This is the past history of the development and evolution of these web pages. A lot of work went into this and we hope you enjoy it.
Winter 2003
Winter? Is it winter yet? Yesterday, October 29, 2003, was the first day we didn’t have the air conditioner running much of the day. And it actually rained for five minutes! The first drops of rain in Tel Aviv since probably April. WOW! I actually was touched by three drops of rain! Today, it is cooler, with the breeze coming off the sea rather than from the heated deserts, and just possibly the concept known as winter (which is more like summer in Seattle) will arrive.
With the change in weather comes a dramatic behind-the-scenes changes to our web site. We are going table-less! I thought that my formating our web pages within tables to maintain its structure would be "more accessible" to more people instead of using frames. Was I wrong! Using CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) to their maximum, though, takes a huge leap forward in accessible web page viewing. I’ve changed everything over to CSS. For information on how I made the change and resources for leaping off the cliff to make your web pages viewable by just about everyone, check out our Web Design information page. As with any major change, there are bound to be some glitches, so if you spot any, let us know at lorelle@cameraontheroad.com.
The dramatic change to the web site is something felt underneath the skin, with only a few visible changes on the surface. In general, I’m really pleased with the simple, clean layout I’ve created, and so I’m sticking with it. Some of you may notice the difference immediately, though, as switching to formating through CSS sheets means pages will load faster, in some cases as much as 50% faster than before. The first page or two on a visit may load slow, but after that, they should zoom into your browser.
The Home Zone initial page has been completely renovated, as you probably noticed. We’ve decided to add news and tips called "Attention Getters" to our main page, helping the nature photographer, writer, and traveler stay up-to-date on some of the news in our industry.
Right now, our writing focus is on finishing the first major draft of our book, "Home is Where Lorelle Is". When that is complete, we have a lot of articles awaiting edit and posting, with new ones in the works, to spice up these pages even more.
- New and Improved Book Recommendations
- We’ve always had an outstanding reference of books we recommend on nature, travel, and the business of nature photography, but now it is completely updated and improved. As an associate with Amazon.com, we have made the process of getting these wonderful resources much easier. We’ve expanded our book categories to include books that are inspiring and motivating, and books on the topics of general photography, the business of photography, stock photography, writing, selling and marketing your photography, travel photography and writing, and birds, birding, and bird watching. We’ve also included a wide range of related magazines to keep the energy going month after month.
- Online Bookstore and More
- We’ve also decided to feature an online bookstore and more about nature photography, travel photography, writing, and a variety of nature subjects to help you expand your library and resources to be the best nature and travel photographer and writer. This is new for us, so if you have any comments or recommendations, please let us know.
- Monthly Newsletter is Back
- Yes, it is finally back with tons of great information to help the nature photographer and writer. In December we released part one of three huge issues dealing with travel – so if you aren’t signed up to receive it, and you are a seasoned or beginner traveler, make sure you check out our newsletter page for more information.
- New Online Journal/Blog
- We’ve added an online journal or weblog to our site called "Journal Thoughts", past logs stored on our archived "thoughts" page. We hope this will keep our fans, friends, and family better updated on our life on the road.
- Thanks for the Support
- On a personal note, thanks to everyone for their support during the recent lost of our best furry buddy, Dahni. After months living on the road with us, flying on airplanes around four countries, our traveling kitty was healthier than he had been since his birth. His death was unexpected, sudden, and left a huge hole in our lives. Thank you so much for all your support and kind thoughts. It will take time to heal, as does all losses, but he gave us so much of himself in three short years, changing our lives and perspective in so many ways, it will take a long time to get used to the huge emptiness his loss has left behind in our lives.
- Pay Attention
- A new section on the home page featuring tips, advice, and news about the nature photography, writing and travel industry updated weekly.
- A Weblog Journal
- We’ve always emailed our journals out to friends and fans, but now you can keep better up-to-date on our life on the road through our Journal Thoughts.
