I started reading a book called “Botany of Desire”. It starts by talking about Johnny Appleseed and his movement west in front of the pioneers. He planted apple trees years in advance of his counterparts arrival so that his trees would be ready to sell when the pioneers arrived. The other person who has done that sort of visionary thinking recently also has ties to apples, the late Steve Jobs.

One of the most striking things I read over and over again about Steve Jobs was his foresight. What he saw the market would want fifteen years ago took passion, drive, baby steps, big steps, and alot of people to bear fruit.

How many people currently work and have worked at Apple over the last fifteen years? How many people made their livelihood on making products that moved the company where it is today?

I switched from Microsoft products in 2003 when I bought a seventeen inch Mac laptop. Having spent the 5 years previous learning and working in Silicon Graphics’ Unix based OS called Irix, I wanted something that could have the command line scripting and automation I had grown to love, but I needed something I could still run Photoshop on.

In 1999, I worked at Microsoft as an intern in the Encarta Online division. I attended the intern picnic at Bill Gates residence and marveled at the electronic picture frames, his personal movie theater, and his putting green. Mr. Gates eventually arrived and was swarmed by interns. Most people asked questions to try and impress him. Why? Is he really going to pick you to be his aire to the Microsoft throne? No. What was my question?

“What is your favorite car?”

Mr. Gates smiled. “My porsche.”

I smiled back, knowing exactly why.

Excellent engineering, excellent craftsmanship, and thousands of people who took pride in their work made Mr. Gates a beautiful car.

I couldn’t afford a Porsche in 2003, but I felt as I had just bought one: my Mac laptop. I knew after years of being a Microsoftie from Dos 4 to Windows 2000, that I had in my hands a Porsche class laptop. When comparing it to my father’s Toshiba laptop, I felt like I had the most beautiful, fast, and versatile machine that with my experience and training I could have. I was hooked.

I started editing my demo reel that year and took another baby step towards being a filmmaker. Working at Industrial Light and Magic was a huge step in that direction in 2001, but I was closer than ever with Final Cut Pro on my laptop!

A friend of mine in frustration once quipped: “There is only one filmmaker at ILM and that is George Lucas.” I think his frustration in being one of literally thousands of people working on a Star Wars movie was getting to him. In the end his work contributed to something much bigger and that we were all filmmakers, with our own part to play in bringing one man’s vision to life.

Filmmaking, like building computers and writing software is a collaborative process involving lots of really brilliant people on many levels and aspects. One person’s broad stroke visions have to be hammered out into reality and I really think that everyone should be honored in that process.

Watching the physical assets of Kerner Optical get sold was hard. I had hoped to collaborate with the practical and miniature effects geniuses who had shaped my backyard playground into the world of Hoth when the snow fell in Tennessee. But alas, the artists who brought these worlds to life are no longer under one roof, but I was happy to have worked along side with them during my tenure at ILM’s Kerner Loop Campus.

Maybe someday I will hear “Loud Bang on Slab” be announced over the paging system and watch playback from a Mac while filming a piece to the film “The Ranch”.

I salute those who make all the tiny pieces come together to make the the big visions become a reality.

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Mr. Gus Gilman has now moved into new territory… he has had a birthday. In his first foray into the realm of people celebrating his birthday, he remained very humble. Never once did he cry because he didn’t like the present he got. Speaking of crying, I don’t think he even tried to open any presents… he was too busy crawling as fast as possible to make his escape out into the back yard. Attempts at ‘moon walking’ by holding his hands failed, because he perfers to crawl flat out as fast as he can. Taking pictures of Gus proved challenging, until he sat for his cake!

More photos after the jump.

The complete gallery of photos from his birthday are here:

http://gallery.me.com/billgilman/100113

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Have you ever wondered what happens when you cut someone’s head off in a family photo? I seem to have stumbled across the answer today.

I swear I didn’t crop this photo.

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The illustrious Tracy Green.

One of my favorite things about photography is catching people with a real smile. I get really tired of taking people’s pictures and getting the generic “I’m posing for a photo” smile. Real smiles make me giggle, mainly because it reminds me of whatever it was that I or someone did or said to get that reaction. It adds a new dimension to a photo because it is pure joy coming through the lens.

On my road trip this summer, I found myself offering to take people’s photo almost everywhere I went. It was a way for me to break the ice with people, and provide them with a great photo. Just the simple act of offsetting the couple to the left or right of frame sometimes would make them have a photo and not a snapshot. I got many types of reactions to the offer, mostly it was “great!”, but occaisonally I would get the “how much does it cost?” reaction. I only took their photos for free, but it was amusing to hear the people who suspect that their is a catch. I think in this day and age, it is pretty typical to expect a catch.

At an overlook of the Capitol Reef in Utah, I had a Russian family of about 12 pile out of a minivan while I was taking some panoramic photos . I offered to take their photo and the father immediately jumped on the offer. He was very happy. Everyone else in the car looked like they had been traveling with their family for way too long. The overlook of Capitol Reef off of I-70 is about 200 miles from nowhere.

As they went to line up for their photo, the father candidly said “If you need us to do anything, just say what you want us to do.” My eyes lit up – “Oh really? Ok, when I count to 3, everyone should jump.”

And half of them did it! The mother gave me the evil eye, but everyone else was giggling at the idea. The youngest girl in the group, probably about 8 or 9 years old, just loved it! As I jumped in the motorhome and drove away, she was still smiling the biggest toothy grin you ever saw and waved goodbye to me. I could tell that I had made a lasting memory that they would all remember of their road trip that summer.

I had regretted not taking a photo of the Russian family to go along with the story, but I figured I would find an opportunity to make more memorable photos on the road trip. Monument Valley proved to be the place that would allow me to take more fun photographs. I encountered a German father and son, who were traveling with their son’s friend. The were game to take some atypical photos, which proved very fun. They got so wrapped up in pointing at things, which is what I had asked them to do, they just kept doing it after I had taken several photos.

I then encountered a Japanese tourist who wanted to be photographed jumping off the ground in front of Monument Valley. I asked him if I could take their photo jumping as a group.  After he translated to the entire group, everyone started laughing, and kept laughing. I was given every camera that the group had and took at least one photo with eight different cameras! I asked if I could have a photo as well, and they just couldn’t stop laughing, they were having so much fun, and you can see it – this is the 9th photo of them jumping! I think they could have just kept right on jumping.

So I ask ya’ll to take a risk on your vacations and trips home this holiday season. Take a photo with a twist. Take a photo of everyone with their hands in the air, or with everyone looking down like a family huddle, or use your imagination. Post a link to the photo you take in the comments!

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… for home-made freshly baked chocolate chip cookies!
Wait! When is it not the season for that?

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