If you enjoy travel to foreign lands and if you enjoy mystery suspense series with a strong, memorable protagonist, then we share the love of a special niche in escapist fiction.

I’m sure there are more such series, but there are four authors’ series that I know of.

James Church‘s novels, featuring an Inspector O of Pyongyang, North Korea. It’s hard to imagine a more unlikely, inhospitable setting for a story and likable protagonist, but Church makes it work, fabulously. I guarantee you’ll be hooked once you start reading these:

• A corpse in the Koryo (2006)
• Hidden moon : an Inspector O novel (2007)
• Bamboo and blood (2008)

Perhaps my favorite among the authors I know in this niche is John Burdett with his Bangkok series, featuring a continuing cast of quite varied characters, including the central one, Detective Sonchai Jitpleecheep. What is so intriguing about this series is how completely the characters’ world view is Thai–not at all Western. I really do love this series.

• Bangkok 8: A Novel (2003)
• Bangkok Tattoo (2006)
• Bangkok Haunts (2007)
• The Godfather of Kathmandu (2010)

An earlier novel of his, not part of the series, is The Last Six Million Seconds (1997), that takes place during the handover of Hong Kong from the British to the People’s Republic of China. Good book!

Of course, the widely known Millennium Trilogy by the late Stieg Larsson, belongs in this niche as well. These may be the most famous novels of this type.

• The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2005)
• The Girl Who Played with Fire (2006)
• The Girl Who Kicked the Hornets’ Nest (2007)

To my knowledge, there’s no one who wrote mystery series set in foreign lands earlier, than the granddaddy of them all, Martin Cruz Smith and his Inspector Arkady Renko mysteries set in Russia:

• Gorky Park (1981)
• Polar Star (1989)
• Red Square (1992)
• Havana Bay (1999)
• Wolves Eat Dogs (2004)
• Stalin’s Ghost (2007)
• Three Stations (2010)

I would love to see Church and Burdett become as widely known as Larsson and Smith; they deserve to be.

I would also love to know of other mystery series set abroad so I can indulge myself in more hours of armchair travel and sleuthing.

There are, of course, many mystery series with European locales…England, France. And, I vaguely remember reading a series of mysteries set in Italy featuring a rather dour, Italian police detective, but I can’t recall the author’s name or any of the titles in the series. But, I was thinking, in this post, of more exotic locations.

If you know of any other (exotic locale) foreign mystery series, please comment, below. (No, Chief Inspector Jacques Clouseau does not count!)

I’m surprised there’s not a series set in India…or China…or…

A friend tipped me off that she had won an honorable mention at the Florida Museum of Photographic Arts Member’s Show. I was very pleased for her and wanted to see her picture. Plus, I was very curious about this museum. I’d not heard of it at all.

The Florida Museum of Photographic Arts is at 200 N. Tampa Street, Suite 130, Tampa, Florida 33602; 813-221-2222. That’s near the corner of Jackson Street and Ashley Drive, right downtown. This particular exhibit closes on September 4th. That’s only 10 more days. I hope you go. It’s worth every bit of the effort.

You won’t be disappointed. All of the pictures have something to offer but there are some very stunning photos, absolutely stunning photos. Of course, the official winners, listed below, are extremely good. The judges must have spent many an anguished hour trying to decide the winners because so many photos were deserving. Here’s the official list from the museum’s website:

Best of Show
Rory Brennan, Cancer Ward, Paraguay
Members’ Choice
Chris Hoyer, Sweet Dreams, London
Documentary
Roy Rodriguez, The Conversation
Travel
Kirk Ke Wang, Passage of Time
Portraiture
Jim Reiman, Jason
Nature/Landscape
Robin Dana, Water Lilies
Details
Melissa Harris, Pinned Glass
Creative Mediums/Processes
David Audet, Fan, Fur: La France
Honorable Mentions
Judith Hall, Travel, Under the Bean
Michael Schuhmann, Portraiture, Captain Love
Andrew Malbin, Nature, Scar the Whale and His Family
Katherine Stetson, Details, In Memory of My Mother
Jennifer Mace, Creative Mediums, Vine

But, I have my own “winners,” too! Who wouldn’t. There are always going to be photos that speak in a special way to each viewer. I think, in my case, my “winners” were photos that demonstrate techniques I wish I could execute.

