Some of you may be surprised to learn that I have been directing choirs in the Southern California area for nearly 30 years. I have spent a good part of my life practicing on instruments, learning to read music, singing in various choirs, and eventually earning a Bachelors and a Masters in Choral Conducting. There was a time, in the not too distant past, when I was convinced that I would continue to teach until well into my seventies as many of my colleagues have done and are continuing to do. I have been very fortunate over the past three decades or so to have had a job that I love and look forward to going to each day. But in 2006, I picked up a Nikon DSLR camera for the first time and suddenly I found myself considering a second, part time career . It was the first time I held a decent camera in my hands since shooting landscapes with a Canon AE-1 after I had just graduated from high school. For the next three or four years, I shot everything. Portraits, street photography, macro…it didn’t matter. I just wanted to get out with my camera whenever I had a chance. In 2009, I took my camera to Yosemite and to Laguna Beach for the first time, and began to realize that my true passion in photography was landscapes.