- Market Watch
- If you are serious about turning your nature photography and writing into a business, we are here to help. In addition to the wide variety of business related articles we have to offer in our Learning and Business Zones, we have started a new Market Watch section on this page. By paying attention to topical news and events, article and photo sales can leap out at you. To help you stay on top of what is "hot", we are posting news bulletins to help motivate and inspire you to be ready to meet the market’s needs.
- Monthly Newsletter for Nature Photographers and Writers
- We’ve started a monthly newsletter for nature photographers and writers filled with massive information, links, and resources to help you do your job better.
- Behind the Scenes
- We take you behind the scenes to understand how we capture our images and what makes them "special", helping you improve your own images and techniques in this new section in our Learning Zone.
- Visiting Jerusalem’s Souvenier Shops
- It isn’t often I can get Brent to share his beautiful writing with everyone, and here is one of those rare chances. In response to a wonderful gift for his guitar playing from an online friend who lives in Oregon, we explored the ancient souvenier shops in Jerusalem for the perfect thank you gift. We ended up in the shop of a friend of ours, Bediun, who let us explore to our hearts’ content to find the ideal treasure. Brent shares our adventure shopping in Old Jerusalem as part of his thank you gift.
Fall 2003
We’re home. Home at last. As you know from reading about our life on the road, Brent says that "home is where Lorelle is". Unfortunately, with our "escape" as "refugees" from Bush’s war on Iraq, Brent returned to Israel before Lorelle, his job calling. Lorelle stayed on a bit with family and friends, working on her writing and helping out with a bit of "ball-ah-gone" (Russian/Hebrew for "big mess"). She’ll have more to tell in our Telling Zone later, when the dust settles. And we mean settle. Not long after her return, the "simple" installation of a washer and dryer led to a three week renovation of the apartment replacing all the electrical wiring, and then fixing all the holes they left behind in the walls as they traced the wiring. Cement dust was everywhere with nowhere to walk or move with all the junk everywhere. Dahni hid under the bed every day in terror as they crashed, bashed, and mashed our apartment. I hid in my office, and still wasn’t safe. We will now have better and safer electricty (it was the original electrical wiring from 1948) and a new paint job on the whole apartment. And a washer and dryer!!!
The months living on the road in Spain and then in the states has given us tons of information for articles covering the gamut from technical how to on photography, as well as some indepth material for traveling with your pet and preparing for "evacuation" or emergency. Dahni was fantastic traveling through the different countries and on twelve different airplanes. So we will have lots to share with you as we catch up with our lives and our work.
Spring 2003
Wow! Spring finds us waiting for war and having the wait rule our lives. Every day begins and ends with a check of the news to see if anything is happening on the potential war front. Living in the Middle East, it rules our waking moments and lifestyle. We thought living with the Intifada was worrisome, waiting for Bush and the UN to DO something about Iraq is making us extremely stressed and it is controlling our lives. As American citizens living in the Middle East, especially in Israel, a target for all the fanatics of the world, we don’t feel threatened on the streets except by the daily knowledge that at any time and any where, we could become a victim of terrorism. You learn to live with that. But what we are having trouble living with is the threat that we may have to leave the country at any moment because of a threat of war over a 12 year old battle to stop some fanatic from having weaspons of mass destruction and supporting terrorists in a nearby country. After months of debating and arguing over WHEN, the American Embassy warned its employees to have their families out of the country by January 20. We thought that was a good deadline and decided to leave a week later for a "vacation" in Spain that we have been planning for over 7 years. As I write this, we are living that dream out in the north of Spain in the foothills of Los Picos de Europa.
While traveling, I’ve gone through and updated and fixed so many pages, I’ll spare you the endless listing. I hope this finds you safe and sound and free from the threat of war and terrorism. We’re having a great time escaping it. Maybe we won’t ever go home…where is home, anyway? Such is life on the road.
