Apollo 13) but if she fails, she doesn't eat. I argue that she knows she must weave a web, and she has confidence she will catch her next meal.

HOPE: Okay, I know this is a stretch. But the way I see it, you don't do all that work without hoping that it isn't all for naught.

As we consider what goes on – spider-wise – at the swamp by the Tenth, or in our backyards, we can apply the same principles to our own activities. We should engineer our work with well anchored ideas, and carry it out with determination and confidence.

And what of hope? Hope abides; it will never leave; you will always have hope.

One last note on spider webs: Tangled webs are usually those of very unfriendly spiders – Black Widows, Brown Recluses. Harmless – but perhaps scary – little eight-legged artists, who destroy their old work every morning, weave elegantly engineered webs like the one above. A new web takes about an hour to build.

The Greenskeeper

2010-11-28T16:58:00.011-06:00

We both arrive before sunrise: I, in my late model SUV, he, in a twenty-year old pick-up truck, with lots of chrome and five other guys. I park in the lot by the clubhouse, they, a half-mile and a world away, at the maintenance barn. They usually get their orders from the Superintendent's assistant, a straw boss with aspirations of being the big dog one day. He speaks in English and they struggle – as a team – to understand. One in their group – a bilingual Alpha Dude – translates.

After checking in at the Pro Shop, I load a shiny, one month old, Club Car with my gear and head to where I want to be when the sun comes up. Golf courses are magical at dawn. Teaming with wildlife, they are all Yin, waiting for Yang. Just before dawn, in autumn, nighttime and dew point temperatures often will match, and patchy dense fog will form in the valleys. It would be spooky if it weren’t such a lovely place. I fight off a ridiculous "Mine, all mine!" feeling and remind myself that the odds of getting a good photo on a golf course at sunrise is lower than it is at sunset. You need luck, even if you've gotten it all worked out – just right – with the Superintendent. You can only hope the image in your head doesn't get tracked up, or worse. Remember, best-laid plans often go awry.

As I alluded above, we go to great lengths to work things out in advance: tractor-mowers will be kept off "that fairway," The Greenskeepers and the little mowers they use to "mow the dew off the greens" will be sent somewhere else. And, “Call us about the sprinklers...” The sun comes up… and the cell phone doesn't work, or plans were forgotten, or lost in translation. As I said, "You need luck."

I arrive at my destination, plant the tripod and wait; the sun is half over the horizon when I hear the first low rumble of a Toro Workman utility vehicle, pulling a rattling trailer loaded with a Greensmaster 1000 mower. The morning air is thick and sound can do funny things; I try not to worry. The "Workman" is following the serpentine cart path, my cart path!

Often, my "spot" isn't really that close to the green. Actually, sometimes it can be quite a distance from the green, and way off the cart path, too. Do I leave and go block him off? Should I try to speak in Espaniol, or Spanglish, and tell him he needs to defy his bosses’ orders and obey mine? He's getting paid almost nothing, he works hard, and is very grateful for his job: "No habla Ingles."

It's too late to head off to another location, so I watch as he does his job: five, ten, fifteen, twenty laps, back and forth across the green, at a fast walk. He takes out a long fiberglass whip and whips the cuff; puts the flag back in the hole, and loads his mower back on the trailer. Depending on the property and how many other guys are working, he may mow as many as nine holes by himself. I crack open a bottle of Bolthouse Farms ~ Mocha Cappuccino and peel a "Clif Bar" and watch the young man perform a greatly unappreciated job: making golf course greens look beautiful.

The REAL Reason I Do What I Do

2010-10-21T21:19:00.000-05:00

Yesterday I received an e-mail from GolfWorld requesting photos of The Shoals, a Robert Trent Jones Golf Trail course located in northwest Alabama. The photo above – Fighting Joe, Number 18, at The Shoals – was made at 4:50 a.m. on June 9, 2005, and it gave me an opportunity to think about why I do what I do.

