Skatepark
Met up with a local photographer today named Maria and after talking a while, we decided to head downtown and try to find something interesting to photograph. A guy named Donald stopped us as we were walking and asked us about our cameras. Said his father was a staff photographer for the Toledo Blade back in the day. He was very shy, and acted as if it had been a huge step for him just to say hi to us. But as we talked to this friendly stranger I could see glimpses of another, almost manic, individual. I don’t know if he was drunk, but he had that same kind of dried saliva stuff I so often see on drunks when they stop me to talk. It was interesting hearing about his father, but then he started talking about how he hated Mexicans. I remember at that very moment my eyes glazing over and the sounds coming out of his mouth changing from words to incomprehensible noise to my brain. I told him thanks and goodbye, but as we turned around to leave he said to me, “I probably won’t be around much longer, can you take my picture?” So I did. I didn’t think anything of the photos until I looked at them on the computer and I saw that same glimpse of two distinct personalities that didn’t quite seem to mesh with one another.
Shortly after taking Donald’s photo we made it to the skate park. I don’t normally like shooting sports but it was really nice with the overpass providing both shade and some interesting lines to work with. It also didn’t hurt that there were some extremely talented bikers like Noah Lochner pulling off some insane stunts when we showed up. Having somebody upside down in the air staring down at the concrete made for interesting photos but at the same time it made me extremely nervous. Although I wasn’t actively encouraging any of them to jump higher, simply by being there with my camera they were playing it up a bit. I was worried that if one of them got hurt I would have been at least partly responsible just for being there. Thankfully that did not happen today.
First Snow
Last night was our first snowfall of the year. Around 2 or 3 in the morning I went outside and the western side of sky had this amazing soft orange tint to it. I rarely ever take, let alone enjoy looking at landscape photos, but the tranquility of the fresh snow and that amazing orange sky gave me the urge to try something different. I think it was first time I used a tripod in years!
Back patio with fresh snow and animal tracks
Neighbor's truck across the street
Neighbor's apple tree. This was actually the color of the sky as I remember it with the green being from the nearby streetlight.
Partially frozen swimming pool. The sky was actually a reddish-orange color, but I changed the white balance on this image to make it look more like how I felt - cold.
A view of the house and Micah's climbing wall from the backyard
One of the trees in our backyard
Looking straight up in the backyard. Except for the watermark I added this image is straight from the camera.
A view from the diving board of our partly frozen swimming pool.
A Guitar in a Sea of Queen Anne’s Lace
Here’s some senior photos I did on Thursday. Dylan’s a senior at North Albany, plays rugby, is on the cross country team, and has been playing bass since about the time he could walk. I almost never do portraits so this was a fun change of pace from what I’m used to. I’d like to do some more of these if I can find some more people that are as easy to work with as Dylan!
inside the fish statue downtown
on the bridge leaving downtown
jumping in an alleyway
running by the green garage
watching the sun set next to the goats
worshipping the music gods
a guitar in a sea of queen anne's lace
portrait in front of red graffiti wall
optometrists vision specialists
looking over his shoulder in front of a cracked blue wall
contemplating the meaning of rugby
holding his baby close to his breast
backlit guitar
I'm a freelance photojournalist based in Oregon focusing primarily on documenting weddings. You can see some of