Winter 2002-2003
Already we are into winter in Israel and the heat wave continues. We’ve had a few days of rain and cooler temperatures, but I’m still running around in a t-shirt. I really miss snow. Our attempts to find snow has been stymied by Israel travel companies refusing to take our out-of-the-country credit cards and other "ball-ah-gones" (big messes) that seem to creep up on us and stamp us into the ground. Luckily, we are made of rubber and we just keep bouncing back.
Violence seemed to be taking a back seat here in Israel, but once again when things start looking good, evil people have to do evil things to remind us that human beings, as a species, is cruel and unjust. And the beat goes on.
But that hasn’t stopped the VanFossen band wagon. We are still putting out the hits. Here are some of the new additions and changes to the web site we’ve made.
- Talk To Us
- We’ve added a comment page to the site, inviting people to do more than just email us. We actually want to hear your comments. We’ve created a page to post those comments, when we get people’s permission. If you have something to say to us, visit our "Talk to Us" page and let us know how you feel…or at least what you think.
- Smoke Free Traveling
- It is time for travelers to stand up and demand their right to breath the exotic air in which they are exploring. Here are tips and information to help the traveling non-smoker.
- VanFossen’s Daily Travel Tips
- We’ve added travel tips which change every day on articles in our Going Zone and Living Zone. Found along the left column, these tips will help the traveler travel safer and better.
- Press Room
- We’ve gathered up our press releases and posted them in our new Press Room. Looking to catch up on what we are doing and have done, this is the place.
- Talking Photography on the Internet
- We’ve created a special Links and Resources page for online discussion groups dealing with photographin in general, digital photography, nature photography, and nature-oriented subjects. If you have a yen to chat online on some of your favorite nature subjects, check out our new list.
- Special Interest Email Newsletters
- Keeping track of all the news and information out there is a tough job. To make it a little easier, we’ve gathered together a listing of some good email newsletters and alerts on nature and nature photography topics for you to try.
- Internet and Email Hoaxes
- There are a lot of hoaxes out there that convince perfectly sane people to do terrible things, like screw up their computer by removing perfectly safe system files, or spreading rumors that hurt others and many companies. I’ve added some great sites to help you get your facts straight in our Internet Workshop class notes.
- Travel Tips
- This article, part of the Taking it With You on the Road series, has been revamped with new information and techniques to help you get your packing together on the road.
- Travel Tips
- We’ve updated a lot of our travel tip tools:
- Travel Tips and Helpers
- We’ve totally updated this page with tons of calculators and converters covering physical measurements like pounds to kilos and miles to kilometers, distances between locations around the world, how to figure your gas milage, world time, and much more. Perfect accessories for the traveler.
- New Journal Entries
- We’ve added some new journal entries in our Telling Zone.
Fall 2002
While I spent the horrible heat of the summer hibernating and writing on two of our books, specifically working on Home Is Where Lorelle Is, a book about our travels across the United States, and Israel and the Palestinians ate up news feeds around the world with one violent act after another, I also made a few improvements and changes to our web site. Most of the changes are hidden from your view as they involve moving things around and grouping them into directories and making sure that all the links still worked, which of course they didn’t. With more than 250 articles online now, and more coming all the time, the structure of the web pages were out of control. The changes I made also should help the pages load faster, something I’m sure is appreciated by many.
I’ve also added some exciting new articles and information including:
- BASIC NATURE PHOTOGRAPHY WORKSHOP BOOK
- We’ve decided to offer the entire text of our How To? What For? Basic Nature Photography Workshop class book online. It is available as a series of web pages and as a pdf file in the near future (Acrobat Reader required). The book features 11 chapters and over 90 pages covering all aspects of nature photography including the basics of composition and lighting elements, camera and equipment descriptions and functions, exposure and metering, and digital camera tips and tricks, and exercises within each section. This book is jammed with everything you need to get you started understanding the basics of nature photography. We do hope you will attend our program in person some day soon, but in the interim, enjoy.