As difficult as it is sometimes to get up at four o'clock in the morning, and be in position to make a photograph of a new day dawning over a beautiful golf course, it's always worth it. The maintenance guys hadn't finished their coffee by the time I arrived at The Shoals that morning; it was barely dawn. I drove my car along the road used for deliveries, and parked behind the clubhouse. It's pretty easy to get excited when you remember that the earth is spinning at roughly 10,000 miles an hour, and the sun is going to appear any second. You literally slap your expensive camera onto your expensive tripod, and try hard to imagine how the composition you've just concocted will look with a relatively close star right in the middle of it. There will be no second chances. No kidding, at this point you defiantly get the feeling that you are "riding" the planet, and it's exhilarating! Throw a little meteorology into the mix and you've got yourself some real excitement, with all natural ingredients.

The image below – made in early October, at 7:00 a.m. – is another example of why getting up early can be addictive. A client recently bought a couple of municipal courses that had fallen on hard times. One course had nine holes, and was only two years old. I named it "Link." The city that built Link didn't know much about "golf course TLC," when I got there she looked pretty forlorn. The city's "Legal Department" had told the superintendent to keep the grasses – the tall grasses that a links course needs to define its fairways – cut short. The company that built the course didn't do much in the way of "shaping," so, in a word, it was almost flat. And forlorn.

After throughly scouting – nine holes, mind you – and asking the heavens for a muse, I got an idea.

You have to know exactly where the sun is going to rise, and when. And be ready. What happens – if it isn't overcast – is very special.

The attendant at the clubhouse was still scratching and yawning when I arrived.

The tops of the trees west of the hole were the first to catch the sun's rays. Then, as the sun rose above the eastern tree line, light began to fall on the grass, slowly and sensuously moving eastward, leaving a trail of bright, warm, kisses. My heart rate climbed as the flag lit up; the green was now spotlighted. The world seems to stop turning for an eternity of seconds: click, click-click-click. Link was beautiful.

Just like people, golf courses have their "good side." You have to be willing to see with your heart. And if your heart points you in the right direction, and you pay keen attention, you will know you've chosen the right line of work. It's very gratifying.

Everything's Going To Be Fine

2010-09-28T16:45:00.009-05:00

Number 11, Reunion Golf & Country Club, Madison, Mississippi

If you're like most Americans you didn't believe it when you heard the recession ended in June, 2009. Who can blame you? If you can't sell your house because "it's underwater," or if you can't buy a house because banks haven't gotten the "Fed Says to Start Lending" memo yet, it sounded like a bad joke. Try to go through a day without hearing bad economic news and you'll lose. You'll go home and drink gin right out of the bottle, and snap at your dog. Yes, these are times that try men's souls.

The golf biz got hit hard. One industry publication wrote that courses were selling for as little as ten cents on the dollar.  Man, this is some bad stuff, I miss writing about Robins. [See previous post.]

Everything is going to be fine. The industry will lose some courses – hopefully not yours – that will be rough, but it will be healthier. You see, word went out back in what the early 1980's that there was a serious shortage of golf courses.  Simultaneously, there was a boom in the development of gated communities around the country, and every one of them needed a golf course. Add to those ingredients the belief that millions of baby boomers would all retire with lots of money and time to play golf. How sweet it was. Pass the gin, please.

It was a wonderful time for golf course architects; twenty-five good years, at least. They could move mountains, pick up mature trees and re-plant them somewhere else; they could grow grass on solid rock – for a price, and the money was there. By the turn of the century the golf magazines were fat with ad pages featuring the latest Shangri-La, or Valhalla. There have been two golden ages in golf course design. Not to take anything away from all the beautiful recent work, the first golden age was more about golf, than gold.
But we shouldn't begrudge the men their money; they gave us some remarkably beautiful golf courses in return.

As some private courses go public, and smart management firms take over ill-fated public courses, the industry will get back on its feet. Most sobering is the challenge faced by country clubs, and private golf clubs, that lost so many members over the past two years. Those former members will have a lot of good public courses to choose from, and what must the private clubs do to lure them back? They will certainly be more family-friendly than before, offering more bang for the buck.

