Author: rgetter

Driving Iceland’s South Coast

Riders near Skógafoss falls

Our plans for Monday called for a daylong drive along the spectacular south coast. I took this tour on my last trip and felt that there was more along the route that I wanted to see this time. Even though the weather forecast confirmed this, I could know without looking that it would be a rainy day. The south coast in summer is like that.

Sólheimajökull Glacier

What was amazing was that after driving through one heavy shower and putting up with some lighter ones at are first stop, the weather turned beautiful and sunny, albeit rather windy and cold. Our stops included two spectacular waterfalls, a glacier, a puffin-laden sea cliff, and a lot of walking. Oh yeah. A lot of driving, too. About six hours’ worth, with our turn-around point being Vik, 104 miles distant.
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08/04/2025
Iceland’s Snæfellsnes Peninsula

Kirkjufell Mountain

Though, in my ignorance of the downtown parking situation, I had rented a car for the entirety of my first visit to Iceland, my only long drive was to the northwest peninsula, Snæfellsnes.
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08/04/2025
The Mac’s Hidden Unit Converter

Difficulty: Easy

If you haven’t mastered the metric system or are contemplating a purchase on Amazon.uk, you may find the need to convert one unit of measure, currency, or whatever into another. You can hop onto a search engine if you’re online. But on a Mac, you’re only a couple of clicks away from an even better solution.
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07/18/2025
Iceland Photo Gallery

Puffin on south coast

Here’s my full collection of photos from our Iceland trips. Make sure you check out my Iceland blog, too!

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07/14/2025
Keep All Your Gadgets Charged on the Road

Difficulty: Easy

There are few things more annoying than arriving at your destination and discovering that some important device you brought won’t get charged because of one stupid thing you forgot to pack. Here’s an easy way to avoid that.
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07/09/2025
School Bell

The house was small and cheap, and, like an idiot, he didn’t pay attention to much else about it. He found it, bought it, and moved in early that summer. There were thick willows lining his back fence, so he didn’t notice what was hidden behind them. The rest of the neighborhood seemed quiet, being a dead-end street without much traffic. He didn’t own all that much furniture, or anything else for that matter, so he was settled in quickly. He didn’t discover the problem until the Monday after Labor Day.
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06/23/2025
People & Portraits Portfolio

Thought I’ve never considered myself a portrait photographer, I love photographing people. Fortunately, the times I’ve been asked to do something like a portrait, I’ve had the freedom to keep out of a studio and capture folks where they belong and feel like themselves.

Still, my favorite way to get people pictures is by lurking in the background and capturing candid images. Candid, according to the Oxford Dictionary means “truthful and straightforward; frank” and I try to stay true to that. It can take a long time to get to know someone, but that first impression you get from an initial glance can stay with you.
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06/22/2025
Travel & Places Portfolio

Traveling has always been one of my favorite things to do and the same goes for the photography I do when I’m doing it. Everyplace has stories to tell. Sometimes they reveal something truly unique to a place and its culture. Sometimes it shows us how much we have in common as members of the human race.

With all due respect to filmmakers and videographers, I think photographers have a certain advantage here. Those tiny slices of time we capture can tell as much and sometimes more than a longer shot or scene. These brief images can be what we remember most about a place or event there. I love finding and capturing those little slices.
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06/22/2025
Sports Portfolio

In terms of approach and equipment, sports photography is its own ballgame (so to speak). For the major city dailies, sports has its own photo staff. For the papers I worked on, we had to do it all. Along with spot news (fire truck chasing), it became my favorite thing to do. Though I’ve done some pro sports, I find school sports to be a lot more exciting in a lot of ways. There is a certain kind of energy in the air that I just don’t feel at the pro events.

But like a lot of other photography, there are stories there to tell, moments of victory and heartbreak, as well as little dramas and sometimes comedies on the sidelines. Personally, I can’t get enough of it and I am so happy being back into it.
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06/22/2025
News Portfolio

When I was in college (about 1969), I needed to find a way to pay for film for my camera and chemicals for my darkroom. On a whim, I walked into the office of the local weekly paper a week after one of their regular photographers left and they let me try out. A year or so later, I was freelancing for the regional daily and wound up with a regular weekend and summer gig when I was in school and was hired full time after I graduated. Now I’m back, doing schoolboy sports (see my Sports Portfolio) and a few other things for a chain of local weeklies here in Oregon.
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06/22/2025