- MORE TO STAY TUNED FOR!
- As if we aren’t offering you enough information on nature photography and life on the road, we will soon be offering a variety of classes online through www.sendfree.com. The first course will be our popular Business of Nature Photography, followed by an more advanced course and a course on networking for nature photographers and other related businesses. We will also be offering other online courses, so stay tuned for more info.
- MONTHLY NEWSLETTER
- We are now producing a monthly newsletter dedicated to those like us involved and interested in nature photography and editorial writing. We are offering this free newsletter to be mailed out once a month featuring tips, tricks, advice, wisdom, incentives, motivation, inspiration and just information about nature photography, editorial writing, environmental issues, and more. Our goal is to help the nature photographer, nature writer, or someone with a foot in both camps to become more motivated and inspired, as well as more professional. We want to help you do your best. We will also be offering online courses for the business of nature photography. To find out more and how to sign up for your free copy, visit our newsletter page.
- Hey, Dahni, you’re famous!
- Dahni and Lorelle were recently interviewed by a local Israeli children’s magazine. They were enchanted with the idea of a singing, camping, (literally) potty-trained, eye-less wonder cat. In his honor, we’ve updated his page with new photos and notes. Check out Brent’s translation of the article here.
- PhotoQuilts by Lorelle and Brent VanFossen
- Always looking for ways to stretch our creativity and photography, we’ve developed a line of note cards called PhotoQuilts. Lorelle has been making art quilts for a few years, working towards designing quilts based on our photographs. Well, instead of using fabric, she is now using our photographs to create PhotoQuilts. In this article she shares her techniques and some tips on how to make your own.
- Hire Yourself
- Are you stuck in a rut? This series of articles will help you move forward in your nature photography business, improving your skills as well as your business techniques and abilities.
- The Photographic Sherlock Holmes
- Part of the challenge of a photographer is to solve the mystery behind the mistakes found after the film has been processed. This extensive article examines some of the most common photographic crimes committed by the photographer as well as the processing lab and the camera.
- Putting It Together: The Photographic Approach
- We are often asked about how we create our dramatic images. This article tackles the challenge of explaining our “approach” to photographing a scene or location, helping you to improve the quality of your images by taking a peek inside of our brains.
- Horitzontal vs. Vertical Images
- There are two choices in the 35mm format: horizontal and vertical. Which should you use when and why? We address some of these concerns and discuss the end use of images for professional photographers.
- Brent’s Computer Game: She’s Got a Thing for a Spring
- We finally have Brent’s award-winning computer game online for download and playing. Based on Interactive Fiction Games, similar to the popular Zork games series, it is an adventure through nature, highlighting many of our experiences and joys. We hope you enjoy it!
- Shakhmat? Let’s Play Chess
- We found this absolutely incredible handmade chess set in Akko. Made in probably Damascacus, Syria, it is a work of art and Brent shares some of the story and details about it.
- Natural Wanderings
- We’ve merged our Nature Notions and Brent’s Reports from the Field into one category to better help the viewer to get access to all of our information about photographing specific nature places and subjects. They are combined under the Going Zone.
- Wakodahatchee Wetlands
- Wakodahatchee Wetlands is a manmade wetland area that serves as a water treatment plant disguised as one of the best bird watching and photography locations in Florida. We share with you some great tips and information on photographing this unique and exciting location.
- Wet Belly Photography: Down and Dirty with Flowers
- We have updated this fun article about photographing flowers with new images and text.
- What’s New Archives
- I’ve also shortened this page by posting the archives of past changes into a separate file, in case anyone is really interested in the development and evolution of these pages.
- Rape and Sexual Assault Resources and Information
- Reviving a passion, Lorelle is once again teaching sexual assault prevention in programs on personal safety for women. She has gathered together some resources to help those researching this topic.
