Joel's Best Photos

This page includes a collection of some of the best photographs that I have taken.

I have never been much of a photographer. Until recently, I did not even own a camera, 35mm or otherwise. However, the invention of digital photography and popularity of the internet together has changed all that for me.

Our family's first digital camera was a Kodak DC260. Daphne bought the camera after extensive research, for taking pictures on our Grand Canyon raft trip. At that time, Daphne was the camera expert, the one who read the instruction manual and knew the ins and out of the camera's capabilities. However, on the raft trip, I took over half the pictures myself. I took the camera out whenever I saw a good view while drifting down river, I carried the camera on every hike we made, taking pictures whenever something caught my fancy, and I took pictures whenever we stopped to watch the other boats in our group go through the rapids. I found that I enjoyed the process of taking pictures. It gave me something to focus on when I hiked or rafted.

But it was the popularity of the internet that made photography really rewarding. When we returned from the Grand Canyon raft trip, Daphne and I put together a web site describing the trip including 799 of the pictures that we took. This is the modern slide show. No longer do you have to subject your friends and relatives to a session looking through your old dusty photo albums, or sitting in your dark livingroom watching a boring slide show. Now, anyone can browse through your photographs, in their own time and place. We can track the number of hits from the web logs, and we still get email telling us how nice the web site it.

Our Kodak camera died halfway through our first trip to the Virgin Islands. The watertight bag we used to hold the camera when we went swimming leaked, and the camera ate seawater. Even though we rinsed it out as soon as possible, corrosion started almost immediately. Fortunately, the compact flash card was still readable.

The next day was hard. I wanted to take pictures but had no camera. But St. Thomas is a great place to buy electronics. We browsed around the shops in downtown Charlotte Amalie and bought a Canon G1. Daphne had heard about the G1, but did not believe that it was available yet. Yet, when we mentioned it to the sales person, he produced one at a great price. We bought it immediately. The batteries even had a charge so I could play with it before letting it fully charge overnight.

Starting with the G1 I am the one who has read the manual and knows all the ins and outs of the camera. And I am the one who takes most of the pictures in the family. But, Daphne is still the artistic one in the family. My approach to photography is to take lots of pictures and hope a few of them look good.

You can see my pictures all over this web site. As of the end of 2001, we has almost 4800 images on this site for a total of around 3GB of disk space. When putting together this page, I asked Daphne to look over all my pictures and pick out the best (in her opinion). The pictures on this page represents some of the best of my photography, according to Daphne. Of course, there are probably other great pictures buried in the various travel logs and event collections.

If you have a favorite picture from the Gould Home web site, feel free to send me an email and let me know what it is.

P.S. In the summer of 2002, I replaced my Canon G1 with a Minolta DiMAGE 7i. The 7i has more resolution (5 megapixels compared to the G1's 3 megapixels), a better zoom (7x optical compared to the G1's 3x optical) and a much better manual focus system. All the pictures taken after June, 2002 were taken with the Minolta.

The Best of Hawaii

Two weeks in Hawaii gave me plenty of opportunity to take lots of pictures. Here are the best.

July 15, 2001, Hawaii details Hawaii's North Shore	July 16, 2001, Hawaii details Fire dancer in motion	July 17, 2001, Hawaii details Tree killed by laval flows
July 22, 2001, Kauai details Kalalau Valley	July 23, 2001, Kauai details Mountains of Kauai	July 24, 2001, Kauai details Beach at Lawai Bay
July 24, 2001, Kauai details Lotus blossom	July 25, 2001, Kauai details Taro Fields Seen from Hanalei Overlook	July 26, 2001, Kauai details Helicopter View of the Town of Hanapepe

The Best from Elsewhere

Our travel section include travel journals from two trips to the Virgin Islands, our trip to Mexico, our trip to Eleuthra and the famous Grand Canyon raft trip. Here are some of the best pictures from our non-Hawaii travels.

June 2, 1999, Grand Canyon details Paul Rowing Hermit Rapid	June 9, 1999, Grand Canyon details View from Whitmore Wash	April 16, 2000, Eleuthra details Palm Sunday Parade
April 18, 2000, Eleuthra details Looking East Up Double Bay Beach	December 26, 2001, St. John details Trunk Bay Before the Crowds	December 28, 2001, St. Thomas Red Hook at Sunset
July 1, 2002, St. John View of Waterlemon Bay and Mary Creek

The Best from New England

Some of my best pictures come from much closer to home. Here is a collection of my best non-travel photographs. Some come from camping and hiking trips, but most were taken during short outings devoted to photography.

August 12, 2001, Vermont Bee on Flower	August 12, 2001, Vermont Trail to Peru Peak Shelter	September 2, 2001, Savoy, MA Flowers
December 9, 2001, Winchester, MA Thornberry Road in the Snow	February 10, 2002, North Kingstown, RI Fishing Code in Early Dawn Light	February 10, 2002, North Kingstown, RI Jamestone Bridge in the Early Morning Mists
February 10, 2002, North Kingstown, RI Phragmites at Edge of Fising Cove	March 20, 2002, Winchester, MA Marsh Marigolds at Whipple Hill	April 19, 2002, Winchester, MA Lady Slipper in Morning Light
April 19, 2002, Winchester, MA Downtown Winchester	August 15, 2002, Savoy, MA Sunrise Behind the Grass	September 7, 2002, Pawtuckaway, NH Dragonfly on Black
January 5, 2003, Lexington, MA Looking Across the Pond at Whipple Hill	January 5, 2003, Lexington, MA Snow Covered Branches Against a Blue Sky

This web page (http://www.gouldhome.com/Joel'sBestPhotos.html) was last updated on October 20, 2004. For any comments or suggestions about the site contact Daphne Gould. Contents copyright © 1999-2003 by Joel and Daphne Gould.