In the end, it's like the doctor telling you he has some good news, and some bad news. The procedure isn't going to be a walk in the park, but you're going to be just fine. Clubs and management firms need to  hire professionals to show their properties in the best light, and advertise like never before. In the end, it won't be like it used to be, it will be better.

So you can put away that nasty gin, and go back to admiring, perhaps, a dignified single malt, as it slowly commingles with three sparkling cubes of ice.

Peaceable Kingdoms

2010-09-23T18:20:00.001-05:00

On the first day of autumn, 2010, an American Robin came to our patio fountain for a refreshing, late afternoon, splash. The weather in the deep south is hot, and dry. Migratory birds get their cue to fly south not so much from the temperature, but by the length of the day. Over the next couple of months golf courses in the south will become great places to watch birds, and Birdies. In fact, the National Audubon Society accredits many golf courses around the country as bird sanctuaries.

Birds aren't the only wildlife that find sanctuary on golf courses. Florida golf courses, for instance, are about the only place left in that state for many wild creatures to go. Yes, goose droppings are a pain, and alligators can create stressful moments, but, all in all, golf courses are Peaceable Kingdoms, and we are blessed to get to hang out in such lovely places.

It's About Time

2010-09-21T11:40:00.004-05:00

Learn something about your watch,

The last sunset of the Summer of 2010 will occur Wednesday, September 22. When you start your day Thursday, it will be Autumn. Each following day will be a little shorter until we arrive at December 21, then, if you are a Druid, or just suffer from the Winter Blues, it will be time to pull out the stopper; the longest night of the year will be over; December 22 will have a few more seconds of sunlight. Golf course photographers usually start the work day at sunrise, so there's an upside: we don't have to get up at 4:00 a.m. for several months, and there will be no more 14 hours days for a while. However, like migrating beasts, we must find greener pastures further south.

But first, let's party; October awaits! Beginning in late September, in the far north country of Maine, trees start putting on their most flamboyant colors. As the northern party winds down – leaving its mess of hats and confetti – trees to the southeast start to celebrate. And so it goes until about second week in November; what a blast. Drought is the wild card, it stresses the trees, and can make leaves change color early, or turn brown, or just drop. Party pooper. In the northern states freak snow storms can crash the party. [See post below on "Working With Weather."] But that's extremely unusual.

It's not just the color change that makes autumn special for golf course photography, the sun's lower angle helps show off all the shaping; the swells, and soft valleys. There's less haze in autumn; the sky is often a richer blue, and there can be magnificent outbreaks of cirrus fallstreaks.

It's important to hire someone who knows about timing, light and weather; who has artistic talent, and will leave little to chance. Although each hole on a golf course may not be special, each hole has its special time, and that can make all the difference. A professional golf course photographer knows that, and will put it to work for his/her client. It's all about knowing when to be where, and what to do.

Now is the time to show the world your beautiful golf course.

Don't Worry, be Happy

2010-09-15T14:07:00.015-05:00

Usually, during the second day, after throughly scouting the course, I begin to feel it's vibe. Every golf course has a feeling; some Yin/Yang spirit, or Feng shui element, that starts to send little messages to you in your quieter moments. After a while, with me, I start to feel I can see the whole course, all at once – like the maps in a yardage book. That's important when there are two or three, four holes that want to be photographed at almost the exact time of day, and you've got to know how to get to each of them really fast.

But this isn't about "Fast," it's about the mojo a golf course has, and how, if you will just slow down once in a while, you'll pick up on it; and, you'll be better for it.

In a earlier post, I wrote about how golf course photographers spend a lot of time waiting. We try to make ourselves as inconspicuous as possible and wait for players to move on through our picture. So we get to watch a lot of golfers; all kinds. Now, nobody ever said that golf was supposed to be a walk in the park, but it doesn't have to be a war, either. I once witnessed a man, big guy, having an awful day: he was cussing; everything was going wrong, and he had his wife, held hostage, in their golf cart. I thought: "Poor woman, she probably didn't want to be here in the first place and she can't even enjoy the scenery." It was certain, he wasn't enjoying the scenery!

