Framing the Sound

Category: Writing/Blogging

  • Echoes and Ghosts: Somewhere Between a Listening Room and a Sonar Shack

    The other day, I found myself once again crawling under my desk to unplug an LED light strip that had decided it no longer wished to communicate with the rest of my setup. The software said everything was fine. The firmware was current. Nothing else had changed. And yet—no light. No response. Just silence.

    So I did what I’ve done most of my life.

    I pulled the plug, waited a moment, and brought it back to life.

    That made me laugh. Because I’ve been chasing ghosts in machines for as long as I can remember.

    Some of those machines lived deep beneath the Mediterranean Sea.

    As a sonar technician aboard a submarine, I learned early that machines don’t just behave—they communicate. You learn to listen for what they’re trying to tell you through noise, interference, and uncertainty. The world outside the hull was invisible. Everything depended on interpretation.

    That habit never left me.

    Years later, photography gave me a different way of listening.

    You go out with intent, but the image you come home with is often something else entirely. A shift in light. A quiet detail. A moment you didn’t plan for but can’t ignore. Photography taught me that not every mystery needs solving—some just need noticing.

    Then came the listening room.

    A vintage stereo system has its own language. Scratchy knobs, warm sound, the occasional imperfection—it all tells a story if you’re willing to hear it. Unlike most modern devices, it doesn’t hide its condition. It speaks plainly.

    And I’ve always preferred things that speak plainly.

    Whether I was interpreting faint signals in a sonar shack beneath the Mediterranean Sea, searching for a photograph worth keeping, learning a new piece on guitar, restoring vintage audio gear, or rebooting a stubborn light strip, I’ve stayed drawn to the same space: where technology and creativity overlap.

    Somewhere between precision and imagination.

    Somewhere between a listening room and a sonar shack.

    The ghosts never really go away. They just change form. And if you’re lucky, they keep you curious enough to keep listening.

    USS Mariano G. Vallejo SSBN 658
    Rose
    Listening Cornerroom

  • The Unexpected Companion

    Learning to live in a way you’ve never lived before—especially at my age—is a lesson in humility. All 69 of my years have been lived as if I could do just about anything I wanted. And truth be told, I’ve done most of it.

    To start with, I’ve got a woman who’s put up with me for half of those 69 years. She’s never complained about my shortcomings as a husband. I don’t cook, I don’t clean… I could go on, but you get the idea.

    I’ve also raised four children—two with my present wife, and two from a previous marriage back in Kentucky. I wish I could’ve done more for the two in Kentucky, but life doesn’t always unfold the way we hope it will.

    I’ve tried to provide for both families the best I could over the years. Some would say we’ve done a pretty good job as parents. I’d like to think so too.

    But age has a way of introducing the unexpected.

    And lately, the unexpected has taken up residence as I approach my 70th trip around the sun. Let me introduce you to my new companion: degenerative disc disease.

    Now that this uninvited guest has made itself at home in my aging body, it looks like we’ll be traveling together from here on out, wherever the road leads. And you know what? I accept that.

    I’m grateful for whatever time I have left. And don’t worry—I’m not looking to cash in my ticket early. There’s still too much to see… and if I’ve learned anything by now, it’s that there’s always more of the unexpected waiting just around the bend.

    It’s not what you expect, and that’s a part of life

  • Where Have I Been?

    I haven’t been anywhere lately—but I’ve been doing some top-tier traveling between the couch, the kitchen, and back again. Five stars, would recommend.

    I’m hoping to venture somewhere a little more exciting soon… just as soon as my body agrees to come along.

    My chiropractor tells me this will heal—just not to be in any big rush. Apparently, my back and I are no longer on the same schedule.

    I’ll know more after the MRI and another follow-up visit.

    Aging has its benefits… I’m just still waiting for the brochure.

    I’m waiting for you and your camera!

  • I’m a Degenerate!

    And I’m using that as my excuse for the long gap between blog posts. Let me explain…

    Back in January of this year, after a wedding shoot, I started noticing some lower back pain. Nothing severe—just an annoyance. I brushed it off as a pulled muscle from bending, twisting, and hustling around with heavy camera gear.

    But the pain didn’t go away. It got worse.

