I'm heading out on an extended self-supported nightwalk this week. It will be my first extended venture through an urban environment in this manner. I'm packing food for 4-5 days, camera equipment and sleeping bag/pad. I will NOT be taking a phone, wallet, or money. I'm intent on keeping my pack size down so that I will be able to move lightly across terrain. I've fully appropriated a method of walking in the wilderness for experiencing and creating the images in the nightwalks series.

The entire purpose of the project is to develop an intimate relationship with the direct physical environment, whatever that may be. What we don't take into our environment is as critical as what we do take into our environment.

Low temperatures are predicated to be in the 30s throughout the week with highs in the mid 50s during the day. Tuesday is very likely going to be precipitation in the form of snow, so it will be interesting to see how I respond to that. I plan on walking at night and finding a place to sleep/rest during the day. As the intent is a dialogue between myself and my physical environment, I aim to keep social interactions non-existent. Relating intimately to physical space requires making the appropriate space behaviorally.

A few weeks ago I shot some portraits of Hearts for Hooves director, Veronique Matthews, for Hemispheres Magazine. Hearts for Hooves provides animal therapy primarily with miniature horses to those in need. Hemispheres is the inflight magazine for United Airlines. They will also be using some images of mine for an upcoming profile on Austin.

Despite the winter weather we're having in Austin, we were able to find a beautiful winter day. The ranch out in Lockhart sits atop a hill and was a wonderful location to work with. I brought a lighting setup, but ended up shooting with the fantastic natural light to keep the production more intimate and improvisational.

The portrait will run in the April issue of Hemispheres Magazine.

I've been out in Utah and Colorado attending a couple of outdoor industry conventions.

In midst of that, I've been refining my nightwork centered in Austin. I've been working with, John Weller, on refining the writing and understanding of moving through wild places. John is an exceptional wilderness photographer that has been working on The Last Ocean, a project focused on the Ross Sea of Antarctica for the last three years.

I've updated the website with a revised gallery and am continuing the book development on my field research.

Hello 2010.

PDN ran one of my nightwork images from Natural Bridges National Monument for their Photo of the Day blog for Jan. 1st. A wonderful way to start the New Year. Those red rocks and stars always put things into perspective for me.

I shot for The Wall Street Journal this afternoon. The turn around was only a few hours, and fortunately I was in my car with computer and camera to shoot some other work when I received the call.

Austin has quite an array of unconventional strip malls, which are always a challenge to photograph. It's compelling to show the vacancy of space, but that wasn't the intent of this story. Shooting from the nearby elevated highway was tempting, but the legal and safety risk quickly ended that thought. I did have a good sign to work with and did what I could. We brought a needed human quality to the visual story and Bishop Nathan Thomas was kind enough to give me some time at the beginning of a service he was conducting nearby. While waiting on Bishop Thomas I scouted out a few spots with good natural light and a solid background and was able to take a few portraits in a matter of minutes. Then it was off to file the images away ASAP for publishing.

Read the article here.

WEND is featuring a selection of nightworks of the Colorado Plateau in their SNAP gallery this month. WEND is a great magazine that keeps its adventure storytelling authentic primarily through engaging first-person narratives. They're based in Seattle and also have a strong commitment to environmental ethics as a business.
"Silence and emptiness convey divine immanence by their lack of prosaic forms. The desert is the environment of revelation, genetically and physiologically alien, sensorily austere, esthetically abstract, historically inimical. It is always described as boundless and empty, but the human experience there is never merely existential. Its solitude is a not-empty void, a not-quiet silence. Its forms are bold and suggestive." - Tom Shepard, Man in the Landscape

SLIDELUCK POTSHOW convened in Austin for the second time, approximately one year after its debut appearance. It was at the Shangri-La again, which was a fantastic outdoor venue again. I didn't have the opportunity to help out with production this year due to having zero free time, but did have a piece in the show.

I put together a piece on the migratory massing of snowbirds in Quartzsite, AZ. Once home to the training ground of military camels, then a precious rock & gem show, and now thousands upon thousands of RV-based snowbirds who flock seasonally to the Mojave Desert. Its a rich fieldsite for invesitagating swarm intelligence.

Texas Toast Photo Show had a great two weekends at the East Austin Studio Tour. We were grilling hot dogs (appx. 250), handing out Lone Stars, and discussing all things photographic.

Photo gallery here.

The East Austin Studio Tour is coming up and Texas Toast Photo Show will be at it again. Texas Toast is a collaborative venture between myself and: Lance Rosenfield Matt Wright-Steel Sarah Wilson all glued together with talented design of Kate Iltis.

Trained as an architect, Lula Marcondes is a visual artist from northern Brazil who draws inspiration from regional folk art where he grew up. I captured sound and images during the opening, as well as conducted a short interview, in order to weave it together into a multimedia piece to document the opening.

Lula performs in a Brazilian folk band, Seu Jacinto, as well and they performed at the opening. The music supplied a festive ambience to the opening at the multimedia piece as well. It was really enjoyable weaving different media together to tell the story of Lula's art. He draws his inspiration from the spirit of the people of northern Brazil, and so keeping that evident was essential.

See the multimedia piece here.

