as crazy does. But sometimes it is really all just a part of the ebb and flow of the creative process.

What appears to be madness on the surface or at the least,  just  a bad idea, is often the seed of something quite remarkable. I have learned to always have my ear to the wind. The song it sings may carry that which I seek.

My friend Kara Block, who is about to receive her Master of Fine Arts degree from Brooks Institute, had stopped by for a visit and to contribute to the planning of an expedition that BettyB, (Donna Von Hoesslin’s company) is making to Bali where Mary Osborne, The Partridge Twins, Jeanette Ortiz and possibly a few others will immerse themselves in Balinese culture and the process of “design through contribution” that Betty B espouses.

My phone rang several times as we chatted. Sean Tully, another MFA candidate at Cal Arts and one of my regular subjects was calling. He was trying to motivate me to pull out of my busy work day and come shoot some surfing. Now I need another great surf image like the proverbial hole in the head. But I listened anyway.

I realized that between what Kara was chatting about, and Sean saying, there was another voice emerging. It suddenly hit me.  So I closed my MacPro laptop, packed my long lens kit, Canon 5D mark2, and invited Kara to come along.  When we had turned on to the 101 freeway Sean called yet again.

An hour later, Kara and I stood on a windy beach in North LA county and Toolbox as we  call him, was paddling out into a deepening evening.  Golden streaks of light began to lace the lengthening shadows of days end on the Malibu coast. The peacefulness was shattered by the somewhat raucous voice of what appeared to be a crazy man, who walking up behind us, spurted a few questions and then proposed a shot. Kara with her back to him smiled at me. I smiled back.  It is a tack which frequently masks what I am thinking from view. I was listening to the man.

The image above was one of my first shots and exactly what he said that we should shoot. A young brown pelican gliding amongst the surfers. I did not see it. I did not plan it. I simply listened to what appeared to be a crazy old man and his rant and tacitly agreed to looking for what is hard to catch: “Yea man that would be great”. With my agreement he had left. I turned around, looked through the lens and the above frame is what I shot.

That is how my life works. It is why I listen. It is how we can be conduits of something wonderful to our world.

Just listen.

The images in this gallery are tribute to the great voices in my life. A beautiful slice of creative fruit dripping with the golden honey of several bright lights. The greatest of which, was the crazy man. Instruments in the symphony of our lives.