Fourth of July, 2014 in Farragut, TN

Michelle and I have been tooling around with “Garber Geektography” for a while now. In fact, it has been about two years since I bought my first “real” interchangeable lens camera, and the past two years have been the most creative of my life. So we are starting this blog to share our photographic musings with the world. It has been a whirlwind summer for me, and I have quite a bit to share–from my trip with 13 students and 1 colleague to India, to our vacation to visit our good friends (Doug and Lindsay) in Alaska, to my rather eventful journey to Israel in the beginning days of the most recent Middle East conflict. So, I will be sharing some thoughts about each of those trips in future posts. This blog, however, is meant to be a more “fun” outlet for our creativity. While I will obviously touch on my vocation as a theology professor in various posts, we want this blog to be much more about our general life experiences and creative processes in the nexus between photographic images and geeky adventures (hence our tagline, “Adventures in Imagery”).

I have also had the great privilege of being one of the beta members of The Arcanum (http://thearcanum.com), a project put together by the highly influential HDR-photographer, Trey Ratcliff (http://www.stuckincustoms.com). Trey and his fellowship have designed this photography education site based on the idea of a magical academy of learning where each “apprentice” levels up her skills through different assignments, interactions with, and critiques by a master. So, yeah, World of Warcraft for photography … I was hooked. I was thrilled last April to learn that I had been chosen by one of my favorite landscape photographers, Karen Hutton (http://www.karenhuttonphotography.com), to be a part of her first group of apprentices. I’ve learned so much through the process about my own photographic vision (and even a little bit here or there about online teaching for my day job). Both Karen and the other members of the cohort have taught me so much, and it reminds me of how fun it can be to be a student again.

A gull takes flight on the Kenai River near Seward, Alaska

This blog is part living in the past, part living in the present, and part looking to the future. Some of you may have been following us on Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, or Google+ and you may already have seen several of the pictures that we will share through this blog. But you can expect a bit more “exposition” on the selected photos here. I’ll be doing some “Throwback Thursday” posts to talk about my start in photography and some of the many subjects I’ve chosen to shoot. Here and there, I may show the technical side of my geeky self by talking about what gear I used or what I did to images in post-processing. Speaking in the present (or immediate past, if you will), I will be doing some reflection on the trips of 2014. These posts will include a mixture of our newest photos as well as some photos you may or may not have seen yet on our social media sites. And like Luke Skywalker, we will always look to the future at some of the things we have planned this year and beyond.

So here are a few things you might expect to see in the coming weeks and months:

1. DragonCon 2012-2013, a Retrospective
2. Um, DragonCon 2014, duh 🙂
3. Reflections on my trips  to India and Jerusalem
4. Highlights from our trip to Alaska
5. What I’ve been learning about art and photography in The Arcanum and beyond
6. Looking ahead to trips in North Carolina, San Diego, and a holiday Caribbean  cruise
7. and whatever we encounter along the path (including, but not limited to roller derby girls, martial artists, flying furry friends, and geeks of all kinds)

We hope you all enjoy these, and let us know what other things you might want to see us post about!