If you go to the museum, and I hope you do, compare your own list with mine. I’m curious if you agree. Here, in addition to the official winners, and in alphabetical order, are my own favorites:

Color
Ashes to Ashes, Steven Gregory
Broken Door, Randy Van Duinen
From the Well (of Life), Ugo, Mazzarolo
Going Green, Michelle Wilson
Halloween Pennant, Don Moyer
Look Beyond, Amy Rigsby
Lotus Zen, Catherine Hammer
Sweet Dreams, Chris Hoyer
Times Square, Allan Alexander
Town Center Winter, Lynn Wiezycki
Trees in the Fog, Ernest Gudath

Black & White (or mostly Black & White)
Door to Salvation, Jose Suro
Electric Rhythm, Amy Bird
Elephants March, Bob Demchuk
Lobsterman’s Credo, Terry Hayden
Survival, Marshall Seider
The Beginning, Stephanie Parke
Untitled, Peter Lapin
Wondrous View, Heather Papolos
Ybor City Trolley, Robert Boice

(Note: I can’t always read my own handwriting. If you notice a misspelling of someone’s name, please let me know so I can correct it.)

If that seems like a long list of personal winners, let me assure you: the exhibit is LARGE! I had no idea there was so much photographic talent locally. I’m very impressed and eager to learn anything I can from this community in order to become a better photographer myself. (I’ve joined as a Senior; I recommend you donate or join is you can. See Membership Drive.) It would be very gratifying to have the skill of any of the members in the exhibit.

I wish the little cards identifying the titles and artists, and prices when for sale, also listed more technical information. I would have loved to have known the different kinds of printing processes, the different kinds of cameras used, whether digital or film, the type of paper, etc. One photo had that kind of information, but none of the others did. I would like to have known that. Such information would help us fledgling photographers.

Please go to this exhibit and please support this museum. You won’t regret doing so.

All the major e-book dealers provide FREE e-book readers for PCs. (I don’t know about Macs; it maybe be that they do for Macs, also.)

These are the three readers I use on my netbook:

1. Kindle for PC (I’m only buying any new e-books for this now),
2. Barnes & Noble Desktop Reader (but only because I bought one book for it when I had a Nook before I sent it back…I don’t plan on using it after I finish reading that book); and
3. Adobe Digital Editions.

Even though Kindle for PC (which is free and for which there are many, many free e-books) is my main reader, there is a lot of value to Adobe Digital Editions.

I’d bought a couple books for Adobe Digital Editions over the years (a Stephen King and a Wizard of Oz book) but recently I discovered that you can use Adobe Digital Editions to read ANY PDF file (something you can’t do on Kindle).

You could use Adobe Reader, of course, but Adobe Digital Editions (also free) has extra features that Adobe Reader does not, such as being able to organize your books into “bookshelves” and being able to view the actual covers of the books on those bookshelves as you can on Kindle. I find that PDFs get lost to my memory in an endless list of computer file titles! If I see a cover on a bookshelf it makes me aware I’ve even GOT the book.

For instance, as I went about adding PDFs I have to my Adobe Digital Editions this morning, I re-discovered that I have a Barbara Sher e-book that I downloaded (for free, I think). I discovered some other complete e-books as PDFs that I’d forgotten I had, two of which I’d actually bought! They’re beautiful photography technique books.

There are many free PDF books out there on the Internet. Here’s some resources just to get you stared (Google “free ebooks” and you’ll find tons more):

• 35 Websites for free ebooks download
• Manybooks.net
• Buddhanet

So, in addition to Kindle for PC, you might want to download Adobe Digital Editions to organize and read your book-length PDFs with it (reserving Adobe Reader for shorter documents).

Here’s links to those two e-book readers (remember, both are free):

• Kindle for PC
• Adobe Digital Editions

Hilton’s first “song”–age 3

For young (and old) composers, there are no books that really help you understand the process of composing music. I mean that word, “no,” quite literally. There’s not a single book that I know of that really deals with the process.

The books that purport to be about composition are really about music theory, which is the study of the nuts and bolts description of different composers’ music. They are to music composition as a grammar book would be to creative writing. It’s stuff you need to know but it’s definitely stuff to put out of your mind when you’re composing.

Instead of books about composing–since there are none–I’ve found much inspiration and guidance in books about creative writing. There, too, of course, there are books which are more about form than the process, but it seems that some creative writing author/teachers understand well the notion of process.