It’s a lot of work, but we are really exciting about sharing our knowledge with you. If there are some improvements, suggestions, questions, or any information you would like to know about our work and lives on the road, please let us know. And thanks for visiting our new pages. We’re rather proud of them.
Summer 2002
The end of spring brought an exciting return back to the good ole USA for a two week break involving work and a visit to the family in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Ah, there is nothing like a visit to WalMart to recharge the batteries. We also brought back with us all of our teaching slides and more of our great images left behind in storage. We will be scanning those and adding them throughout these pages. We will also be resuming the sale of our images to the editorial and publishing markets very soon, so keep an eye out for the VanFossen credit in magazines and books coming at you.
Highlights of new articles and articles with a lot of new photographic additions or changes include:
- Questions about Living in Israel
- We’ve added a new section in our Q&A area answering questions about living in Israel and the challenges therein.
- Buying Used Camera Equipment
- We’ve updated this article to include a list of items worth looking for when exploring camera swap meets and used camera stores.
- Life Makeovers
- I’ve added more essays and information about the various programs we’ve held on the Life Makeover series.
Spring 2002
We greeted the new year with the purchase of a new state-of-the-art slide scanner, a Canon Canoscan FS4000. WOOWEEEE! We’ve been scanning in new images and updating old images almost non-stop. Much thanks to Barbara Sopkin-Miller for hand carrying our new scanner back from the states, and much thanks, as usual, to B&H Photo for getting it to her in Florida just in time for her flight back to Israel. They always come through for us.
Brent’s parents, Kent and Lynda Kay VanFossen, arrived in November 2001 bringing tons of slides from our most popular slide shows and classes. We’ve been scanning those in to recreate the shows for projection via the computer laptop. Stay-tuned for some interesting articles and tips on presenting programs this way. And if you live in Europe or near Israel, keep an eye out for announcements of upcoming educational programs and tours we are putting together.
We’ve updated many of our photographs and especially our Gallery pages. Using Microsoft FrontPage, we’ve created some outstanding gallery pages. We’ve divided the section up into 10 specialties: Wild Things, Closeups in Nature, Patterns in Nature, Scenics, North American Travel, International Travel, Funny Faces, Birds, Doors of the World, and Markets of the World.
New features and articles include:
- Current Events and Programs Schedule
- We are back teaching and presenting programs, at least in Israel. We are also open to presenting programs internationally. Check out our new schedule for more information and our Workshop information for a list of the different programs we offer.
- Photographing the Old City of Jerusalem
- This Report from the Field offers suggestions for photographing the old city. Related articles include tips for photographing just outside the Old City walls and the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.
- Living Under Seige in Israel: 16 Months Later
- This article discusses our live 16 months after the Palestinian Intifada began.
- Terrorism Hits Home
- From our Journal, Lorelle talks about her perspective on the terrorist attacks in the United States on September 11.
- Terror – A Few Days Later and By the Numbers
- From our Journal, Lorelle tries to comprehend what happened on September 11 and how we are all learning to live with the results.
- Terror – Three Weeks Later – Israel and the US
- From our Journal, Lorelle looks at the Israeli perspective of terrorism and current events in the Middle East with the current Palestinian Intifada.
- Teaching English:
- From our Journal and the Telling Zone, Lorelle shares some of the fun in teaching English to two Russian students in two journal entries: The TOEFL Test and Things That Go Bump in the Night and Can You Please Me?
- Updated "What’s New" button
- We changed our What’s New button per the request of Brent’s friend at work in Israel, Alex Stavitsky.
- Gallery of Images
- We’ve updated our images and rearranged these gallery pages for easier viewing of our photographic images.
- Life Makeovers Information and Essays
- As if she didn’t have enough to do, Lorelle, along with the help of her friend, Ruth Alfi, have started a Life Makeovers group in Israel. Based on the best-selling book, Life Makeovers by Cheryl Richardson, and the popular Life Makeovers series on the Oprah Winfrey show, more than 40 people meet regularly to change the quality of their lives. You will find information about the meetings and some of the essays Lorelle sends out to help the group stay focused.
