pep talk Photos
pep talk has served a number of functions in my professional and personal life. It’s been a pilot project, a blogging experiment to help us get familiar with the capabilities and limitations of this increasingly important new technology. It’s been a communication tool, one that’s had some success and shows promise. And it’s been an enjoyable creative outlet, in more ways than some may be aware.
All the images I’ve used in the pep talk headers have been original photography. Most have been taken by me, even though I would never call myself a real photographer. (It’s the magic of digital photography: take enough images and some are likely to turn out OK.) Because each image does usually have a story behind it, I thought some of you might be interested in hearing what those are.
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I didn’t take this photo; it made it into our files from one of our UTMB colleagues who rode out the storm on campus. It’s on Harborside Drive, looking toward the Emergency Room, taken the day after Ike paid its visit to the Gulf Coast. There are two things I really like about this image. First, on the lower right, you’ll see a small inland lake where there’s not supposed to be one, remnants of the storm surge beckoning to the fishing boat stranded not far away. Second thing I like is something you can’t make out well on this image; it’s the name on the stern on the boat: “Tranquilo.” Tranquil. The calm after the storm, a moment to pause before the work ahead.
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I went bicycling with my family off Todville Road in Seabrook not long ago. It’s amazing how much nature is squeezed onto that strip of land, butted up against Galveston Bay and in the garish neon glow of the Kemah Boardwalk. We came across a family of very content wild pigs on one outing, happily munching acorns and unalarmed as we passed by. On the trip when I took this photo, we followed the trail down to Pine Gully Park, and snapped this photo along the creek that parallels the path. I wonder if this brook that leads to the sea is what gave Seabrook its name? Where’s a kayak when you need one?
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My colleague, friend and Impact editor Heidi Lutz ran out at lunch one glorious weekday late in October and snapped a series of images of the start of the Harvest Moon Regatta. The race follows the coast to Port Aransas, and this time included Galveston’s own tall ship, the Elissa. The Elissa’s celebrating her 130th birthday, but she still looks great, especially under sail. If you squint and look really, really closely, you might see some specks in the image, and those would be some of the thousands of monarch butterflies that arrived in time to enjoy the beauty of that day’s sea and skies.
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This hazy shot is of a very still West Bay morning, behind Sea Isle, my old neighborhood. I’ve lulled myself into thinking I haven’t missed the water and sky very much, now that I live in the ‘burbs, but who am I kidding? I posted this shot on the last day of the 07 fiscal year. It’s the Labor Day weekend and about 6:30 pm, so things are pretty quiet around the office, after a crazy day of wrapping up the year and getting ready for our new president. What’s your hunch…does the photo represent the calm before the storm, or after the storm?
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My longtime friend and co-worker Mark Navarro took this shot of the seagulls frolicking in the new fountain that is part of University Plaza. Almost every afternoon as I head home, there’s a small flock of birds gathered there, and frequently a family with some kids, or maybe a patient out for air enjoying the sounds and sight of the water. I don’t know exactly why, but fountains seem to have some magical allure. Apparently, for both birds and people.
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This picture was taken at Tarpon Springs, on the west central coast of Florida, after a fishing trip with my brother a few years ago. The fishing was good but for me the trip was a homecoming of sorts. When I was in high school, my friends and I would spend any day we could rummage up enough money for gas and bait on the grass flats off Tarpon Springs, fishing from a small open skiff for trout or mackeral or redfish, free diving for scallops, exploring the islands, and later, enjoying our catch at a shoreside cookout or maybe stopping in town for the best Greek food on this side of the Atlantic. The great blue heron in this picture ruled the beach and was accustomed to handouts from fisherman, the fee for using his beach as a boat ramp. Here he’s making a quick and easy snack of some of the baitfish and shrimp we released.
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A few years ago I went to Spain with my wife. We flew into Madrid and went north, where she had some work to do and I had a chance to sample the wine and fine food. We ended up spending two nights in a mountain village called Cangas de Onis, with el Rio Sella—this glacier-fed river—running through it. I found some guys who rented kayaks and talked my wife into a 20-kilometer ride down this gorgeous waterway, dappled with mild rapids and fronted by pastures and mountains. I borrowed a wetsuit that with some strenuous persuasion, fit me, and I’m sure those Spanish trout thought I was a misplaced walrus.