    By the end of February, I figured it was time to see my VA doctor. X-rays were scheduled, and about a week later I got the news: I’m a degenerate.

    Well—not me exactly… but the discs in my back.

    Degenerative disc disease.

    Once it was explained to me, it all started to make sense. The worsening pain, the discomfort that wouldn’t quit—it’s those worn-down discs putting pressure where they shouldn’t be, triggering sciatic nerve pain.

    So now, I’m learning.

    Learning to move differently.

    Learning to slow down.

    Learning to be intentional.

    Things I love—gardening, playing guitar, tapping out rhythms on my slap-top cajon, mowing three acres of lawn, even getting down low for macro shots of bugs—all of it now requires a bit more thought, a bit more strategy. The goal is simple: don’t make things worse.

    It’s an adjustment, no doubt about it.

    But if there’s one thing I’m realizing, it’s this: adapting isn’t quitting—it’s continuing, just a little wiser than before.

    Still… I stand by this truth:

    Aging is not for the young at heart!

  • Some days creativity moves in straight lines. Other days it skips like a record finding its groove

    Presently, I have Photoshop open, DaVinci Resolve, YouTube, Facebook, WhatsApp — and the turntable is spinning “Is” by My Morning Jacket.

    I’m not really multitasking. I’m multi-skipping from one task to another. And I’m in no hurry to complete any of these “fun” tasks.

    I started in Photoshop on an image I made last September in Badlands National Park. Oh — and I forgot to mention — I also have a Blake Rudis course open. I’m following along with his instruction on Photoshop Channels using my Badlands image as the test subject.

    Resting my eyes from editing, I turn my attention to the video I’m working on for YouTube. What? You didn’t know I had two YouTube channels? Indeed I do: Framing The Sound and Back To The Turntable: Groove & Guitar. The video in progress is for the latter.

    Blake’s course, Channels: Beyond Luminosity Masking, is hard to describe. I think I’ll simply call it magically abstract — and you can define that however best suits your imagination.

    I don’t let any of these tasks interrupt the joy of listening to good music. Sometimes I spin a record and sit contemplatively, listening closely, feeling the music — hearing the lead guitar solo and picturing myself playing it.

    When editing photos from the four National Parks we visited last September, I’m immediately transported back to the very spot where I pressed the shutter. Feeling the scene. Watching. Waiting for that bull elk to stand.

    It eventually did.

    Multi-tasking like this may not fit your workflow. Or maybe it does. Perhaps we all multi-skip — enjoying each task and in no real hurry to complete them.


    Maybe that’s the real art — not finishing the task, but living fully inside it while the record spins.

  • When Music Finds the Memory

    Why do memories flood my mind when I listen to a particular piece of music?

    I had never owned — or even heard — anything by Cigarettes After Sex until recently. For reasons still unbeknownst to me, I picked up their album Cry. Soon after the needle touched the wax, something unexpected happened.

    Memories of a seventeen-year-old kid — a boy who knew nothing about anything — began an invasion so powerful that before I even realized what was happening, I was in tears.

    Perhaps I’m more emo than I realize.

    I suppose 69¾ trips around the sun doesn’t necessarily mean we understand our emotions any better than we did after the first seventeen. Time adds years, not always clarity.

    As I continue restocking my vinyl library, I find myself drawn to new music by bands I know nothing about. Something nudges me toward a record I’ve never heard before. I bring it home, lower the needle… and suddenly flashbacks from as far back as the ’60s begin playing in my mind.

    Genre doesn’t seem to matter.

    About an hour ago I listened to Cold Blood by Lydia Pense. Within seconds, I was back in high school in Louisville and Greensburg, Kentucky — moving to funk and blues I had never actually heard before. I still have no idea where that record came from. It’s odd how music sometimes finds me without an invitation.

    The same thing happens with present-day artists.

    The first time I heard Alyssa Hankey sing and play County Seat, I was transported to around 1973 — the year I quit school and eloped. I had promised my girlfriend I would quit and get a job if she would marry me. Neither of us had the slightest idea what we were doing.

    But we did it anyway.

    We drove across the Kentucky–Tennessee border with two of our best friends as witnesses to see a justice of the peace. I did have a license.

    It was the love that wasn’t licensed.

