People - David Mathre Photography

Five-Years Ago (01-August-2013) — Iceland

Gone to See Iceland 2013 Photography Safari with Mike Hagen. Day 3: Vestmannaeyjar (Westman Islands).

The group did a high-speed RIB Safari boat tour to the islands around Vestmannaeyjar. We needed to get into arctic survival suits, and had shoulder harness belts holding us in our seats. I strapped a camera to my chest with a fisheye lens and set it to automatically take images every few seconds. At times the boat was traveling at 40 knots with lots of heavy bouncing. We went all the way out to Surtsey island that I remember reading about as a kid rising from the sea as a volcano. At one point we saw a whale, so slowed down and stopped to take pictures. While stopped the boat rocked a lot, causing one or two passengers to lose their breakfast.

WARNING – THE TIME-LAPSE VIDEO MAY CAUSE MOTION SICKNESS

Six-Years Ago (31-July-2012) — Pennsylvania

Last Day at Merck.

I’ve now been retired from Merck for six years. I worked at Merck sites in Rahway, New Jersey; Boulder, Colorado; and West Point, Pennsylvania for over 27 years. Since I retired I have visited 40 different countries (several more than once) and 44 states. I have been at sea for over 7 months (two Semester at Sea — Enrichment Voyages; three Semester at Sea — Semester Voyages (Spring, Summer, and Fall); and two Hurtigruten voyages (one in Norway, and one to Antarctica)). I returned to Argentina and Chile for a photography trip with Thom Hogan, and did two Iceland photography safari’s (one summer, one winter) with Mike Hagen. I also visited Cuba and Japan for street photography workshops with Steve Simon. During these travels I have taken over 1.5 MM images. Not all of the images have made it into my photoblog posts yet… While in New Jersey, I have been renovating my house, adding solar power and replacing the oil furnace and old air conditioner with a geothermal heating and cooling system. Doing my small part to become carbon neutral.

Kathy, my administrative assistant in my empty office on my last day of work at Merck. Image taken with a Leica X2 camera. (David J Mathre)

Five-Years Ago (30-July-2013) — Iceland

Gone to See Iceland 2013 Photography Safari with Mike Hagen. Day 1: Golden Circle Tour.

The Bubble Has Burst. One of our stops for the day was to see Strokkur, a geyser in the Haukadalur geothermal area beside the Hvítá River in southwest Iceland. The geyser erupts every 6-10 minutes, and you can get much closer than Old Faithful in Yellowstone National Park. It should be noted that there were several tour buses stopped at the site, and lots of folks queued up to view the geyser. I found a spot a bit back on the other side and sent up a tripod to take a series of images with a Nikon D4 camera and 80-400 mm VRII telephoto zoom lens (ISO 100, 80 mm, f/11, 1/320 sec) that were then combined to create a GIF motion video of the bubble bursting.

Five-Years Ago (29-July-2013) — Iceland

Gone to See Iceland 2013 Photography Safari with Mike Hagen. Day 0: Reykjavik.

Silhouette of Sun Voyager (Sólfar) at Sunset. From wikipedia “Sun Voyager is a dreamboat, an ode to the sun. Intrinsically, it contains within itself the promise of undiscovered territory, a dream of hope, progress and freedom.” Image taken with a Nikon 1 V2 camera and 10 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 160, 10 mm, f/8, 1/400 sec).

I had no control over the folks crawling over the statue, the bikes parked, or the folks fishing – but still like the image.

Silhouette of Sun Voyager (Sólfar) at Sunset. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V2 camera and 10 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 160, 10 mm, f/8, 1/400 sec). Nikonians Photo Adventure with Mike Hagen. (David J Mathre) — Silhouette of Sun Voyager (Sólfar) at Sunset. Image taken with a Nikon 1 V2 camera and 10 mm f/2.8 lens (ISO 160, 10 mm, f/8, 1/400 sec). (David J Mathre)

Four-Years Ago (28-July-2014) — Russia

Gone to See Europe 2014. Day 58: Semester at Sea, Summer 2014 Semester Voyage. Saint Petersburg, Russia.

On our last day in Saint Petersburg, I attended a Master Cooking Class. I actually took more pictures than doing any cooking. The Russian food (Stuffed Cabbage and Borscht) we prepared was great, and I used the pictures to create this Time-Lapse Video.