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I had a chance to go kayaking in Florida with an old friend during the Christmas break. We paddled these two beautiful wood and fiberglass kayaks around Weddon Island, a state preserve on Tampa Bay near St. Petersburg. This fishing boat was high and dry during low tide, framed by the mangroves. We don’t have mangrove trees on the upper Texas coast; I think it gets too cold. If you’ve never seen them up close, they are a remarkable example of Mother Nature at her adaptive finest, with aerial “roots” and a tangle of hardy vegetation that affords shelter for things that swim, fly, crawl, walk and slither.
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I went camping with my family and some friends at Brazos Bend State Park recently (mid-December 2006). This image is of the sunset over a part of the park called “Elm Lake.” It was overcast most of the day, so this bright and radiant burst of sunlight was welcome and made us feel good. The temperature started its drop to the mid-forties soon after this, but we had a raging fire and were well bundled in our tents, and we had a great night. The only casualties were some innocent cherries, who lost their lives to a band of marauding racoons.
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Last year I was invited to go tarpon fishing out of Galveston in a very large, fast and beautiful sportfisherman, the first time I’ve been out on such a craft since I moved to Texas more than a decade ago. The boat seemed bigger than my house, and I could have fit all of my kayaks in the cockpit with room to spare. Most of the big boats I’ve spent time around have had sails and comparatively wimpy 40 hp diesel engines. When this huge vessel powered up, it was surreal, like cruising around in your living room at 40 mph. The image is of the boat’s wake, and to me it conveys power and perhaps quite fitting for these days—turbulence. The tarpon did not cooperate, but I had a great day anyway.
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I took this image in September 2006 on Halls Bayou, near the Brazoria County line a few miles from the old blimp base in Hitchcock. There were four of us from UTMB, out early on one of the first cool-ish mornings of the year for a half-day kayak trip. We’d paddled this bayou once before, but had gone downriver, toward the coast. This time we paddled upriver, and because I was entrusted to navigate (I had the Google map), we took a wrong turn and ended up on this rapidly narrowing waterway remarkable for two things: alligator traps baited with whole chickens, and a huge number of very large spiders, stretching across the river and making for a few hilarious moments. Note to self: guy in front eats the most spiders.
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This image is one I did not take. My wife was in California early in September ’06 presenting some science and had a chance to visit the Monterey Aquarium. This is taken in one of the kelp tanks. I love fish in every form, as creatures, art, food, sport. The colors in this image spoke to me and seemed to fit the tone and style of what I’d been using. Water is a theme you’ll likely see in all my blog images. And at the time I posted this, the big news in Galveston was the commissioning of a new submarine in Galveston, so it seemed appropriate to “go under.”
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This past summer our family had a chance to visit relatives who live in Martinique, an island in the French West Indies. Martinique is about in the middle of that narrow strip of islands that first intercept any hurricanes coming in off the open Atlantic. Although my wife was born in Martinique, she left as an infant and had never been back. My kids had never been out of the country, so this was a big adventure for us all. I’m originally from Florida and have spent a lot of time seeking out and stomping around beautiful coasts, and there were beaches in Martinique that would easily make the top of my list. This was one of them.
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If I’m not working or spending time with my family, chances are I’m kayaking or thinking about kayaking. Living on the island makes getting on the water simple, and where I live, West Bay is in my back yard. In spite of all the development, there are still some nice natural areas left a short paddle from my house. This marshland is east of where I live in Sea Isle, and although the land adjacent to this place is getting peppered with million-dollar homes, so far the marshes have been spared. (We’ll see what happens when the jet skis and yachts arrive.) This area is my holy place, my Sunday morning house of worship. The birds and fish are abundant, there are areas that still render traces of the island’s earliest inhabitants, and there’s sky and sea to spare. This image brings me peace.
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This is another image taken while kayaking, taken of the fishing pier behind my neighborhood early one morning. My boat fits under the pier and I snapped this over my shoulder as I passed underneath. I try to not disturb birds when I paddle, but this one fellow took offense to me and added some nice motion to the image.
I use a $35 digital camera I bought at WallyMart when I’m on the water. It takes low res pictures (1.3 megapixel) and stores them on an SD card. The resolution is OK for the web, and if it falls in the water (like happened to my first digital Nikon), no big loss. One day I’ll invest in a nice waterproof camera or housing.