Work done in conjunction with various forestry and environmental non-profit organizations over the years will be shown in Athens, Ohio on Nov. 10 to celebrate the International Year of the Forest. I’m happy to have work in the show with friends and other great photographers Josh Birnbaum, Pradeep Edussuriya, Jim Korpi and Michael DiBari.

The Chicago run Yo Yo Magazine has a few images from my Fox River Derivatives in their second issue. The magazine is a mixture of art, poetry and narrative. Definitely excited to have work in mixed media and open minded venues such as this one.

Take a look at the work at http://www.yoyomagazine.org/

It’s been a good few months in terms of opportunities to share my work more. Another one of my favorites sites at Urbanautica recently put up some work from my Post-Landfill Landscapes series. This is a different edit than on my site and includes some images I’ve never shared before. Urbanautica editor Steve Bisson is to thank for this new interpretation of the work and I have to say that it has me thinking more about the project, sorta itching to shoot more of it (like I’m not working on enough already). Chicago centric web publication Gaper’s Block also spread the word, so thanks for that folks.

So, what I didn’t mention in my last post about this experiment project is that every so often, when I process a batch of film from my time on the Fox River shoreline, I spend some time in my yard setting fire to the negatives to a certain extent. Most of the time I don’t scan the negatives beforehand. There’s a reason for all of this that maybe I’ll get into later when I’m out of the initial sketching mode, but for now I’m just figuring out this process. This is the work that I’ll be bringing to the American Diversity Project….though I’m not sure it will necessarily conclude with the December meeting. If you visit the ADP website you’ll see this year’s theme is water and oil. I decided to take a more interpretive and material based approach than my normal, more straightforward documentary work.

Things have been a bit busy around here lately, have been in NYC this week and saw some familiar faces as well as met some great new people. A visit to the city always recharges me. I will most likely be out of town again sporadically in different weeks leading up to the new year.

Fractures from a cafe.

It’s been ages since I used 35mm film, in fact growing up with digital it’s all I ever really used on a day to day, save for the hundreds of rolls of 120/220 I’ve been through for mostly personal work. This film is probably 7 years expired, and I have a ton of it. Fun.

I’m happy to be back to it, or beginning, or whatever. I know it’s only a tool, but like I was saying with my musician friend tonight, you can play the same good song on two different guitars and it will be good, but one of them just might feel better.

I was on assignment this morning for Aurora Photos/The Ocean Conservancy photographing some volunteers clean up the shores of the often closed because of too much E. Coli North Ave. Beach in Chicago. I was pretty amazed at the number of trash bags filled up from seemingly miniscule bits and pieces of trash along the shore. Thousands of cigarette butts, water bottles, beer bottles, a boat tarp, deflated balloons and beach balls, and even shotgun shells, all hiding within plain sight of the average beach goer. North Ave. beach doesn’t look that dirty. One woman I met told me the L.A. beaches she used to frequent as a California resident were often as crowded but “there people seemed to care more” because the beach didn’t get so dirty. I’m not sure what the deal is, but having a %100 increase in the number of volunteers this year over last shows that maybe some people here are starting to care.

Whatever the case, I love, love, love being on beaches, near water. Rocks, sand, gravel, black sand, gold sand, white sand, dirty brown sand, I don’t care. I also love photographing near water, and I made it a goal to try and make an interesting water picture this morning. Who knows if this works, but it speaks of the current murky state of things to me. Anyways, I was thankful for an environmental issues assignment on the beaches of my home area. Being on the beach on a warm autumn day isn’t a problem for me either …

My humble, now semi boxed up living space for the past year.

It’s a weird time, I’ve finished graduate school, officially finished. I completed my coursework, defended my master’s project, I’m on my way out to pay my parking ticket so as to leave no debt here and get my diploma mailed to me. I opted to go to the Festival of the Photograph in Charlottesville, VA instead of walking for graduation. It was a hard decision but one that overall I feel was the right one.

I’ve had a lot of people ask me recently what I thought of going to grad school. Everyone who’s a photographer knows your academic credentials mean next to nothing in this industry, unless you want to teach (which I may at some point considering how much I’ve enjoyed teaching at OU the past year). So, degree notwithstanding, why would you want to take time out of your life to come here? Well, everyone has a different story, and some are more satisfied than others, but I honestly feel that coming to Ohio University’s School of Visual Communication has really given me a chance to find out alot about who I am as a photographer.

Being in grad school has helped me discover, why, on a very basic level, I am doing what I am doing, how I can do it better, and what the purpose is. Feeling some sense of purpose is very satisfying, even if everyone hates the work you produce from your sense of purpose. This “answer” I found here is attributed to the support of the faculty but also really to my classmates who I feel are about the best group of kids I could have had next to me in this journey. I was really given a chance to almost completely focus my life on my passion without worrying about getting work, paying bills (thanks scholarships and teaching jobs). I’ll never have a chance like this again and I’m glad I got out of it what I did. It’s a fantastic break from the real world here.

It’s a photojournalism sequence, sure, but I don’t think I am, nor will I ever be the completely typical photojournalist. It’s just so much more complex than that. Photography has become ingrained in everything I think about and it’s actually very liberating as strange as that may seem. I’ve always thought the obvious world was a strange place and I’m convinced I’ve found the best way to try and understand all of this.

Anyways, if any readers wants to chat with me about my experience here I am more than happy to tell you everything I think about this place. Just don’t be surprised if you want to apply after you talk to me.

As for now, I’m moving out of this strange, overly drunk Appalachian town and back to Naperville, IL where I grew up with plans to be in downtown Chicago within a year or so. I’ll be freelancing, and working on projects…I’ve already got a few things in mind and I’m pretty excited. If there’s one other thing I discovered here, it’s that I’m addicted to the freedom of working on my own.

Here’s to everyone in Athens that helped me along the way, I wish you all complete success in this absurdly tough industry. The battle’s just beginning. Don’t give up. I know I won’t.

Somewhere near 123 / Broadway, NYC

It’s been a great but transient past few days.

Festival of the Photograph (so many photographs), Charlottesville, Va and Morningside Heights, NYC.

I’ll settle home (home) in a few more days. How strange it will be and how much I will miss.

Flowers in the window on Stimson Ave. I love my Leica.