About

The images I set out for are rarely the ones I come home with.

I’m not really having fun unless I’m at least a little cold, tired, wet, hungry, or exhausted. I fail a lot. Sometimes partly, sometimes completely.

A week in Washington, socked in the entire time. Eight hours in the car for a lighthouse under renovation. The evening I packed it in early and watched the sunset in the rearview mirror. All of it is disappointing in the moment. It is also why the frames that do come home matter.

What I come home with is a handful I will not forget. A break in the clouds over a lake a friend said was not worth the climb. Stillness in heavy fog, high on a mountain.

I got into this looking at Jim Brandenburg — printed huge, on a wall in his gallery. I am not chasing his wall anymore. I am chasing the next frame that earns one of my own. A big print is alive in a way a thumbnail is not. The scale is the part a screen cannot give you.

Not all of the miles are on foot. Some of them start when I get in the water.

Some trips give you nothing. Some give you something other than what you set out for.