Semi-retired

Lately, I've been wrestling once again with what to do when I grow up - maybe I'll figure that out before I grow up, maybe not. One of the trends that I've taken up is that photography should play a more central role.

And with that thought, I've launched a new blog -- http://dklotz.blogspot.com/ -- and this one will become semi-retired. At the new blog you'll find my portfolio and a few new pix every week that show my continued exploration in photography.

It will be interesting to see where this journey ends up, or whether I will actually ever grow up...

- Dan

More photos from the summer

Meg is showing these at CJ's school today. Enjoy!

How to use chopsticks

(apologies for not posting in ages; more to come again)

More vacation photos

Continuing to slowly move through the photos, I have a few more from our western odyssey. These were all taken in Sequoia National Park.

CJ among the redwooods:



Taking photos on/next to a fallen giant:



The rest of the redwood landed in a meadow:



The girls share a giggle in front of the General Sherman tree, the largest tree on earth by volume. FWIW, I don't think you really need to clarify that kind of claim...



The moon over the trees in our campground, first thing in the morning:



Yes, I'm missing it!

Vacation - Family Style!

It took forever to finally arrive, but Meg, CJ and I spent almost two and a half glorious weeks on vacation in California. We did quite a bit of sightseeing: the really steep hills of San Francisco, the really big sequoia redwoods, the really big cliffs of Kings Canyon, the really interesting history of gold country, the really beautiful valley of Yosemite, and we even managed to go to a wedding at the end. (really, no fooling!)

It will take forever to sift through all the pics, sorry, but instead of posting them all at once I thought to post a few at a time. The whole lot, once finished, will get posted to our flickr account. And at some point soon, Meg will post a longer recap of Vacation: 2010.

Enjoy!

The view from Morro Rock in Sequioa National Park (when focusing on the moss on a dead branch):



The "Tunnel View" of Yosemite Valley, just before sunrise:



Yosemite's Half Dome, from Glacier Point, just after sunrise:



Little tree in the middle of a big cliff, viewed from Glacier Point, just after sunrise:

Morocco, solo again

At the end of June, my job sent me to yet another corner of the globe, this time to Agadir, Morocco, for the International Whaling Commission's annual meeting. To start things off, while I was waiting to switch planes in the Casablanca airport, my wallet got picked -- on Father's Day no less. The meeting was as stressful and difficult as they all are. The World Cup provided a welcome relief, and the locals even tried to recreate a few games on the beach, but without the vuvuzelas.

Afterwards I tried to spend a few days in a very picturesque but crushingly poor town called Essaouira. The town was overrun by a music festival that was at times quite entertaining (and free, fortunately).

I've spent the past few weeks trying to recover, and reconnect with my family after too much travel over the past nine months. I'm going to try to post more regularly here, as it seems to be a better way of communicating than through facebook or twitter. But we'll see what the summer brings -- aside from an actual family vacation, of course.

Photos from Morocco can be found here.

Photos from Cairo

As I mentioned in the last post, after spending two weeks in Doha last month I decompressed for three days in Cairo. Decompress is probably the wrong word to use; Cairo is the most frenetic town imaginable. Great fun if you like to take photos, mine can be found here.