Now, why do we do that? Huge sums of money have been spent on this idyllic place; money has been spent to join the club or the daily fee; and money will be spent to replace clubs wrapped around trees?
In Nicklaus By Design, Jack says – and I'm paraphrasing here – that not only should a course be challenging to the player, but it should be enjoyable, and beautiful, too. [Sorry, Mr. Nicklaus, I had to return it to the library.] Apparently, Tom Fazio says words to that effect, too; as does my friend, golf course architect, Bill Bergin. Bill told me that not everyone's a great golfer, and the people who aren't should enjoy the outing, too. Michael Hurdzan and Dana Fry are winning awards for beautiful new environmentally sustainable golf courses that work with Nature, not in spite of it.

I'm not advocating having a picnic, in the tee box, overlooking the lovely little lake, but I am suggesting you might do well to follow the advice of the great Walter Hagen: "You're only here for a short visit. Don't hurry. Don't worry. And be sure to smell the flowers along the way."

Golf courses are beautiful places. I know you won't have the time to look at it from every angle like golf course photographers do – I hope you won't; that would be a bad game, indeed – but I do urge you to take a moment to think about the architect, and the gift that he, and nature, have given us.

Going Coastal

2010-09-13T14:22:00.013-05:00

Panama City Beach, Florida, was lucky; it didn't get slimed. Saint Andrew Sound, Saint Andrew Bay, Grand Lagoon, all remained free of oil. Nevertheless, the Summer of 2010 will be remembered for the record number of tourists who didn't visit, and that's a shame.

The beaches along the northwest Florida and Alabama coasts have long been famous for their "sugar white beaches," but tourists want shrimp, and Red Snapper when they go to the coast, not "tarballs," and "oil-mousse." BP, and the tourism industry, couldn't make TV commercials fast enough to offset the damage; try as they might, they couldn't lure vacationers back in time to salvage the season. The beaches cleaned up nicely; some weren't ever soiled, but the damage had been done.

Now a new season approaches. After the short "fall color" season plays out over the next nine weeks or so, the Gulf Coast will beckon again. Sure, it's different in the winter; for one thing, it isn't as crowded. But the bright, warm sun is balm for winter blues and cure for cabin fever.

I chose he photo above for this post because of the promise of a bright sunny day after a passing, early December, storm. It's the fifth hole on the beautiful Nicklaus Course at Bay Point Marriott Golf Resort & Spa, in Panama City Beach, Florida.

Monkeying Around the Digital Domain

2010-09-07T15:01:00.009-05:00

Replica of a cathedral Monkey Corbel, lighted by sunlight through a window prism in our home, at exactly 3:44 p.m., Thursday, September 2, 2010. A moment that will not happen again for a long time, if ever.

Welcome to the Digital Domain, a Wonder World, where anything is possible. In the Digital Domain we can be a master musician and have a beautiful voice; the looks of a Greek god; the wisdom of...Wikipedia and the artistic talent of Michelangelo. And, we can also really mess up.

Consider photography; landscape photography, as in pictures of golf courses. Painstakingly cared for, golf courses constitute some of the most beautiful manmade parks in the world. Great attention is paid to the "composition" of a golf hole: Architect, Tom Fazio pioneered the moving of fully-grown Live oak trees that had grown on the wrong side of his future fairway. So "taking pictures," as the saying goes, should be pretty easy; but it ain't necessarily so.

In previous posts I've addressed basic things like the sun's azimuth and altitude; the importance of keeping up with the very latest weather and, staying out of helicopters – which I think is very important. Today comes a real curveball: How will it look on the Internet?

Let's face it, the Internet – the Net, the World Wide Web – is simply taking over everything. That's not a good thing, really. But it's where we are right now and we have to deal with it. Want to play golf when you go to the coast? – You look on the Internet. Planning a colorful autumn golf outing? – You Google. And the sites with the prettiest pictures will hold your attention. Call it "eye candy" and, like it or not, if you are in the business of selling memberships or tee times, you better get some.

Sure, some places are so famous they need no further explanation. But if you aren't Pebble Beach, or one of its ilk, there's still a way to get "eyeballs" to your website.

