epic surf movie

This is a 10-minute video about the kite surfers where I live on Cape Cod.  I've been photographing them for about three years and I continue to be fascinated by their skills and the various personalities.  They represent an informal organization of people from widely different walks-of-life that connect with each other via mobile phones and social media about when and where the surfing will be good.  One of them calls me to let me know so I can go and photograph them.

Follow my YouTube channel:  Monte Ladner

Monte

earth day and the march for science

My town of Falmouth was one of the more than 600 cities around the world that held a March For Science event on Earth Day, April 22, 2017.  I went and photographed the people and talked with as many as I could.  It was great fun and inspiring to see so many really smart people making the case for science in our society.

In the video I reference an article reprint in the Washington Post about the first Earth Day on April 23, 1970.  You can find that article here.

Monte

a good day

My latest video is a five-minute piece covering the past week in my life here on Cape Cod. It is posted here as a YouTube link:

taking leave of our senses

Reading the news is stressful. This short video describes how I try to deal with keeping up with what's going on without getting too demoralized.

Monte

rally for science

I went to Boston this past Sunday to participate in the rally for science.  The speakers were very good and the crowd was bigger than I expected, although I'm not sure what the official count was on the number of people there.

Scientists are more subdued than "normal" protesters.   Their enthusiasm for chanting protest slogans was noticeably (to me) muted.  These are people who think deeply about issues and work hard to maintain a cool head - exactly the sort of people we need running our government!

Monte

on marching

I was in Washington, D.C. for the Women's March on Washington January 21, 2017. I took lots of photographs and put them into this video.

Monte

peaceful protest

This is a video about local activists in my town preparing for the Women's March on Washington.

Monte

philadelphia marathon

My daughter, Lindsay, ran the Philadelphia Marathon on November 20, 2016. Jenny and I went with her to the race and I used the photographs and video clips from the trip to make a short video of our weekend.

Monte

dandelion seeds

Dandelion seeds with their attached pappus that allows them to float with the wind for dispersal.  Why do so many people dislike the dandelions that cover our yards in the spring?  They're beautiful to me.

I took this photo in my studio.  It's a composite of fifteen images, each with a slightly different focus point.  The images are then "stacked" in photoshop to create a picture that has a deeper depth of field (in focus from front to back).

Monte

beauty

Richard Feynman, a Nobel-prize winning physicist, wrote an essay a long time ago entitled "The Beauty of a Flower".  In it he relates a conversation he had with an artist friend who held the position that science obscures the beauty of things with its process of analysis and critical thinking.  Feynman, as a scientist, makes a wonderful counter argument.

I asked a friend of mine, Jon Goldman (www.goldmanarts.com), who is also an artist, to share his thoughts on the relationship between art and science and the nature and appreciation of beauty.

The art in the video is by Jon.

Monte

flowers and trees

Planting flower seeds in the second half of April has become a tradition for me. By early summer I'll have zinnias and sunflowers to attract bees, butterflies, and birds to my garden. It's great fun.

Monte

glacial erratics

I've been reading about the nature of Cape Cod and was especially interested in the impact of the ice age on our local geology. The landscape where I live is filled with big rocks, called erratic boulders by geologists, that were deposited by a huge glacier 15,000 years ago. I went to a beach near my home and did some time lapse of the clouds over the rocky shoreline and shot some video of seagulls and birds that I think are called cormorants - could be wrong about that.

Monte

spacetime

I've been out at some local beaches timelapsing clouds and sunsets and thinking about a book by Carlo Rovelli entitled Seven Brief Lessons on Physics.  

This video is my second attempt at a vlog-style video and I think I'm going to persist in trying to learn how to make vlogs (video-blogs).  It's a lot of fun to do and I like the idea of using visual imagery to help tell the story of what I'm doing with my life.

Monte

my cloud movie

Spent a few days going out to the Nobska Lighthouse to make time lapse videos of the clouds. In the process of shooting the videos I met a lot of nice people who were curious about what I was doing.

Monte

beaches, crows, and a moonrise

These videos, posted on YouTube and Vimeo, are my attempt to tell a rough story of what I'm doing, or at least what I am watching in the world around me. This past week, as the title suggests, I was paying close attention to the beaches in my town as well as the crows that visit my backyard, and the full moon on February 22, 2016.

I especially enjoy working with the kite surfers because they are so driven by their enthusiasm for their sport; it's an energizing experience just to be around them. In this video Ben, Ryan, and Peter talk briefly about how "kiting" fits into their lives. It's a wonderful story about a group of people who've found a way to love life. We should all seek to be kite surfers, at least in spirit.

Monte

on the beach

I've been using a long-lens to photograph people at the beach near my home in winter. It's fun getting out there and watching the action.

morning

Morning is my favorite part of the day.  Each morning, while making my coffee, I have the sense of being at the start of something big - a new day in which I'll start fresh on the rest of my life.  I like mornings to be quiet, unhurried, and spent alone with just my thoughts for company.

Sometimes I get up before sunrise and take my cameras to the beach to photograph the ocean and the creatures living on its shore.  On lucky days the sun and clouds collaborate to make vivid light shows with quickly shifting hues of orange, red and pink painting the sky above the water.

When I'm out there taking pictures I don't feel "connected" to that world on the beach; I feel like a visitor in danger of overstaying his invitation, but wanting to stay just a little while longer.

Monte

summer

Scenes of summer from my Cape Cod town on the beach.

Monte

swan diaries 005 - final thoughts

Monte

swan diaries - entry 004

In the fourth swan diary we answer questions like "why is there clear fluid dripping off the swan's beak?" and "do cygnets talk to each other and thier mother from inside their shells?"

Still no babies as of the morning of Sunday, July 5.

Monte