“I wish I could see the world as Jane sees it,” a friend once said. “Finding the beauty in things that most of us don’t take time to see.”
Capturing these visions has been a lifelong endeavor on my part. From childhood with a Brownie camera, to now with a digital mirrorless Sony bridge camera I am in my bliss while photographing various things I see during my everyday life and travel.
My joy comes from taking a photo and sharing it with others. In the days before digital cameras, that meant processing the rolls of film and sharing the prints with my friends.
A friends described looking at photos as, “Seeing it with my hands.” In other words, holding the photo while looking at it.
Now with digital cameras the pictures end up living in the camera/cell phone or computer. We share photos by passing our cell phone to our friends for them to look at the small image.

The adventure began

My first road trip after I retired was a 10,000-mile jaunt along the coastline of the Great Lakes. I visited 101 lighthouses and many waterfalls. Upon returning home I realized I could not share my trip photos with my friends unless I connected my laptop to their television to give them a slideshow.
The answer to letting my friends see the photos with their hands was to create a coffee table style book of the photos. The result is my book “Great Lake Lighthouses.”
As people viewed the prototype book many wanted to buy it, and even have it autographed by the photographer. They asked, “When are you going to get it published?” The answer is now!

There is more to the story than just one book.

I am a visual person. Growing up I focused on the photos in the National Geographic magazine more than reading the stories.
My first ‘action’ shot was a friend running across the street. People said such a picture would be blurred, because a Brownie camera would not ‘freeze’ the subject of the photo. But mine did. That was the start of trying to express motion with a photograph.
With a passion for sports, the photos in the Sports Illustrated magazine showed me that the excitement of a game could be captured in a photo.
I was one of the first female sportswriter/editor in the state of Texas during the mid-1980s. I spent thousands of hours watching high school sporting events from the sideline with a camera to my eye. One December I covered so many high school basketball games during tournament play that I sprained my eye.
After 11 years of life on the sideline, my journalism career took me into general news. There I learned to tell a story with a photograph.
The photography and writing skills I honed during 33 years of journalism are now being applied to my photography books.

Just a thought
One morning as I woke a thought came to me, “Take pictures of state capitol buildings, make a book.” I had never had such an idea before. When I told my brother, he said, “You know there are 50 states, and you can’t drive to two of them.” My response was, “So what, I’m retired. I have all the time in the world, plus it will give me an excuse to visit all of the USA.”
That was the beginning of the State Capitol books. At first, I thought it would be one book with photos of each capitol’s exterior dome and the rotunda dome.
My first capitol was Nebraska where I discovered there was more to see in a capitol then the rotunda dome. So, the idea of the single book was changed to individual books for each state. Yes, I know there are 50 states, and yes that means 50 books.

Other book ideas began showing up.
I was driving through Marysville, a small town in Kansas, when I spotted 5-foot fiberglass black squirrels each painted differently. So, I circled around the town and took photos of 22 statues.
When I got home and investigated what it was all about, I learned there are actually 51 statues. So, I had to go back and get the remaining 28 photographs.
Another ‘find’ during a road trip was the Techatticup Gold Mine in Nevada. The restored buildings and antique cars screamed for me to stop and take photos. Which are now displaced in a book about the mine that was one of the largest producing gold mines in Nevada. Check out the book.
The ideas for books just keep rolling through my mind.
After the lighthouse book, I started looking at the thousands, actually millions, of photos I have in my computer storage.
During the years I have worked at taking photos of birds in flight. It is a thrill to capture a photo of a bird with its wings spread and having the feathers outlined by the sky. That was my second prototype book “Birds In Fight” of the photos I had taken during my travels in Arizona, North Carolina, Michigan and Florida.
As I was compiling the bird photos, I realized I wanted to go on an African safari and take photos of ‘zoo’ animals in the wild. A safari is the ultimate dream for a photographer. Seeing the animals in their natural habitat and capturing them in the camera.
While touring the national animal reserves in Kenya and Tanzania I felt right at home bouncing long on the dirt roads looking at the zebras, wildebeest, warthogs, monkeys, baboons, lions, giraffes, elephants, and hippos. After the two-week trip I had 4,000 photos of 40 different birds and all of the big animals.

Once I let my travel bug out, it is impossible to take it back.
At the top of my travel bucket list was Switzerland to visit the mountain tops on cog rail trains. The book Switzerland Alps takes the reader to Mount Pilatus, Jungfraujoch and the Matterhorn.
While in Europe I have gathered thousands of photos of what caught my eye. One area I focused on is cathedrals and palaces. So, yes a book will be coming of those photos.
Future plans include finishing the lighthouse series with books with East Coast and West Coast lighthouses.
This website has a bog page, so I intend to share my adventures with you. So, sit back and enjoy!