- Internet Class Notes
- Lorelle’s been teaching a popular class in Israel called "Internet Tips and Tricks". These are the extensive class notes for the program.
- Rape and Sexual Assault Resources and Information
- Reviving a passion, Lorelle is once again teaching sexual assault prevention in programs on personal safety for women. She has gathered together some resources to help those researching this topic.
- Natural Wanderings – Northwest Trek
- Located under the towering Mt. Rainier in Washington State, Northwest Trek is a unique wildlife preserve for animals native to the Pacific Northwest. They offer a wide range of information and access to these increasingly rare and protected creatures.
- Quotes Page
- Updated the quotes pages with new images. These pages contain the inspirational quotes you see at the bottom of all of our pages and they are grouped into Photography/Nature, Being/Living, and Travel.
- Faster Access
- Using some of the new Version 4.0 HTML coding and improvements in Javascripting, we’ve speed up the "loading" and access of our pages. See if you notice the difference.
- Small Details
- We’ve added a few details to the pages with some new scripts, most of which we get from The Javascript Source, like a button at the bottom of every page allowing the viewer to forward the page’s link to a friend and other small details. Best of all is a script allowing viewers to see what time it is in Israel, helping those who want to call us. If you do want to call us, check the time first and you can find our number on our contact page.
Summer 2001
Some magical things happened recently that allowed Brent and me to really update these pages. First, my mother and two friends decided to ignore the CNN-colored glasses view of Israel and visit us in Israel. Brent’s parents delivered a whole load of our processed film 
to our friend, Bruce Groninger, for delivery to us in Tel Aviv. He filled three whole suitcases to the BRIM with this film. YAHOO! He also hand-carried a small light table to us. He is an amazingly awesome friend. These were the processed film from our travels across North America and we finally get to see our awesome photographs. With the generous loan of a small scanner from Nathan Schori, a photographer friend in Israel, I have been scanning for three solid months. I am adding some of these scans to the web pages and we’re creating some slide shows presentation on the computer to some small groups here. I’ll add an article on creating computer slide shows later this fall. But this is so exciting – and yet so exhausting. It helped that I also broke my foot, so running around Israel is at the bottom of my list right now.
Mucho thanks and hugs to Bruce Groninger and Nathan Schori for helping us make this possible and making our web pages look so great!
Here are highlights of some of the new articles and photo enhanced web pages:
New Articles
- Asking for Directions, Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada
- From the Telling Zone, we share some of our horror stories and fun in understanding the crazy directions we are given as we travel.
- Living Under Siege in Israel
- A lot of people have been worried about us living in Israel at such a time of violence and unrest. Here is an entry from our journal about what is is like for us living under "seige" and how we are coping. Includes tips and information on how to prepare yourself for living under seige.
- The Art of Navigation
- From the Going Zone, we share some tips and advice for the navigator for your travels and how to keep peace between the driver and the navigator.
- Photographing Your RV
- Owning a trailer or motor home and taking it out on the road means filling your scrapbooks of your "mobile" home. Here is one of our new article covering tips to help you improve the quality of your RV photography.
- Managing Your Images
- We get many requests for articles about the business of nature photography. Here is another addition. Sorting, filing, and categorizing your images is a challenge. When doing it as your business you need to make sure you can find the right image when you need to, and find it in a hurry. This four part article takes you step-by-step through the process. For the new photographer or the experienced one, there will be information in this article you can use.
- Cat on the Road
- When you take your life on the road, you often take your pets with you. Cats are great traveling companions and this article talks about training and preparing your pet to ride in a car.
- Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge
- If you are seriously into birding, this is the ideal place to take your spotting scope and long lenses to in the fall and spring.
- Merritt Island National Wildlife Refuge
- Built to isolate the launch pad at Cape Canaveral, Florida, this unique and diverse wildlife perserve is a prime place to get up close and personal with a wide range of birds and swamp creatures.
