This Year We Did Thanksgiving A Different Way - The Sedona Way

Thanksgiving 2014. Elastic sweatpants. Turkey. Football. Right? Nope. Not this year. This year, we decided to do a thing. A different thing. After 3 plus decades of hosting and cooking and working all week for Thanksgiving dinner, mom decided this year, she needed a break. She wanted to get pampered instead of pampering everyone else. And while we’ll miss the insane gastronomical heaven we’ve been so accustomed to, we knew that it was well-deserved, and, well, what better way to give thanks and enjoy your family’s company than to hop in the car and test how long you can survive each other? A Sedona, Arizona Thanksiving family photo…uh...road trip? Let’s do this!

Thank You.

So on this fine Thanksgiving Day 2014, I wanted to take this opportunity to express my extreme gratitude to all and everyone that has been a part of my life since the last Thanksgiving Day. Thank you! It’s been a heck of a ride so far, and while I know I can have the tendency to seemingly drift in and out of existence, please know that you are the fuel that drives me. Your wonderful posts, your shares, your ideas, your visions, your words, your companionship, your encouragements and exposed vulnerabilities…your humanity is the source of all my energy.

JourneysWasim MuklashyNovember 27, 2014evolution, ferguson, gratitude, holiday season, holidays, thanks, thanksgiving Comments

My Second Research Term For The Arcanum: Chromatic Aberration. Why? It's Annoying…

So if you read my post My First Research Term For The Arcanum: Silence. Why? It's Complicated…, you’d know what this is all about. As Robin Griggs Wood’s apprentice in Trey Ratcliff’s Arcanum, part of each week’s challenge is to research a term that relates to creativity. While the first term I researched was silence, this time, I chose "chromatic aberration.” Whether you know what it is or not, you’ve seen it, you’ve experienced it, and it’s annoyed the living crap out of you, so here’s a basic breakdown of the bugger and what I’ve found. What Exactly Is Chromatic Aberration?

Journeys, TipsWasim MuklashyNovember 19, 2014arcanum, chromatic aberration, lightroom, research, robin griggs wood, silence, Trey RatcliffComment

My First 1st - 'Pole Position' Takes Top Spot In National Park Service Photo Contest!

So this is a quick one, but wanted to post an update to the National Park Service's annual "Spirit Of The Mountains" photo contest I threw a couple entries into last month. Well, on November 2, they announced the winners. There were 4 categories, and my image "Pole Position" tied for 1st place in this year's challenge category, "Variations On Light." It was quite thrilling to see that ribbon and hear renowned photographer Tom Gamache's positive critiques. Thank you to all who showed up and all those who supported me in this thing. I can't express how happy I was to get my first 1st place ribbon in a photo contest. (And special thanks to my Arcanum cohort for

My First Research Term For The Arcanum: Silence. Why? It's Complicated...

Part of the deal as an apprentice in The Arcanum is each week we are presented with a weekly challenge by our master, and with each weekly challenge, in addition to finding images based on a theme, we are to find a term that relates to creativity in some way (however broad is up to us) and research that term and what we found out about it. So while I was trying to think of what term I wanted to research for my first weekly challenge, I found myself navigating my way through the eternal Facebook stream of doom, looking for a post I saw earlier from a friend that I wanted to comment on, and all I could see are BE SCARED EBOLA OBAMA DEMOCRAPUBLICANS TERRORISM EBOLA LIBERAL HELL WRATH CONSERVATIVE RACIST FIRE DOOM DIE OH YEAH AND EBOLA when all I could think to myself was, ‘shut up already!’ So, that was the birth of the term I wanted to research for my first weekly challenge in The Arcanum: Silence.

Journeys, TipsWasim MuklashyNovember 4, 2014arcanum, research, robin griggs wood, silence, the arcanum, Trey Ratcliff Comments

My Experience In Trey Ratcliff’s The Arcanum - Level 3: Wasim The Inspired!

So this is where it all got real. The experiences, the Networks, The Challenges. It’s all part of the process here in The Arcanum, but all of it, at first, seems a bit disconnected, another virtual forum, albeit a more positively engaging one sans the trolls and the, but, still,

I am now Wasim The Inspired!!

And with that, things immediately get a bit more serious.

5 Black & White Photography Tips I Learned While Taking The Black & White Photography Challenge

So I was recently challenged by a fellow Samsung Imagelogger, the talented portrait photographer Jess Anderson, to take the Black & White Photography Challenge. Basically, I had to post 5 black and white images in 5 days. Anyone that knows me or my work knows that color plays an enormous role in the images I choose to make, so this was definitely a bit intimidating. In addition to a few of my favorites from those recent 5 days, what follows are 5 things I learned and experienced in my little black & white journey.

The Spirit Of The Mountain Calls Again - Here're This Year's Entries!

I can’t believe it’s been a full year since the last one. That photo contest that I was honored to place 2nd and 3rd in last year, the National Park Service sponsored “Spirit Of The Mountain” photo contest? Well, it’s back. I just submitted my two entries, the two you see above, "Family Time" and "Pole Position,” two images taken within the past 12 months in the Santa Monica Mountain Range.

Ello Ello Ello Ello - All Aboard! My First Week On The Thing

So I’ve gone and done it…I’ve hitched a ride on the food cart of the Ello train to sample their wares. Here's how our honeymoon together, our first week, has gone so far. A friend sent me an invite, I logged on, I created a profile (as quick and easy as a username and a short description), and immediately was like, WTF? But then I noticed an actual WTF button on the page. I knew we had a future together.

Hoorah! The Samsung Imageloggers (Including Moi) Took Over Rangefinder Magazine.

So this Samsung Imagelogger journey has been an extremely unexpected ray of light that just keeps shining brighter as the months go on. In addition to the cameras and gear (as if that wasn't enough), another huge benefit of this thing is the ridiculous exposure and opportunities we get. Some of us got to go to Photokina on Samsung’s behalf, some of us gave away free NX30s in Times Square a few months ago, some of us had our images used in promotional material and ads, some of us ended up on a safari. Well, this week, some of us had the humble pleasure of taking over a full special issue of Rangefinder Magazine, a pretty influential magazine in the photography industry.

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