These may not be my best images from the year (though many are), but they are the ones that that I had the most fun creating. Whether it was the joy of the pursuit while out feature hunting, or a solemn moment during a funeral, these images came from the heart. Thanks for looking!
Here is a quick update with several recent portraits, most of what I qualify as “daily work”; stuff that includes very little pre-planning and lots of improvisation. A while back I talked about The Five Minute Portrait, and this series falls into that same category.
Following up from an earlier post, I wanted to share some more images from my vacation this summer. As I stated before, this series was part of a personal project I embarked on during my time in Canada and Michigan, but this particular set of photographs focuses on the farm and agriculture elements we visited while in Winnipeg. The farming operations were huge, and the more so impressive because my girlfriend’s family is a farming family, with her father still doing much of the work. The huge machines and amount of equipment to run a farm is impressive, but I was also drawn to the quieter details of the farm.
Three years ago I tagged along with the Gallup Police Department’s Community Service Aids during a night time patrol they referred to as “Ditch Duty”. It involved searching the city of Gallup for transients that were hanging out in fields, ditches and other locations when night time temperatures would dip below freezing. Started about ten years ago, the goal was to reduce the number of exposure deaths, which it has done. This frame was an outtake and was never published, but I’ve always like. To see a complete edit from that project, follow this link.
The past several months have kept me very busy; between my full-time job as a photojournalist for a newspaper, covering mountain bike races for Mountain Flyer and various other freelance assignments I’ve had very little time to shoot anything for myself. During the course of the two vacations I took this summer, I tried to change that by taking some time to create a series of images that were important to me. These images are from a trip to Michigan over the 4th of July holiday to visit my family as well as a second trip to Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada to visit my girlfriend’s family. The resulting series is not only a reflection of of what summer means to me, but also stands as an important reminder to me of the importance of family and friends. In truth, I had a hard time coming up with an edit for this photo essay because there are a number of images that I have become attached to, which means that I may make this a two or three part series.
As dawn broke early one morning, 13 racers left the empty streets of Taos, N.M. and headed for the mountains. Though the skies were dreary and the ground damp from a late night rain, the clouds ahead appeared to be parting, as if greeting the hardy bunch of mountain bikers as they began their ascent. Their journey would be epic; starting from town they were to climb the north rim of Taos Canyon via mixed singletrack, forest road and cow trail to the mountains that loom just outside of town, a route unofficially known as the North Boundary Trail. Next, connect to the challenging Elliott Barker Trail, with it’s sawtooth elevation profile and top elevation of 10,700 feet. Finally, hook up with the South Boundary Trail and descend back to town for cold beers at Eske’s. All in all traveling 69 miles with over 13,000 feet of climbing, a long day in the saddle.
This was from a fun project that the entire staff of the Gallup Independent photo department put together. The idea was simple: create a mosaic of faces of people in our community to go along with a September 11th front page feature story. We photographed everyone on a simple, clean white background next to a large window. These are my favorite 10 that I photographed for the project.
I love photographing the West, and I’m especially fond of shooting cowboys and horses as they do their work. There’s something that’s beautiful and iconic about what they do, especially as the need for the traditional cowboy diminishes. As such, it was to my delight that I came across a wild horse roundup while driving back from an assignment on the Navajo Nation last month.
Whenever I travel through the areas of Ganado and Chinle, as I was on this journey, I am always inspired to shoot. The land there is wide open breathtaking country. You can see surrounding mountains, desert, mesas and watering holes for dozens of miles around on one side and look to the opposite and catch glimpses of the martian-like red landscape as it falls away to the valley below. I’m always amazed that people live here, with nothing but short grass and yuccas holding the sand together, it’s an incredibly desolate, yet beautiful place.
The scene above was photographed in Zuni, New Mexico in front of Dowa Yallana Mesa on the Zuni Pueblo as part of a story on a group of runners that run together in support of sobriety. I had other photos with the full group, but I liked the solitude of the lone man as he took off ahead of everyone.
These are a series of images made right before the Grand Entry of the Gallup Inter-Tribal Indian Ceremonial as the performers lined up to the walk out into the arena of both the Pow Wow and the Evening Performance . The combination of cool light and access to the performers make the moments before the actual Grand Entry the ideal time for shooting at the Ceremonial. Once the dances begin, access is very limited, so I did most of my work before the main event started. I covered a few other events throughout the weekend, but this was by far my favorite.