Just today I received a wonderful email from a man I just happened to run into a few months back in Valley of Fire State Park in Nevada. I was busily photographing the glorious rock formations in this jewel of a park, when a man approached me and told me I looked remarkably like Ansel Adams, hunched over my camera as I was.

How to take that comment? I was flattered beyond words, hoping that he did not mean that I looked half-dead. But this man, Bob Stowe, was in town for a conference and he seemed like a nice guy. We chatted a while about photography. Bob was sporting a nice camera and looked like he was having a grand time during his afternoon off.

After he left, I went back to my photography, unaware that Bob took a photo of me taking photos. Well, Bob wrote to me today and here’s what he said:

“I met you at the Nevada Valley of Fire state park in mid November.  I saw you patiently waiting to take a picture through a circular hole in the sandstone.  I thought at a distance you looked remarkably like Ansel Adams resurrected, to which you replied that you well might be! I have a picture of you that I would like to share with you.”

Bob, I’d like to publicly thank you. What a nice thing to do!

Now, even nice gestures sometimes create conundrums. and this one created a B-I-G one for me. Bob sent three versions of the image and told me to choose whichever one I wanted. Fair enough. One was the original color shot. The second image Bob rendered in B&W. And the third… well here is where it gets sticky.

The third image Bob processed in sepia tone, conveying the old-timey feel of Ansel Adam’s time. This, Bob confided in me, was his wife’s favorite rendition. Ah, and now I’m supposed to pick one, eh Bob? So, in the interests of marital harmony and the higher purposes of life, I decided on… the sepia one, naturally (click on the image to enlarge).

Credit: Bob Stowe

Teasing aside, thanks to Bob (and Ruth) for the gift. Have a great week!