    Music has a way of unlocking rooms in the house of memory we didn’t even know were still there. A chord, a voice, a rhythm — and suddenly the past is not past at all. It is present, breathing, and sometimes weeping.

    Maybe that’s why I’m drawn to both sound and image.

    A photograph can freeze a moment.

    A song can resurrect one.

    And somewhere between the needle and the shutter, I keep discovering that the heart remembers more than the mind ever could.

  • Return to…

    A time long ago, when we played records so loud they shook the tiny little room my brother and I shared.

    I’d guess the year was 1979 or ’80—somewhere around there. The exact year doesn’t really matter. What matters are the memories returning to me now as I continue to restock the record library I once had back then.

    My brother has most of the records I owned, and he also has the vintage stereo receiver and turntable that used to be mine. I sold it to him shortly after I got out of the Navy. Due to some financial difficulties I’d rather not mention, my brother offered to buy my stereo system to help me out. That meant more to me than he probably knows.

    It’s been over 40 years since I last spun an album. But thankfully, I’ve returned to vinyl.

    As I search for and rediscover classic rock albums from my past, I also stumble across bands I’d never heard before and discover new music along the way. I’ll mention just one here for now: Cigarettes After Sex. That alone is an intriguing name for a band. Click the link and buy one of their records.

    If you’ve been away from records as long as I have, I urge you to begin that journey back to the turntable.

    You won’t regret it. I promise.

    The Listening Corner

  • The Unknown

    That is what frightens me about dying—not death itself, but not knowing what comes after. If uncertainty is the source of fear, then the question becomes: what can ease that fear without having to die to find out?

    We cannot peer into our own deaths. Some have crossed that threshold and returned, and they often describe a similar experience: a tunnel, a radiant light, the absence of pain, and an overwhelming sense of love. Whether literal or symbolic, those accounts are strikingly consistent.

    I’ve read the Bible, and I know I should read it again—and again. I didn’t expect it to give clear answers about what lies beyond death, but it does offer glimpses, hints of what may await us. Before that, though, Scripture is clear about one thing we must endure here: suffering.

    I don’t say this as a doomsayer. I believe that if—and that is a very big if—we have the strength and faith to endure earthly suffering, we can take comfort in trusting that God knows our pain and that our fear of the unknown is ultimately unfounded.

    Let us have faith that God sees our suffering and will reward perseverance. As Hebrews 11:1 reminds us:

    “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.”

  • The Shape of Vision

    How Many Art Forms Are There?

    Probably too many to count. Painting comes immediately to mind as one of the most celebrated art forms. In fact, when I think of an artist, I picture painters like Da Vinci, Degas, Dalí, and van Gogh, among others. I never truly considered photography an art form—at least not until recently.

    I joined f.64 Elite one year ago this past June, and doing so has completely changed how I make photographs. It’s also been a journey toward finding my inner artist—both in photography and in music.

    I still struggle to define exactly what my vision is when I create a photo or compose a song. Most of the time, I don’t fully recognize my artistic vision until days, weeks, or even years after the work is made.

    It’s during the editing process that the muse speaks—directing and guiding my eyes to see, and bending my ears to listen—for the artistic vision I know is hidden somewhere within my work.

    Once I find it, I shape it into what I want you to see and hear: a subtle tone shift while playing Dm on my acoustic guitar, or a shift in hues between orange and brown in an image from Badlands National Park.

    When all’s said and done, the viewer or listener may shape their own vision when gazing at my photo or hearing my composition—and that’s as it should be. Because one artistic vision can have many interpretations, but dare I say… only one creator?

  • Light, Sound, and the Muse

    I’m trying to be a lot more precise with how I edit my photos. Why? Because I’m a visionary!

    Well, actually, I’m just an artist—photographer and musician—creating photos and music with a vision in mind: how I want my picture to look or how I want my original song to sound.

    Since joining f.64Elite back in June of 2023 and taking one of the member courses, Discovering Your Vision, I’ve become much more aware of how a viewer or listener might perceive my art.

    One important point needs to be understood when people look at or listen to my work: the vision I had when I created it might be very different from theirs. And that’s perfectly fine.

    But I don’t change my original vision—unless…

    Unless the muse demands it.

    Moulton Barn, Grand Tetons—a melody of wood, mountain, and cloud.