Before the world "went Digital," golf course photographers – all photographers, for that matter – had to take what they found when they got on location. Wires, dead patches, bald skies... It was what it was.

Not so, today. We can fix a lot of stuff. In the interest of full disclosure; I Photoshop. Oh, yes. Almost every day. At this point I would like you to go back to my website and look very closely at the images. Are they real, or have they been "monkeyed with"?

Answer: The monkey defiantly had a hand in everyone of them. We're selling golf courses here, not crime scene evidence. And if Tom Fazio can move Live oaks, I can Photoshop.

To quote Spiderman: "With great power comes great responsibility." And, thou shalt not Photoshop, unnecessarily. Digital photography is a wonderful tool. Like anything else wonderful, it can be misused. It comes down to taste, really.

Sure, you already knew supermodels don't really look like they do in their pictures; but if it isn't "news," it has been Photoshopped. [Photojournalists use Photoshop to balance color and to sharpen their photos.] Everything else gets a thorough massage, if not a downright makeover. Sometimes to disastrous results.

Below is Number 18 at Tom Fazio's Fallen Oak near Biloxi, Mississippi, before, and after, a treatment at my digital spa.

Avoiding Helicopters

2010-09-01T17:29:00.000-05:00

We see a fair number of aerial golf course photos; presumably shot from helicopters. I'm not keen on choppers. I've logged many hours in them; nice ones: Bell Jet Rangers, Aérospatiles, Hughes/McDonald Douglas, a Huey, a CH-47 Chinook, and Bell 47G straight out of MASH. That last one was for a wintertime shoot; with the doors off. It was a long flight and we had to land for fuel. When the pilot and I got out we couldn't straighten up. We walked like two guys trying imitate Groucho Marx. We were stiff!

With my feet firmly on the ground; that's the way I like to shoot, just like a golfer. Occasionally there will be a golf course that isn't on the water, but it's close enough you can see it from the air. Or, how do you show there are a lot of mountains instead of the few close ones? You have to get up high.

I've already said I'm not too keen on helicopters; they're expensive to rent, and they have way too many moving parts; if you know what I mean. You rent helicopters to hover. When a helicopter hovers it is working with all its might and something might go awry. If it does the pilot has to pull off something called: Autorotative Flight which affords the chopper with approximately the same glide ratio of a brick.

So there I was, needing to show that the course I was shooting – The Old Edwards Club – was nestled snugly in the Smokeys. You don't just pay for the actual time you are in a helicopter, you pay for its trip from, and back to, its home base: expensive at half the price. One afternoon I had noticed a magnificent home under construction on top of one of the nearby mountains. Hmm. I located the mountain on a USGS Quadrangle topo map I had purchased from the local hiking store and determined that it was roughly 4,600 feet tall; just right for my needs. It was time to go introduce myself to the builders.

Luckily for me I met the owner, a very nice lady from Palm Beach, Florida. She gave me permission to make all the pictures I wanted.

The following morning I was on top of her new crib before daylight. A little disturbance in the atmosphere was coming through. It was cold for June, and the wind – according to my Kestrel wind meter – was blowing 40 miles an hour. Ever tried to set up a tripod on a scaffold above a house under construction on the peak of a 4,600 ft. mountain? In the dark? With the wind blowing like hell? I thought of my sweet wife, back at The Old Edwards Inn, sleeping soundly on a pillow-top mattress, with soft quilts and pillows, Would I see her again? In this life?

Before long the eastern horizon began to glow with the faintest orange – cue "Thus Spoke Zarathustra" the 2001 - A Space Odyssey, movie theme – Ol' Sol Was On His Way!

God bless digital cameras. The cold wind was blowing so hard the tripod and I were shaking in unison. With digital cameras you just crank up the ISO setting until you get a shutter speed fast enough to handle the shakes; even if you can't.

In just a few minutes it was all over and time to head down to the golf course. During the day the wind died down and I began worry that my sunrise stuff might be a little... shaky? Time to return to the mountain top. It was sweeter, if less dramatic; I would have a choice for my client. (They went with the sunrise.) It was time to meet my wife, Sara, at Paoletti's , find out about her day, and have some of the best Italian food in America: Salute!