I've been doing a bunch of flying lately for a wedding and a couple of jobs via Aurora: two video/photo/sound shoots for eBay and a travel piece for Migros, a Swiss magazine. This airtime has afforded me the opportunity to observe quite a few cloudscapes. To look at them as topographically is really intriguing - it is a world up there. Anytime I'm in the air I'm reminded of both how ubiquitous humanity is and how foolish we can be as we get caught up in the super thin slice of the earth we inhabit that we lose any imagination of an existence beyond it. Below is a relevant quote pulled from a National Geographic article centered on aerial images of South America.

"Something happens when we look on the earth in that way: Mankind becomes a mere anecdote against that staggering canvas; we see ourselves as we really are - bound to the natural world around us. Mites upon a mighty orb." - Marie Arana

I shot a series of images of Houston's Third Ward for NPR's Morning Edition this past Monday. The photo editor at NPR, Coburn Dukehart, was great in that she gave me the freedom to shoot the story however I saw fit. It was quite a blessing that had me digging a bit deeper for engaging images.

I met the Steve Inskeep of the Morning Edition and state rep Garnet Coleman for a tour of the Third Ward. The piece was on gentrification in the Third Ward. Being an issue I muse on anyway, it was great to get a story that played into my training as a landscape architect. Following around the Morning Edition crew was a great insight on their process - very professional. I shot during the day, but ended up getting a lot of great material at night. The urban form really puts itself on display during those sleeping hours.

The story and online gallery can be found here.

I shot some images at the Mammoth Site in South Dakota for SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE via Aurora Photos, my photo agency. The story will be published in April 2010, so it will be a while with images. It was the last week of the summer season for a volunteer team to assist with the perpetual dig. The sit is of a prehistoric sink hole where young (primarily male - read into this) mammoths ventured to the watering hole to riskily and never returned. Modern man thanks these young males for their sacrifice to our cultural and scientific knowledge machine.

The drive from Salt Lake City (from the Outdoor Retailer Convention) through Wyoming to the Badlands was long, but spectacular. On the return I camped in Ogalla National Grassland, a beautiful, beautiful place. The image above is from there.

I shot out in Great Basin National Park for a star party organized by the National Parks Conservation Association via my agency, Aurora Photos. Great Basin is WAY out in eastern Nevada, which makes is ideal country for star gazing. The Great Basin landscape is also some pretty phenomenal terrain (basin and range topography) with alternating mountain ridges and separated by towering mountain ranges that occurred as the earth's surface was ripped apart from continental drift.

It was great to shoot and speak with folks that are really into the astronomical of the night. The range and craft of the telescopes they brought out was really fascinating as well.

CANOE & KAYAK recently ran a feature on The Texas Water Safari, self-billed as the "Toughest Canoe Race in the World". The 260+ mile canoe race has been going on since the 1960s and takes place in the summer.

I shot the images during the 2007 race with balmy temperatures above 100 degress. 2008 was one of the lowest water years on record and I heard the race all the more challenging in low water. Only 53 of the 100+ teams finished in the allotted time. The story is available online here.

CANOE & KAYAK ran its Heroes issue in March and used some images that I shot at last summer's Outdoor Retailer show. It was a great shoot as I had to set up a temporary studio with 20' wide seamless and multiple strobes prior to start of C&K's anniversary party. There was about 20 athletes that we initially shot as a group and then broke them down into smaller bunches. I really enjoyed working with this group as there were some great group dynamics in addition to all of them being stellar athletes. I broke down the studio into a smaller setup and did the 'party photobooth' gig as everyone had a great time.

Architectural theorist wunderkid and editor of DWELL, Geoff Manaugh, has posted the Cloud Projections series on his BLDG BLOG. Follow the link here.

I've been doing some investigative research and travel in the southwest. Two things that stick out: the wide range of what we call 'outdoor recreation' and the frontier spirit of the individual. The American desert has given room for both of those pursuits to breathe. I spent some time in Quartzite, AZ - the largest migratory stopover point for RV dwelling snowbirds in North America. There numbers are down here due and they have scattered throughout the region, but Quartzite still dominates as a winter mecca.

Leonard Knight has been devoting his efforts over the last 24 years to the creation of Salvation Mountain - a Land Art based billboard proclaiming the universal of message of "God is Love". I'm reminded of a passage in Paul Shepard's book, Man in the Landscape:

"The desert is the environment of revelation... To the desert go prophets and hermits; through deserts go pilgrims and exiles. Here the leaders of the great religions have sought the therapeutic and spiritual values of retreat, not to escape but to find reality."

No map, no plan. I went out West with a friend to do some research/exploration of the Western landscape. It was an exercise in being open to possibility and finding opportunity. It was also the first field test of both some project ideas and my truck with its modified camper setup. A working vacation with no demands and just possibilities was just the right order. We explored the people and place that wove together self made buildings out of paper, frontier mansions, the best beans in Marfa, Pinto Canyon, villages in Mexico, the wild Terlingua, and a sky of stars above the Chisos in Big Bend. The trip was just a piece of something greater in progress.

Our developing group effort will be blossoming into a beautiful show for E.A.S.T. (East Austin Studio Tour - Nov. 22-23). Along with the talented Lance Rosenfield, Sarah Wilson, and Matt Wright-Steel, I will be showing work in a gallery space at the old Mrs Baird's Bread Factory on Tillery St. in east Austin. We've also developed a group blog to track our moves: www.texastoastphotoshow.com