I did a precise measurement and approximately 59 seconds out of every minute was spent visualizing myself slipping and falling into the water, then washed over the waterfall forever. The other 1 second was spent partially slipping and feeling intense panic that everything visualized in the previous 59 seconds was about to come true.

I had decided to eat out on the streets, since there seemed to be such a variety. The real reason might have been there was this guy with a giant vat of fresh unagi (eel) which happens to be my favorite. I bought enough to feed a small family and ate it while I marched around with my camera, looking for a good spot for the shot.

The second shot below is of a famous Chinese dancer warming up for the Olympic ceremonies by launching himself into the air, just beside the official flag.

The density of the homes was remarkable, everyone right on top of the next. We walked down through the little houses and got a hundred good shots… each one was brightly and individually painted and festooned.

I spoke at the Austin Shutterbug meeting a few nights ago and the gentleman that invited me, Pete, had taken one of my shots and printed it with a very cool printing process. This thing came out as black as Zaphod Beeblebrox’s stolen ship…

If you want a print of it, contact me and I can hook you into Pete, who knows about such things.

The shot below was of a red firework exploding in a storm cloud in the black of night.

It was an amazing week out with Jack Horner and his crew. We could not have been any more remote! Out deep in the wheat fields of Montana, we were met every morning with amazing sunrises and the evenings had these surreal sunsets.

I’ll post more about the dinosaur dig, what we discovered, and all sorts of things in coming months… it was quite a trip and Jack was every bit the hero my son envisioned!

It looks like this blog was mentioned in This Week in Photography, which is a most excellent podcast, whether or not they mention this site. I always pick up a few good tidbits on there.

In honor of them, I have had to make a cut to my top 10 shots. I took one of the new ones from Glacier and put it in there, and one had to fall… it was a tough pick, but here is the one, going down in flames in the Duomo… You had a great ride in the top 10 old friend…

Another morning waking up at 5:00 AM. I’ll admit… even though I sleep very little, getting up before 6 is always a little rough. But it’s what you gotta do if you want to see the sun rise in the north during the summer. Of course, the freezing rivers that rip through the canyons of Glacier National Park offer a thousand opportunities for good lighting at daybreak.

I think I got a little too close to the river here and some of the morning wind kicked up some spray from the rapids onto the lens. In retrospect, I should not have been standing anywhere near that thing!

I was inspired to do this photo of my son.

This was appropriately shot on the “Going to the Sun” road, above waterfalls and snowy peaks, sprinkled around Glacier National Park.

I get email all the time and I hardly ever look at it all because it is just physically impossible. As of today, there are over 17,700 unreads in my Flickr box and countless more buried in Facebook, MySpace, Gmail, etc etc. But every now and then I see an interesting subject that I click on.

This one is probably gonna make you cry, so get ready… no two ways about it.

Tom Aellis emailed me and told me just a little bit – enough to make me go spend some time exploring his story. He has been diagnosed with MS, and he wanted one lasting photograph of him with his son. Tom apparently reads Stuck in Customs as well as several others, including the blog of Joe McNally, who recently wrote a book called “The Moment it Clicks”. Tom emailed McNally to tell him about the situation, and McNally is such a class act that he mustered his crew and went out to Tom’s home for a special photo shoot.

The following is from Tom:

Now, after three years of being a warrior fighting MS, I was losing. This was impossible for me to accept, as I have a 12 year old son to raise and teach all the things that he needs to know about being a good man. I want to show him how to treat people fairly , how to have passion for what he chooses (no matter what it is) and most of all, how to have kindness in his heart.

I’ll gladly link over to Joe’s blog so you can read the whole story for yourself and see the results.

So, Tom has inspired this shot below and probably tens of thousands of other dads out there this weekend that are going to be doing the same thing. Even though you do not see me in the picture with Ethan, I am in the picture with him.

We hiked into the mountains of Glacier National Park for a bit to find this raging waterfall ripping through the canyon. I probably got down a little too close, but I was quite drawn to the blue water.

I’m currently in another part of Montana on a dinosaur dig, which I will post shots from in the next week or so… I am super dirty and wishing I was back at this water!

There was an article today over at the Austin-American Statesman that mentioned me and this blog. I haven’t seen it yet (I am out of town), but I remember Omar wanting to look at this shot that appeared on the cover of some annual report from one of those big fives… So here it is below!

I’m back in Montana for a few days!

We were graciously invited by Jack Horner up to northern Montana to join him on a dinosaur dig, My 7-year-old son (and the 7-year-old in me) is excited as can be by this once in a lifetime experience. We are not sure yet, but we think there is a special kind of Tyrannosaurus Rex that has been uncovered near Rudyard, Montana. Jack has his dig team out there, so we are going to camp out with them for a while and help with the dig… we are mega excited.

For a few nights before the dig, I took the family unit here to nearby Glacier National Park. We stayed at the Many Glacier Inn, which is this 1930’s Swiss-style chalet on a beautiful lake looking out at Mount Grinnell and several glaciers.

I woke up early in the morning to get this shot, while the rest of my family and the inn was still asleep. As usual, I had my ipod on full blast while I took in the scene and snapped away.

If you look down at the bottom, you can see all the rocks through the crystal-clear glacial lake.

When I driving randomly through the northern farmlands of Iceland, we (my camera and I) found this old church and leaning tombstones just as a storm was rolling in. I took a few shots before a zombie hand came out of the ground to grab my ankle…

I figured just about the worst place to stand in a lightning storm was a gigantic old tree. So, of course, I doubled those odds by erecting a metallic tripod at the base to capture the moment… sorry mom…

I was thinking about that nice black water from yesterday and remembered a cold night in Chicago a while ago with more nice black water… glassy and reflective…

I walked around Lyon at midnight with a Russian friend. We were so busy at the conference most of the time that the first chance we had to shoot together was when the streets were almost empty and the river was black.

He saw me walking with my camera attached to my tripod and the strap hanging down. He winced, saying he saw one of his friend’s cameras just drop off the head and crash to the ground. He forced me to wrap the strap around the tripod just in case… and I still do that to this day, thinking about is disapproving Russian scowl. I don’t need to see that it my mind’s eye…

I was in the back alleys of Lyon, the old district, when this little fortune teller in a purple box appeared. The machine was making rather scary ambient droning sounds intermixed with a screeching mechanical whirring that rumbled from the inside. I was rather nervous while taking a shot of it, but I kept my wits about me then moved on.