This post doesn’t really concern the lack of books about the process of composing and it definitely does not concern creative writing. (My only talent, if any, for putting words in a row is simple expository writing such as this blog.) It’s about my hobby: photography.

In middle school, I was in the photography club. I loved all the smells and the darkroom ambiance and the magic of watching a picture come into being in the developing solution (this was way back in Brownie camera days). But, one thing and another and I didn’t keep up with it. Instead I devoted more and more time to music. All my life, I didn’t really have a hobby. Music eclipsed everything.

That was a good thing because it enabled me to have a career in music, something many people would love to have. But now, retired from being a college prof, I’ve had the time to indulge myself in photography, to rediscover the joy of having a hobby! Thankfully, digital photography makes practicing the act a lot less expensive than film days.

(FINALLY…here’s the point of the whole post!) So it was that recently, I asked some friends who are experts in the commercial and academic aspects of Art (note the upper case “A”) for advise about a specific aspect of pictures I’ve taken, what would probably correspond to “voice” in literature or “style” in composition. Well, the answers I got back weren’t answers to my question (except for one gallery owner, whose comments I do appreciate), but were rather dedicated to how bad my photography was. Sort of along the lines of “who do you think you are?”

Well, I pretty much put the camera away for quite a while. Couldn’t even work up the spit to post anything here.

I’m a silent processor; I don’t easily share what’s going through my head with others. But, I finally worked up the courage to discuss what I was experiencing with a good friend and working artist (not an academician) who designs theater and opera sets. I told him what I’d asked the experts and what their answers were. He said, “Hilton, you should have known better!” I don’t know why I hadn’t asked him for an opinion about my photography, but I hadn’t. I guess because he’s not an “authority”–he’s “just” a working artist.

He was absolutely right. I should have known better. Probably the two most lethal fields when it comes to anything creative are the commercial and the academic fields. (And I say that, as a life-long college professor.) “Experts” have probably stifled more creativity than they have ever fostered.

So, I’ve been repairing my enthusiasm for taking pictures and posting them on this blog by composing. I know how composing works. I know that each time you write a piece you have to remember how to compose all over again. Each piece is as hard to write as the first one you ever finished. And, finishing a piece is just the beginning…you have to plunge back in and take it all apart and make it all over again at least once, maybe more than once…it’s as if you don’t know what the first note should have been until you have written the last one.

I’ve also been reading creative writing books again to help in rekindling my creative muse, professionally as a composer and, as an amateur, as a photographer.

One excellent book on creative writing is the old The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. It is 100% process oriented. The author’s advise applies equally to writing, composing, photographing, cooking, embroidering, dancing, singing, and weaving or whatever else is someone’s personal medium of expression.

Right now, I’m reading an even more helpful book, one that is helping me in my composition and photography, immensely. It’s Writing Alone and with Others by Pat Schneider. Here’s a couple sample quotes from it. I think you can see how relevant they are.

“Some critics claim that all truly great works of literature are already recognized. What a cynical and small-minded view of the human spirit! In other times and other cultures, art was made for the family: quilts, hand-carved pieces, lullabies, ballads. The audience of that art was intimate…Writing is making art, and the test of its value cannot be given into the hands of either the commercial world or the academy.”

“[quoting Dorothea Brande] ‘It is well to understand as early as possible in one’s writing life that there is just one contribution which every one of us can make: we can give into the common pool of experience some comprehension of the world as it looks to each of us…If you can tell a story as it can appear only to you of all the people on earth, you will inevitably have a piece of work which is original.’”

“[quoting William Stafford] He said the writer’s job is to abandon his or her work, to allow others to make judgment of its worth, and to go on the the next poem, the next story.”

“If you are to write, you must move out of ‘rented rooms’ in your mind, rooms that you have allowed to belong to someone else.”

“It is more important to ask: Have I gone all the way? Have I told all of the truth that my inner eye sees?”

“…fear had frozen her into a habitual rejection of her own work.”

I should have known better. As a composer, most publishers and almost all my academic colleagues hated my music. But, oddly, the musicians who performed it liked it. Even more important, the people who heard it liked it. Perhaps, most important, I liked it and I definitely enjoyed writing it. So, I should have known better than to worry about what the experts say about anything.

One should just do one’s thing, do it the best one can, keep trying to get better, keep doing it and doing it every day, and trust one’s own judgment more than the judgment of others. And–enjoy the doing of it.