Everyone has their quirks, and while I’d rather not go into a list of mine, (since they all seem perfectly reasonable to me) it’s worth mentioning one photo-related quirk. While not always true, for the most part, when I return from a shoot, I usually don’t look at any of my images. Sometimes, in fact, I wait months before reviewing my shots. I understand that I’m in the minority in this regard, and that there are a number of arguments for why you should review your images right away. And while I’m not going to try to convince anyone that letting images “cure” for a while is the best practice, I am going to show some examples here of how returning for another look at projects you thought were finished can lead to some nice discoveries.

In August I had the great good fortune to spend the month in Florence, teaching a three-week photo workshop to eight delightful students. Held at the Santa Reparata International School of the Arts, this workshop was held alongside a number of other workshops including book arts, Solarplate printing, painting, and more. With the extended class time, we were able to cover a lot of ground, and with Florence and the surrounding country just outside the door we had plenty of shooting opportunities.

If you’re looking for a fun, interesting vacation option that also offers good photo opportunities, then you might want to consider an African safari. I was fortunate enough to go on a few different safaris last November, and it was definitely an experience I won’t forget. However, before you try it, you might want to know a little more about what you’re getting into, photo-wise, to better decide if it’s the right excursion for you, and to properly prepare.

Every year, I try to spend as much time as I can in Death Valley. To some, this may sound a strange destination to pine for, but returning visitors to this web site might have already noticed my predisposition to Death Valley’s beautiful, unique extremes. In 2008, I only managed one week-long trip, and it was far earlier than I’d ever been before. Spending the first week of February in Death Valley showed that it can be as uncomfortably cold as it can be brutally hot. Unfortunately, I have not had a chance to sort through the images until now, one year later.

The American Southwest is one of the great deserts of the world. A trip across the Southwest will take you through an incredible variety of desert climes. From the Sahara-like sand dunes of Death Valley, through the Coyote/Roadrunner terrain of the Mojave to the high deserts of New Mexico, the great American desert yields an incredible variety of truly exotic landscapes. When most people choose to explore the Southwest, they hit the high profile locations: The Grand Canyon, Zion, Arches, Monument Valley, Canon de Chelly. These are all places that you should see, but don’t think you have to go to a big national park to see something special in the Southwest.

In September of 2007 I had the good fortune to assist my friend Steve Simon on a shoot in South Africa. Last year, Steve published an exceptional book on AIDS in Africa, and this year he wanted to return to Africa to photograph grandmothers. In addition to its other troubles, Africa has been ravaged by AIDS, resulting in the loss of entire generations. It very often, then, falls to the gransmothers in the community to raise the children and maintain the social structure.

What most people think of when they think of Death Valley is heat that leads to, well…death. With world-record heat recorded at several points in the valley, this is not an unreasonable concern, and so most people tend to visit the park in the winter and spring. I did this myself in April of 2006, and you can see the results of that excursion here. I had a great time last year and so went back this year in March and April. But Spring can be a very tricky time in Death Valley. In March I encountered afternoons in the mid-90s, while in April, I wasn’t sure if my sleeping bag was going to be warm enough, and many locations – even at lower altitude – were uncomfortably cold.

When you’re racing across I-40 at 70 miles per hour, it’s easy enough to write off Oklahoma as nothing but a flat wasteland. If you take yourself off the interstate, though, and spend a little time exploring, you’ll find an incredibly varied landscape. From densely-wooded forests in the east to cactus-laden mountains in the west, Oklahoma sports a surprising array of terrains.

While Yosemite may be the "crown jewel" of the National Park Service, personally, I’ll take Death Valley any day. Undeveloped, unpopulated, and unbelievably beautiful, Death Valley’s odd geography – valleys 200 feet below sea level, bordered by 11,000 foot peaks – makes for striking vistas and strange phenomena. This gallery of 30 images was shot in April of 2006 as I spent four days tramping around the park.

In December of 2006, clarinetist/saxophonist Don Byron went into the studio with a group of extremely talented musicians to record an album of songs by R&B great Junior Walker. The forthcoming record entitled "Do The Boomerang" is due out from Blue Note Records in September of 2006. The night before the band left to record at Allaire Studios in upstate New York, they performed at Joe’s Pub in Manhattan.

Over the last several years, I’ve had the opportunity to shoot jazz clarinetest Don Byron with an array of Canon digital SLRs. If you need to do concert or auditorium photography, these images show what you can expect from Canon gear.

The San Francisco-based theatrical improv company, True Fiction Magazine, improvises feature-length stage shows rooted in a firm "pulp" tradition. To help in the promotion of their shows, I have – over the last ten years or so – created a number of mailers and postcards using a complex Photoshop illustration technique. Herein is a brief description of how these images are created, as well as a gallery of the hard-boiled results.

Repeatedly voted Best Jazz Clarinetist by the readers of Downbeat Magazine, Don Byron fuses fierce musicianship with astonishing intellectual curiosity to create some of the most interesting music being performed today. Included here are photos from tours and performances covering the last three years.