Izod

2010-08-31T11:26:00.000-05:00

Last month, while shooting Cape Fear National, [my work is not on their website as of this post] I encountered a friendly reptile, whom I called, Izod. We spend a lot of time waiting in the golf course photography business; we wait for clouds to move out of, or into, the frame; we wait for maintenance people, of all ranks, to finish their work; we wait for foursomes to play through; and we wait for singles – often the first to arrive, or the last to leave – who putt over and over again until they get it just right.

At 6:15, on the morning of July 16, I was poised to photograph Cape Fear's Sixteenth hole. The course had absorbed a flooding rain overnight; except for being overcast, everything was just right. I knew, from my pre-dawn weather briefing that the overcast had some holes in it [see post below on Working with Weather] and I would be rewarded if I was patient. So I waited.

Being the only person in acres and acres of golf course can be a real treat. You can lie down on your back in the middle of a fairway – as I often do – to determine if slow moving clouds are, indeed, moving; you can listen to birds, or the breeze; or, you can nap. Getting up way before dawn in the summer can be brutal. But occasionally it can be scary: as when the Lightening Warning goes off and you stay while every sensible man and beast runs for cover; or, when you get the feeling you're being watched.

There was no balmy ocean breeze that morning; it was hot and humid. My white linen shirt was already wet and clinging to me; gnats came to my eyes and ears looking for little sips of water, and I got the distinct feeling someone was watching me.

There's a lake along the Fifteenth fairway and it curls one of its fingers around the tees at Sixteen. To ward off boredom – and sleep – I walked over to have a look. There, only a few feet away, was a handsome young alligator, looking back at me: Hello.

I gently back-stepped to my tripod, removed the camera, and slowly returned. As far as I could tell it hadn't moved anything except its slowly moving left eyeball, following me. Izod seemed friendly enough; may have actually been "alligator-purring," (note the vibration waves in the water around it's snout). Of course it could have been a sub-sonic growl, too low for me to hear – I went with purring.

Izod and I lived our little drama, but soon I began to feel I might be scaring off breakfast. It was getting late and gauzy high clouds were filtering the sun, washing out the color; I would come back at another time. I would get that same feeling of being watched, but never saw Izod again.

Working with Weather

2010-08-26T11:58:00.000-05:00

Look around the Internet at golf course pictures and you will be hard pressed to find any made on an overcast afternoon. With the exception of the British Isles, it's always a sunny day on a golf course, right? Hardly. Golfers play in all kinds of cloudy and inclement weather. They may not want to, but they do. Just a couple of weeks ago I scouted a course when the heat-index was 114 degrees and there were golfers all over the place; they were suffering, but they would play in Hell if they had to. And it was sunny.

Because our clients want pretty skies and green grass, golf course photographers are always concerned about the weather. Even with good planning, the weather may change – for the worse – soon as we arrive, or shortly after. Here's a case in point:

Last October, on my second day at Old Edwards Club at Highlands Cove, in Highlands, NC, a dreary warm front moved in and brought two days of fog, mist and rain. Every weather link on my computer, every mind-numbing National Weather Service "Forecast Discussion," Weather Channel, AccuWeather, everybody was coming to the same conclusion: the season's first snow storm was imminent.

Back in 1987, a similar event took place in Vermont when I was working on a book for the National Geographic Society. We had timed everything perfectly: Early October: autumn was at its glorious peak, the weather was sunny and warm. Then, from out of nowhere, a cold front dropped the temperature to the low 30's and it snowed 12 inches! It tore limbs – with their beautiful leaves – right off trees.
http://www.nytimes.com/1987/10/05/us/early-snowstorm-covers-northeast.html?pagewanted=all

Never give up. In a day or so the weather warmed, the snow vanished, and there was enough "glorious" left to make some nice pictures. Would history repeat itself, almost exactly, 22 years later? No. We didn't have the Internet in 1987; Weather Channel – in its infancy – was on, but it wasn't always available in motels. In short, we didn't have all the information back then that we do today. In October 2009, in my snug little cottage at The Old Edwards Inn, I had high resolution satellite images – refreshed every 15 minutes – to look at on my laptop. I could see holes in the clouds to the west of the Smokey Mountains; the clouds, and the holes, were moving eastward. Outside the mist was astonishingly thick; visibility was approximately a hundred feet, max. It was early afternoon and holes in the clouds were still in Tennessee.

