What About Bill?

I am a recently (January 2013) retired military veteran of 26 years.

I started this blog in 2006 as a way to share some of my travel experiences with family and friends, especially as we moved from Tokyo, Japan to Clarksville, Tennessee.  It would be difficult to make a more disparate change in our lives; it took almost six months for us to get over the culture shock.  We did come to love the Tennessee/Kentucky area, but it was quite a change from Tokyo.

If you were to browse back to those early years, you would see quite a bit of training and racing posts as I trained for and raced triathlons, as well as trained for and raced marathons and ultra-marathons.  Mind you, raced is a relative term, since at the speeds I was going, I was really only racing myself.  Over the past few years, I realized that the amount of time I was spending training and racing was really pulling away from time that was better spent with my wife, who you’ll always see referred to as “Goddess”.  Because that is who she is to me, my Goddess, infinitely patient, understanding and supportive.

I needed, and wanted, to focus more on her.

So I started focusing on short high-intensity workouts to keep my fitness.  Those just don’t read well compared to an “epic” nine-hour training day or 60K trail run.

But what about the photography?  It’s something I’ve done for the past 25 years, mainly starting out like everyone else, using it to capture the fun moments, handing the film over to the drug store developer and getting back prints.  Then in 1989 I bought my first SLR, a Canon EOS 630 (complete with Canon Quartz Date Back E) and a Canon EF 50/1.8 lens.  The camera is long gone, but I still have that lens and it remains one of my favorites.

Back during that time, I had access to a traditional darkroom, so I learned to develop film and print my own images.  I devoured any book I could find on the subject and had to meticulously track all details of the image, from capture through development to printing.  Now we have digital to track all of that information for us and the digital darkroom makes the process quicker.  Not necessarily better or worse, but quicker.  But thanks to the digital revolution, I am now able to share my images world-wide, which has brought me a modest amount of recognition for my work.

Fast forward 25 years, 10 moves and four countries later and we’re now settled (for now) in Southern Oregon, where we both can go to school, hike the mountains and enjoy taking pictures.  Best of all, Goddess and I are spending a lot of time together.

Even though I may forget to write it at the bottom of my blog posts, I do appreciate you taking the time out of your busy life to stop by, read, appreciate and share my words and images.

Thank you.

Bill Anders

Ashland, Oregon, USA