- Lessons Learned from Dahni, the Eyeless Wonder Cat
- Against our better judgement, Dahni, the eyeless wonder cat, came into our lives. We share a little of his story and the lessons we’ve learned from him.
Technical Articles
- Wildlife Advanced Techniques
- New photos!
- Camouflage
- New photos!
- Weather Articles
- New photos!
- Wet Belly Photography: Photographing Flowers
- New photos!
- Underwater without getting wet
- New photos and information.
- Bull’s Eye
- New photos for the article on composition.
- Looking for Landscapes
- New photos
- People Add Pizzaz
- New photographs with people in landscape images.
- You are Guests in Their Home
- This great article on the ethics of wildlife photography now features new photographs.
- Making $$ Doing What Comes Nature-ly
- This very popular article on how to become a professional nature photographer now has new photographs and some updated information relative to digital photography.
- Enhancing Your Story With Photographs
- New photos to help tell a story with pictures and words.
- Self-editing Your Photography
- A few new tips and new photographs.
- Internet Class Notes
- Lorelle recently taught three sold out evening workshops about Internet Tips and Tricks here in Tel Aviv, Israel, for an English speaking group. More are scheduled for the fall. Want more of her tips and tricks for getting the most out of the Internet? Check out her class notes.
Stories from the Road
- Meeting a Moose Head-On
- Another of our popular stories from life on the road involves photographing aggressive, man-eating pikas and Lorelle getting almost run over by a moose. Enjoy the story and new photographs.
- Israel Articles
- New photos and new information!
- The VanFossen’s Scrapbook of Memories
- New photos have been added and a new scrapbook of our images and adventures in Israel has been added.
- Staying in Touch on the Road – Living from Payphone to Payphone
- We’ve added new information on cell phones and international communication issues and challenges.
- Working on the Road: The Time it Takes
- This article covers how to learn to account and predict for your time on a task or project in a work environment. We’ve updated it with more information to help you.
- Work on the Road – Job Contracts
- After almost two years working in Israel and dealing with international tax laws and rules, we’ve updated this article on doing your own job contract with new information and tips.
- Excuse me while I answer my shoe – The Mobile Office
- We’ve added a few tips on taking your mobile office overseas.
- Summer Arrives
- This popular editorial article about summer arriving in the park system of the United States features pictures of the captured bear Brent photographed while I suffered the insanity of Americans on Parade in the Parks.
- Some Giggles from the Road
- We all like to laugh and the road brought us plenty to laugh about. Better than crying. We’ve added new photos of some of the reasons we were giggling then.
- Where have they been in Europe?
- We’ve added a few more highlights of some of our travels outside of Israel with new photographs.
- Natural Wanderings
- We’ve added new photographs and a few updates on photographing at Aransas NWR in Texas, Everglades National Park, Ding Darling NWR and Loxahatchee NWR in Florida, and St. Marks NWR in Northern Florida. We’ve added photographs to our "under construction" field notes on Denali, Alaska, and Bosque del Apache, New Mexico. Expect the text soon.
- If it’s going to breakdown, it will do so on a Saturday Night in a small town
- This fun article about preparing for the unavoidable aspects of traveling has been updated with new photographs.
Other Updates
- VanFossen Productions Workshops and Programs
- Updated with new additions to our teaching programs including new computer workshops.
- VanFossen Productions Resumes
- Updated with new workshops and programs recently taught in Israel as well as some new articles published.
Summer 2000
After designing a few web pages for others, it was finally time to update our own. Four times I had almost finished the pages, ready to post, and we suffered a 
catastrophic computer crash, destroying most if not all of the work I had done. With a brand new computer, combined with being totally stuck inside during the heat of summer in Tel Aviv, Israel, the new site is finally done and uploaded without another computer failure. WOW! Better late than never.