Around 2:00 a freshening westerly breeze began to stir, and swirl, the mist. I looked at the computer screen, then at my camera bag; holes in clouds can affect local wind, but they were still at least 60 miles away. The mist had gone by 3:00, replaced by dark gray in all directions. The latest image from the Goes-East weather satellite showed the holes were no more than 25 miles away. It was time to tell the pro shop I needed a cart.

Only two people were at the pro shop when I called, and they both must have thought I was insane. Thankfully, the girl at the desk was able to convince the guy in the cart barn that I knew what I was doing. It's a twenty-minute drive to the golf course from the cottage, and they were still socked-in when I arrived at 3:45.

Although the sun would officially set at 6:58, I knew the mountains would block it long before that.
Like, maybe in forty minutes. Also, I knew where I wanted to go: Number 6. [Why scouting is so important.] At 4:00 the sky was still overcast as I set up the tripod and attached the camera, but the ceiling was lifting, and there was more "light" in the air.

At 4:15 the sky to the west of Number 6 brightened considerably; a hole in the clouds was coming. I had until 4:40, and then the sun's altitude would drop below 26 degrees and be hidden by a mountain. [See Post on Compass and Clinometer.]

The image above was made at 4:30. Five minutes later the lovely scene fell into shadow, the sky became gloomy again, and the next day there was sleet and snow.

Many thanks to Old Edwards Club, Director of Operations, Jerry West, and Head Golf Professional, Jordan Kenter, for giving me to opportunity to photograph their beautiful golf course. http://www.oldedwardsinn.com/

Tools of the Trade

2010-08-25T11:15:00.002-05:00

   These days just about everybody has a digital camera of some kind. A good professional grade camera – sans lens – goes for maybe $3,000 to $6,000, and most professionals have at least two. Good lenses – and a professional uses an assortment of them, from wide angle to telephoto – go for about a thousand bucks a pop. For landscape photography a good tripod is a must, and if it's composite and doesn't weigh a ton, it will cost around eight hundred dollars. Pros also spend a bucket load on computers and monitors. [My setup is a Mac Pro and a Mac G5 with several external hard drives and two huge screens that look like IMAX from where I'm sitting. And there's the trusty ol' G4 PowerBook that goes on the road with me.] That's a pretty good overview; there's other stuff, but what I've mentioned gets the ball rolling. (And in roughly three years everything, except the tripod and lenses, usually has to be replaced with the latest.)

   For me, all of that hardware, and the software that makes it work, isn't worth anything without some good ol' analogue instruments that haven't changed much since the nineteenth century. I'm speaking of my clinometer and compass; my scouting tools. With them, a yardage book, and a printout of the sun's positions throughout the day, I can find the best time for a given hole to be photographed. Even on a cloudy day I can determine where I should be and at what time, when the skies clear. All those images on this website – with the sun in just the right spot – planning, not luck.

   I'll write about how a good understanding meteorology is also beneficial in the next post.

What's a "Shadow Factor?"

2010-08-24T09:03:00.000-05:00

The "Shadow Factor" (Sf) is the result of a mathematical equation used to determine the length of shadows based on the Altitude of the Sun and the Object's Height. It was used to determine when to shoot virtually every golf course image on this website.

First Hint of Autumn

2010-08-23T15:24:00.000-05:00

This past weekend I noticed our fountain, which has four faces – one for each season – had a leaf stuck to Summer's face: a preview of coming attractions. It won't be long before Autumn gets out her paint and brushes to take her turn. Have you noticed the shorter days? The lower humidity? It was William Faulkner's wife, Estelle, who said, "You know, there's something about the light in August." And thus a book was titled. We should let August inspire us, too, and get prepared for coming attractions.