I’m not the type to make a list of all my best 2011 pictures, or moments, or whatever. Maybe I’ll care about that stuff a bit more when I’m near my death bed but I’d rather spend more time focusing on what’s ahead, which to me should always include experimentation. If you’re a photographer you can’t ignore the past, you’re constantly reminded of it in every image you’ve made, but I don’t think that means you need to always be looking to it. That said, I’ve had great opportunities in 2011 (including the pretty cool and serendipitous fact that me and my old grad school roommate Marcus Yam had both of the pictures on today’s New York Times front page) and 2012 is going to be dedicated to experimenting and developing more as a freelance photographer and as an artist.

If the project in New Zealand takes the total form that I envision it should be something different from my past work, which is a pretty exciting prospect for me. And, in the spirit of experimenting and being curious I urge you to watch the wind blow and the light bounce on an autumn day for thirty seconds. Sometimes the best things are just outside your window. I was cleaning out my hard drive and forgot that on this day I just dropped what I was doing and started filming out the window.

Wishing all the best to everyone in 2012.

One of my favorite images from the past year will be in the upcoming issue of Romka Magazine – a photo magazine out of Germany that celebrates personal work. The magazine is a collection of work by students, hobbyists, amateurs and a few professionals as well, but your job doesn’t matter to the publisher – just the pictures. I go through fits and spurts photographing my own life (I struggle to find the magic in the coffee shop I sit in so often, even though I know it’s there) but ultimately these end up being some of the most important images to me. I think living in the suburbs is pretty funny, lovely, confusing and terrible all at once…sorta like this new Rihanna album I’m currently sampling. This picture is about something along those lines. It was just taken at a backyard BBQ at a friend’s house and it teeters on bizarre just enough to make it work for me.

Also, it happens to be the only place in the U.S. you can check out the print version of this magazine is at ? Quimby’s Bookstore 1854 W. North Ave, Chicago IL – Take that NYC!

I usually stick to downtown Chicago when I’m photographing on the streets, as I have a long term goal for that work (whether it looks like a project or not, it is). It’s a whole different thing photographing in Naperville…the bubble of a suburb that I’m from and live in. There’s an annual Labor Day fair that happens here and while I was on my way to some free hospitality I passed through the fair for about 15 minutes and wanted to see how it would be to photograph at home, trying to elicit the same curiosity more easily summoned in places unfamiliar to me.

A few weeks ago I made a tour through the different homes of Uptown, Chicago’s most diverse neighborhood, for TimeOut’s Uptown Story special issue. Because the opportunity for good Ethiopian doesn’t arise that often I made sure to stop at Demera after a day of shooting.

Though I wasn’t in New Orleans to shoot for the most part, I still went out to look for still images on the street.

It seems that most places I look people close to me are still trying to figure out where they are, why they are, how they are, etc. Finding a finished space probably isn’t the best thing at this time anyways.

ketchup and mustard on one of my bike routes

Exploring the shoreline of Lake Michigan is a bizarre practice. So much of it is industrialized, protected or snagged up by private property owners, you can’t really “discover” anything new. But if you’re not concerned with being the very first, and you are looking for something that not many people have looked for, discoveries abound. I recently found myself in a town I’ve never been to, exiting a highway on a dreary, windy day completely befitting the post-industrial landscape I was traversing. Instructed to go down this road and that and eventually on to the dirt road I met some new friends I hadn’t met before in a white pickup. See, I’ve recently gotten more and more into surfing on Lake Michigan. It’s not the surprise to people that it used to be but it still confuses some folks. When I first started surfing, I lived in New Zealand and went out countless road trips to new beaches that may or may not have had good surf. Good surf, of course, was really a bonus as there’s just no basis for complaint when you are visiting countless beaches in New Zealand. After over half a decade I’m starting to get back on that path, only in the area where I’ve spent a large portion of my life. Besides the amazing experience that surfing provides (and yes, the crappy days are more common than the good days on the lake, but the good days still come) I’m getting to see more of what’s immediately around me. It’s not the empty gold and black sand beaches of my first explorations into surf spots, but it’s an interesting one with a completely different landscape worth considering. And we still get to do fun things like walk through the of woods to get to our “discovery.” (Sidenote, the woods aren’t very big and there are multiple tents pitched for the folks who’ve come on hard times). I would show you some pictures of surfing on this day, but the waves were actually neck high and I was in too much of a hurry to get in the water. On a day where you paddle out and only see the grey lake horizon meet the grey sky as waves crash over your head in much the same way as an angry ocean day, it doesn’t matter that you live in Illinois. After walking through the woods and the paddling there was some good surfing, but the journey is more important. Surfing itself is a fleeting thing that words and pictures will never accurately get at anyways.

I’m a person who is significantly affected by the weather and the environment. For whatever reason, certain types of light affect me in different and very real ways. A still day will have my blood flowing in at a completely different pace than a day when the wind is howling. One day is not better than the other. They are just different. Sometimes the sun brings joy, but at other times the sun is a beam of oppression, pumping from every angle and causing an inescapable sense of weight. Autumn, which is now here, is my favorite time of year. Every day is different and everything seems to be so close to just right. The colors, the cold air, the gentler light. Many people seem to lament the fact that with the fall, winter must come next. Maybe it’s in my gene pool but this is a welcome time of year. Winter seems to cut the bullshit out of life. Going outside on a January day after a snowfall is often like having the world to yourself. The air has an unbelievable stillness that can nearly allow you to hear yourself think. Branches cracking have a poignant and clean snap only possible with the freezing temperatures. People stay in their homes and take solace in each other and in the warmth that they provide, and for those who leave their homes there is a reward of pristine scenes of gray and white and sometimes little else. Some people hate to talk about the weather, but in a place where the seasons mark how life is going by, not much else helps me to feel more alive. So when winter is here, I’ll welcome it, and all that it lacks, with open arms. And maybe roll around in the snow like a little kid, because chances are no one will ever know.

For the most part I like keeping words to a minimum here, but this summer has been so busy and drastically different (in great ways) than the past few months that I just feel the need to recap. From pretty much mid-June through, well last weekend I scarcely had a day off. I was teaching a high school photography class to kids mostly from Pilsen through Columbia College. That was every day during the week, plus some field trips and a week in downstate Ill. for a college experience. In addition to that, I was at 4 weddings making pictures for good people I knew, mostly from my high school days, was doing other freelance work and even started a new adjunct position at another local art college. I ran two mud filled races (one of them with my sister) that both included ridiculous obstacles, one with mountain biking. (Let me just say that it feels pretty good to place 3rd in your age group when you are competing against people who take their mountain biking very seriously with $1000 + bikes  and fancy outfits and you are riding a 1985 neon green Giant because it’s the only thing in the family garage that you and your sister can fit on, and it still seems to change gears when it’s supposed to…sometimes). I’m really happy that since last year I’ve adopted running in these weird things, I can just throw them in the wash instead of in the garbage after a mud adventure.

One of the grant proposals I’ve been working on as of late prompts me to consider my future plans, what I would do when the proposed granted project has run its course. It’s a weird thing to think and to answer this way, but I would do just what I am doing now. There’s room for improvement and adjustment in each area of course, but in general it’s strange to think that I’m actually doing what I want to be doing. That in and of itself is worth any amount of work from my perspective.

Ah, and the above picture is my hotel room in Galena, Ill. where I was mostly working but got time for one quick run up a trail, through the woods to a bench at the top of a hill with a nice view of the Mississippi on a hazy, cloudy summer day.

ok, so back to the pictures for the next post.