Chris Wells
A Serial Dilettante
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 Bull with running temporal glandsRuaha National Park |  Law School portico rockersMercer University Law School, Macon, Georgia |  Butterfly paradeIsimila Park, Iringa, Tanzania |
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 Juvenile giraffe on the moveRuaha National Park, Tanzania |  One-legged Black-headed SeagullHilton Head |  Scanning the Serengeti |
 Isimila Park |  Purple-tongued giraffeRuaha National Park |  Young pianist |
 Ngorongoro rhino, elephant, zebra |  Christopher FarmBluffs and beaches at the farm where Chris's grandmother grew up, County Waterford, Ireland |  Great Egret at sunriseTidal pool, Hilton Head |
 Clock tower at sunsetMercer Law School |  Crossing the Great Ruaha River |  Family at Buena Vista CafeSan Francisco 2004 |
 Serengeti leopardLeopard in tree about 100 meters away, brightly backlit. Handheld Olympus OM-D5 Mark II, 300mm zoom (600mm effective), +2 stops exposure compensation. |  Newly minted Ph.D.sCaitlin and Jon about to be hooded at University of California - Davis |  Climbing Grays PeakColorado, 14,278' |
 Great Wildebeest MigrationWildebeest and Zebra, Serengeti, Tanzania |  Cherry after Bell House ConcertMcDuffie Center, Mercer University |  Mount Crested ButteCrested Butte, Colorado |
 LionessAlong Serengeti road |  Erg Chebi, Moroccan SaharaCaitlin, Miranda, Davis, Chris 1998 |  Marabou Stork (undertaker bird)_At Rhino Lodge, Ngorongoro Crater Rim |
 Bear Lodge (Devil's Tower), WyomingCamping with Ken in Tatanka Ska on Crazy Horse Trip |  Vervet MonkeyNgorongoro Crater forest, Tanzania |  Doorway to lavenderVan Gogh's sanatorium in St. Remy de Provence |
 Chris at Scattergood SchoolWorking on 10-speed. Near West Branch, Iowa, 1973. |  On the road to GothicSite of Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory, Caitlin's summer research station. |  Ngorongoro elephant |
 Sailboat at SunsetHilton Head, South Carolina |  Chris climbing Alpe d'HuezDuring Tour of the Tour de France 2002 |  Ngorongoro rhinoMarking territory |
 Monte Rosa Traverse 1999Snow ridge at 4000 meters, Italy to right, Switzerland to left |  ModelLuxembourg Gardens, Paris |  Bethany playing at Bell HouseMcDuffie Center, Mercer University |
 Miranda at SunriseHilton Head, South Carolina |  Buck-a-WheelFort Collins, Colorado |  Paradise de Provence terraceSt. Remy de Provence, France |
 Miranda along the SeineParis 2015 |  Bluffs at Christopher FarmCaitlin and Davis visit former family farm. Stradbally, Ballyvooney, Waterford, Ireland. |  Davis at Cameron PassPoudre Canyon, near Fort Collins, Colorado |
 Artichoke BloomsIle sur la Sorge, France |  Surfcaster at sunsetHilton Head |  Pont de l'ArchevecheRive Gauche to Ile de la Cite |
 Ted Robinson on SaxJazz Association of Macon evening concert 2015 |  Paris is for Lovers7th Arrondissement, Paris |  Notre Dame at DuskParis 2015 |
 Olive Baboon with stolen bananasAt entry to Ngorongoro Park, Tanzania |  Barteau Mouche and Pont RoyalParis 2015 |  Dusk at Safari CampIkoma Tented Camp, Serengeti, Tanzania |
 Sihao after Senior RecitalMcDuffie Center for Strings, Mercer University, Macon, Georgia |  Colorado WolfAt Wolf Center near Fort Collins |  Serengeti GiraffesTanzania 2015 |
Why "serial dilettante"?
Serial: repeatedly committing the same offense and typically following a characteristic, predictable behavior pattern.
Dilettante: a person who cultivates an area of interest, such as the arts, without real commitment or knowledge.
I'd like to return "dilettante" to a less pejorative meaning. Yes, I am guilty of the occasional vacuous dabble. But my dabbles often get serious and last decades, with breaks.
I bore easily. I love novelty, variety, and steep learning curves. So when the curve flattens a bit, I wander. But I return to it in a few weeks, months or years. And I usually repeat the cycle -- thus "serial."
I have done that for guitar, mountain biking and road cycling, fly fishing, tea, wine, French, Spanish, bourbons and vodkas, asian rugs, hand and power tools, fountain pens, hiking and backpacking, watches, travel, and photography for over 50 years. I once enyoyed but probably left forever behind, model trains, cribbage boards, pipes, VW repair, cooking, bonsai, billiards, coffee, beer, cars, wood carving, competitive handgun shooting, mountaineering, and hog farming.
I appreciate specialists. They address the toughest problems and often break new ground. But over time that single focus is boring monomania. Having specialized as a professional, I enjoy my frequent returns to amateur status.
Website building is new for me. Even thought the site focuses largely on one interest -- photography -- even the photographs reveal a reluctance to focus, as it were. They range from family snaps to wildlife on safari and monochrome art shots to color landscapes. A couple shots are by others. The photos present a range of other interests as well, and then I add a little writing. After all, I don't want the site to specialize . . . .
Chris
PS: For the photography gear heads out there who want to know about equipment, settings, etc., I have not usually provided any information with the photographs themselves. I can say that I used about a dozen cameras over time, including Nikon, Canon, Rollei, and Olympus film and digital P&S, Nikon D100 and D700 digital, Leica M3 film, Leica Digilux 2 and M9 digital, and Panasonic GF1, Olympus OMD-EM5 Mark II micro 4/3 digital, and Panasonic Lumix Superzoom. All did the job needed. I also scan old family film photos, sometimes with imperfections intact.
PPS: I genuinely believed when I started this project that I had coined the phrase "serial dilettante." But Google tells me that it appears in a biography of an Irish revolutionary from my own family's County Waterford, Thomas Meagher, who became an American lawyer and Civil War general ("doomed to be a serial dilettante"). I'll take it.
(https://books.google.com/books?id=EWQpCgAAQBAJ&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false)