I’m back home in Chicago trying to shake off jet lag, at this point with measured success. If you’re an editor who needs some good ol’ Midwestern picutres and you happen to see this please make note that I am around again, and if you’re a friend (or editor, hey why not!) please make note and let’s go get some whiskey or tea.

In a few days I’ll be back home. It’s going to be tough. Last time I was in New Zealand I was here for nearly six months, and this time just 10 weeks. Still, this visit has been much more immersive. Instead of surfing and going to university I’ve been meeting with lifelong residents and talking to them for hours. While it’s been a great trip it hasn’t been a vacation in the least. The last week or two that I had hoped to spend backpacking was spent shooting more and tying up any loose ends I could think of for this project, which was probably a better way to spend the time.

It’s funny, but I was probably ready to come home more three or four weeks ago than I am now. I’m at that point where I’m starting to feel like this is my life…just in time to get ripped out of it and jetlagged all over again. The picture above – my flatmate Bex, and her partner Quentin, an awesome professional snowboarder, have been great hosts and  gave me a place that feels like home. I also have to give a shout out to Crossfit Christchurch who’s awesome coaches and members provided a great place to blow off steam after some of the rougher days of working. They even offered to drive me to the airport.

I will miss NZ but I feel more than ever that I will be back, and it won’t be an eight year gap next time.

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.