Smalltown

The world spins, faster and faster every day. For the better part of my life, I have embraced the building momentum with technology, gymnastic scheduling and an overarching desire to be part of it all. From time-to-time, however, we all need to carve out some time to recharge or gather ourselves. Generally, you will hear me drone on about forests, trees, nature and generally being outside as my chief source of recharging. What I might overlook in these sentiments is quite literally the place that we have chosen to live though. 

Renewal

I am always struck by springtime. In the span of a few weeks, a seemingly lifeless landscape bursts forth with new life and color - bringing with it a sense of renewal. No matter how many times I experience it, I can't help but feel energized by the transformation.

2016 Muddy Sneaker Trail Race

To my mind, every year the trail racing season only really starts when Mort says "Go" at the Muddy Sneaker Trail Race. It is a classic race with a long history that ends up being a family reunion of sorts. It is a place where everyone shakes off the winter, breathes fresh air and enjoys the upstate NY scenery as they beat themselves up across 12 miles of hilly terrain. 

A Week of Monochrome

I don’t often work in black and white. It isn’t that I don’t like or appreciate it, but it just rarely occurs to me to either shoot or process in monochrome. After seeing so many striking monochrome images from other Fujifilm X-shooters in my Instagram feed, I decided that for a week, I would limit myself to only black and white to see what I could learn. Here are the results.

The Sky Calls To Us

This week marked the return of Astronaut Scott Kelly from his 340+ day stay aboard the International Space Station. This momentous occasion, coupled with my own trip to the Kennedy Space Center a few weeks ago, has really reminded me of just how important exploration is to humankind. When I see all of the chaos, anger and dysfunction in the world today, I need only to look to pioneers like Captain Kelly and his brethren to find hope. 

Carl Sagan once said that, "the sky calls to us" and I couldn't agree more. 

Chrome & Curves

Art, history, and science are all tremendously important fields of study for me - arguably the most important. The order of importance is nearly equal between them, but at the end of the day I believe that those three fields represent humanity's best. Each brings their own perspective, naturally, but together they ultimately coalesce into one unified snapshot of mankind. 

What we createwhat we have done, and what we are striving to discover - respectively.

GoPro, What?!?

Just because I am primarily a Fujifilm shooter doesn’t mean that I don’t love to experiment with other products. GoPro for example has consistently been offering cameras that have been interesting to me. They serve a niche, but within that spectrum they clearly seem to excel. Given that I love (and shoot) action sports, their products have been on my radar for years. I just needed an opportunity to branch out into the GoPro world. This Christmas, Christy gave me that opportunity by gifting me a GoPro Hero 4 Black.

Constellations & Contours

I’ll let you in on a secret. I don't love flying. It's not so much the act of flying that gets me or even the taking off or landing, but just the lack of personal control in what is largely a Boolean experience. Once an aircraft is flying, it is either flying or it is falling, (arguably it could be both) and just being along for the ride is disconcerting to me. 

Street Photography & Mardi Gras

Last week I was invited to take part in an event in New Orleans, which I was thrilled to do. The thing that was interesting to me - besides the content of the event - was that the choice of location and timeframe coincided with Mardi Gras. Since I had never experienced Mardi Gras before, it sounded like a great opportunity to try out some street photography techniques. 

All the wild horses

I have been using this Fuji X-T1 exclusively for the past few weeks and have been experimenting with a few different lenses (35mm f/2 is really awesome!), film presets (Classic Chrome is amazing!), etc. to get a feel for the camera's limitations and sweet spots. So far, I have found very little to not love.

Building Traditions

Growing older is a surreal experience. The thing that I am constantly challenged by is how unexpectedly different I feel in comparison to how I thought that I would feel at this age. I don't mean physically, but as I watch my goals become achieved or morph, relationships grow or wither, children develop, spouses change, and time passes, I find myself constantly...

Winter Colors

Following the warmest, least snowy December on record here in Rochester, it is now January and we finally have snow. There are plenty of folks who were thankful for the late coming of winter to the upstate New York region, but I am not one of them. The snow is here and I am glad!

2015 Twisted Branch Trail Race // The Ascend Collective

Earlier this year I had been approached to shoot the inaugural running of the Twisted Branch 100K - which I immediately jumped at the opportunity to do. What wasn't to love? Trails, check. Opportunity to showcase Upstate New York, check. Support friends who were running the race, check. In Spring, all of these things seemed amazing, but as the race drew closer and my ideas started to come into focus, the sheer logistics of trying to cover runners...

Inbound

The past month or so has been like a looming storm headed in my direction. Life has been hectic to say the least and my absence from posting anything here is evidence of the fact that some things have slipped out from under my eye. Sorry about that.

I am here to declare, however, that I am feeling like I am getting back on track, as my primary focus - The Ascend Collective - finally launched...