“The medium is the message is a phrase coined by Marshall McLuhan meaning that the form of a medium embeds itself in the message, creating a symbiotic relationship by which the medium influences how the message is perceived. The phrase was introduced in his most widely known book, Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, published in 1964.” — Wikipedia

Well, me and about another 100,000 others ordered iPads in the first 24 hours it was available!

Why?

Well, because.

Sometimes, when I think about our world and all its great beauty I become melancholy.  Click on the audio player to start the music, then, well, look where I have looked.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS

Yesterday I realized that I had not finished my review of the Canon EF 70-300mm f/4.5-5.6 DO IS lens.  So, here it is.

For the traveling photographer, two things come to mind — lighter is better than heavy and small is better than larger.

Puffin Bounce

Click on photograph for a larger version.

One of my favorite animals to photograph is the Atlantic Puffin.  It is difficult to explain, except to say, it ain’t easy.

First, one has to get to where puffins are.  Which, in the North Atlantic, usually means going to the Farne Islands.

The White Mountain from charles on Vimeo.

We are so small, you and I.

Mere specks, actually smaller. Just random bits in the cascading universe(s).

Yes there are more, it never ends.

Why don’t we comprehend what we are? How can we ever understand the enormous beauty of the universe(s)?

Yesterday morning my desktop computer was dead in the water.

Well, turns out that my Intel Mac had a bad graphics card.  Well, maybe not, it might be the latest version of OS X that found issues with the card, or the card had issues with OS X.  Who knows.  But, bottom line, after installing a different card, the system is working. 

This morning my computer died.

If you are like me, such occurances are highly troublesome.

My genius son, John came by my house and we tested several causes of the failure. It is not the boot drive, it is not memory, leaving us with either a bad graphics card, or a mother board failure.

This morning I received a message from a BBC researcher who wants one of my photographs to be used in the forthcoming publication “Countryfile: 100 Favourite Days Out,” to be published by BBC Books in May 2010.

Hum, I thought, me with a landscape image in a British publication!  Even though the British continue to spell “Favorite” the wrong way.

It Ain’t Heavy!

Click on Photograph for a larger version.

This morning I spent some time with volunteers at Florida’s Tampa Bay Watch headquarters where they set about making Oyster Domes. The organization is one great example of how ordinary people are making a difference