John Boal Photography

I'm not young anymore. At least I don't feel it anymore. No more crazy parties. No more running around the city like a lunatic. In fact there was no alcohol consumed on this Halloween at all. Still trying to figure out if that's a first since my freshman year of college. No, these days I chase down Halloween parades in Historic towns like Occoquan. Here's a sampling... I wish I could still sit on someone's shoulders and nap... just before I arrived back at the office...nice...

The funny thing about being creative (or at least believing yourself to be creative) is that creativity itself comes and goes. There are times when so many ideas clog my head, I have to record them into a notebook or in a word document. Then I spend the next several weeks trying to figure out how to make it happen. The flip side, naturally, are the times when the creative juices aren’t flowing at all. The assignments draw blanks, no new projects come to mind, and I’m left with a slate of unimaginative results. I find that either results in a feed-forward type of cycling. The more creative I feel, the more ideas I generate, the ideas I generate beget more ideas…etc. On the other hand when I’m “slumping” I press more, yielding more blanks, which draws frustration. I go Stuart Smalley on myself and tell myself, “I’m good enough, and people like me…”, or something like it, and I go out and force myself to take a picture, then another, and then I begin to feel better, and I realize th

It’s the first week of October. For me this has become my de-facto State of the John Boal Photography Union address. The Eddie Adams workshop starts this week. Without me… again. So there it is. I’m Oh for three. You can apply 3 times and that’s it. It's supposed to be for young and/or developing photojournalists. Although I think there is a caveat. I think you can apply as many times as you want as a student and then only 3 times as a pro. I can’t remember if applied as a student the first time or not. Maybe it’s irrelevant. I’m starting to get used to being rejected—current FT employment notwithstanding. I think it’s a good thing to self-evaluate periodically. Hopefully during these moments I can look back at the past year, or several months and see progress. The first couple years of doing this, I was so concerned with seeing better pictures for my portfolio. Now, I’ve found I’m less concerned with having better pictures than making sure that I have an emerging vision on how I s

Here are some photos from our trip to Hawaii...not much to comment on other than the Big Island is beautiful, and I can't wait to go back... sunset from the lounge at the Keahou Beach Resort Hotel...nice to enjoy Mai Tais while watching this... sunset from the Onizuka Visitors Center at 9200ft on Mauna Kea... even the bathrooms in Hawaii can be nice...here a shaft of light poked through a window at the Hilo airport before our helicopter ride... what I thought was a "spared" home near the volcano, is actually an observation station for scientists...(thanks to the wife for the correction). All the black is lava rock. Akaka Falls, 420 feet... in the forests around Akaka Falls Orchids seemed to drop from the sky... the lovely Alicia Boal... one of the views from our suite at Keauhou Beach Resort... On our way south after the wedding we stopped at Pu'uhonua Honaunau (The Place of Refuge)...here, Charlie talked to us about the old Hawaiian and Polynesian ways of life..