The changes in the web page design are extensive, so I won’t go into great detail except to say that with the advances in web page technology, I’ve been able to add some subtle bells and whistles to the overall design to enhance it. I’ve also incorporated some of the new standards for accessibility for the physically and visually challenged. Designing a page to be accessible for everyone is very important to Brent and I. We are excited about the industry move to incorporate such elements into our web pages.
The web site now includes over 230 pages of articles on nature photography and travel and over 700 graphics and photos. The articles are divided up into eight new sections or "zones": Home, Being, Asking, Doing, [LEARNING], Telling, Going, and Living. Our Home Zone represent the introduction and background information about our web pages. The Asking Zone tackles questions about what we are doing and how we go about it. The Doing Zone offers information on what we are doing with our travels, photography, and writing, including a biography about who we are. The Telling Zone contains examples of our journals and writings about our travels and adventures. The Learning Zone is the most popular as it offers a wide range of educational articles and information about photography and travel. The Going and Living Zones contain articles about life on the road, with the Going Zone covering the planning and process of traveling and the Living Zone covers life on the road. We are excited about offering the Being Zone, delving into a new area of writing for us. The Being Zone contains articles tackling the more philosophic aspects of living and life on the road.
With all these changes, many people want to know how I did it. I explain some of the information and resources on our Web Design Resources page, but in brief, I’ve been designing web pages almost since they first arrived on the Internet, including having one of the first columns on nature and travel photography on a web page. I have long enjoyed using HotDogPro as an HTML Editor and everything I initially write is in WordPerfect. I wrote the code by hand and through HotDogPro, and have included javascript from several resources, modifying it to meet my own needs.
In the Future…
As most people know, a web page is not static. We are working on adding more articles and resources. We are eager to add more articles to our Being Zone, a new concept for us to write about. We are 
also eagerly awaiting delivery of over two years of images photographed during our travels throughout North America. Sorting and editing that work will also include scanning the images for inclusion in these web pages. We are working hard to finish drafts of our two new books. As winter and cooler temperatures are now here in Israel, we will be doing more traveling and exploring within the country, so articles will come slowly until the heat comes in again and doors and windows close up, and the air conditioning starts running up immense bills again. We will add articles and information about living in Israel to our Telling Zone based on those explorations.
It’s a lot of work, but we are really exciting about sharing our knowledge with you. If there are some improvements, suggestions, questions, or any information you would like to know about our work and lives on the road, please let us know. And thanks for visiting our new pages. We’re rather proud of them.
1993-2000
We’ve condensed our website’s history between the years of 1994 to 1999 because, well, just too much happened and this page is already long enough. We began our first website as a couple just before we got married, promoting our nature photography classes and workshops and showcasing our images and writing. We were popular guest speakers/presenters on Compuserve, delighting the various forums and groups dealing with photography, travel, nature photography, and living on the road in RVs and trailers (RV Forum). Our first site was hosted on Compuserve, one of the early websites. Later on, in conjunction with the North American Nature Photography Association (NANPA), we represented Compuserve’s Photography Forums during our travels. This led NANPA to invite Lorelle to create their first website, which led to others along the way (to be modest).
The website’s humble beginnings were mainly limited to providing information, but it grew into a way of helping people find us on the map and learn more about our travels and life on the road as the Internet and World Wide Web grew more and more popular.
The early days of trying to find a telephone, pay-phone or borrowed phone, to stay in touch and update the website were, to say the least, frustrating, but we kept on. It really wasn’t until 1998 that the Internet caught up with us and the dreams of web page designers, though it still has a ways to go to really catch up with our dreams, but at least it became manageable.
Imagine our surprise when statistics started coming in by the end of 2000 that our site was one of the largest personal websites on the net? We’ve come a long way from stringing phone cord across the campground to a payphone, hooked via an accoustic coupler and getting a top speed of 1200 baud, to day’s high speed Internet and wireless Internet connections.