. . . is what fills this latest of my photo books and maybe my last, at least for a time. Blurb killed their old design software and I don’t like their new one, so definitely fewer and maybe no more books. Too much work and frustration with a poorly designed software!
Because the photo gallery linked above will go away when I die, I have donated my bird, butterfly and many other nature photos to the following three sources where they can be seen now and for posterity as well as contributing to the science of each species as all three are major sources of nature research for many research organizations and universities around the world, including their professors and students:
“Hope deferred makes the heart sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” ~Proverbs 13:12
Cortez Amarillo Trees blooming, Arenal Observatory Lodge & Trails, Arenal Volcano National Park, Alajuela, Costa Rica
My blog/website administrative page has a bucket for “Drafts” and occasionally I put something in there that I think I might work into a blog post later (like yesterday’s). Back in 2022 I placed the above quote from Proverbs that I picked from one of my Daily Bible Readings to comment on later and here I am, about 3 years later, commenting on it (with photos!). 🙂
Sometimes one of my photo books “just happens” and not as originally planned! 🙂 I now give a gift book to each of my favorite lodges each time I visit and no longer do custom books for the lodges, so I needed a new gift book (which other visitors to that lodge will enjoy). Plus I sometimes give one of my doctors or other persons serving me a gift book and was needing a newer and fresher book.
I started out with the idea of just 8-10 photos in each of 3 categories: birds, butterflies and landscapes and would call it “Birds, Butterflies & the Bucolic.” (I like aliterations!) But I started curating photos of birds first. After the Hummingbirds I started choosing from the many water birds (seashore and freshwater) and collected so many I liked that I suddenly changed my mind and said it would be a “water birds book.” And even that turned out to be more photos and pages than intended, but I am pleased with this latest creation! 🙂
As always, you can see it without buying. Simply click on the cover image below or the web address that follows. In the bookstore page (link) under the cover photo is a PREVIEW button. Click that and you can see the entire book electronically for free! Click a page to turn it. 🙂 And I hope you enjoy my latest effort to be creative! 🙂 And if you like electronic books, there’s a cheaper PDF version you can download immediately.
For my birthday in July, I’m going back to Esquinas Rainforest Lodge to celebrate my 85th birthday at the same place I celebrated my 83rd! But I did not do a photo book for that trip, so this is a delayed report as a gift to the lodge this July. It is paperback and only 22 pages, but shows the variety of nature you can experience there. For a free preview of all pages, go to this book in my bookstore at https://www.blurb.com/b/12361792-a-walk-in-the-rainforest
CLICK cover image to see a free preview.
¡Pura Vida!
Note that in my bookstore there is a separate edition of this book listed with a different cover. That is because I like to offer both the softcover and the hardcover image wrap editions, but now the crazy programmers at Blurb are requiring each edition to be created and uploaded separately. I don’t like technology that makes things more complicated like this! 🙂
I just read an online article by a creative photographer named Dan Milnor who was sleeping in his truck as he traveled through mountain deserts making photographs. Someone asked him why he was doing that and what would be done with all the photos? He told them “possibly nothing” would be done with the photos but “I was doing it because the need to create is overwhelming, regardless of the end result.”Spoken like a true “starving artist.”
Well, he kind of speaks for me and why I travel all over Costa Rica photographing birds and other things in nature and the beautiful culture. THE NEED TO CREATE IS OVERWHELMING and I enjoy it more than anything else I do.
And tomorrow I leave for one of the most creative lodges I have stayed in yet in Costa Rica, Xandari Resort(click the Costa Rica section of this resort with 3 other locations being in India), just an hour or a little more from here, north of Alajuela on a mountain. There I plan to experience (and photograph) a blend of art, birds, nature, architecture, and 5 natural waterfalls – while resting and being creative myself with my cameras. Just 4 nights this trip (a more expensive place!). Expect blog posts from there starting tomorrow night (Saturday). And I will continue to fill in the static pages on my new website, now featuring this blog and I hope improving! More fun anyway! 🙂
