Girl Scouts Beyond Bars

Check out the Concord Monitor this Sunday for a story about Alivia, 12, and a Girl Scout program that helps girls like her spend time with their incarcerated mothers once a month. I first met Alivia and her amazing god-parents and guardians, Mark and Kim, back in April and they were generous enough to let me visit and photograph a few times since.

Wedding

I've been assisting at some weddings lately, this from last weekend, so I thought I'd post a few favorites. Big thanks to Stephanie and Seth Wales for letting me tag along on the shoots.

Romney in Bow

NASCAR

Global RallyCross hits the NH Motor Speedway

The first photo is my favorite, but I decided to run the second photo because Travis Pastrana, who is clearing a 70-foot gap in the blue car, ended up winning the race. The glitter-star-like funk is a result of popping a strobe on dust and dirt kicked up by the cars. I tend to not get star-struck over people, and photographing a variety of things that may have 'famous' people nearby, I just get use to it and go about doing my thing. The same was for this evening, except it was a bit surreal walking around next to Bucky Lasek, Dave Mirra, and Travis Pastrana. Growing up in the 'Jackass' generation and spending the majority of my life skateboarding, watching Lasek during the X-Games (along with the rest) and watching people do the same stupid things my friends and I were doing at the time, it was kind of a cool feeling standing next to these dudes. I always wanted to shoot skateboarding or surfing...or really any of the...what do they call it now, 'Action Sports?' Yeah, those. Anyway, I made some cover-my-ass shots and tried a few differently.

Convincing Neutral Voters

Welcome Home Parade

There weren't many veterans marching in the parade, but it was the thought that counted.

Cannon Mountain Tram

I was working Saturday but there weren't any scheduled assignments so I went to hang around Franconia Notch in northern New Hampshire. At first I thought about doing double-exposure scenic shots on my polaroid camera, but the camera was having issues. Then I thought about looking at multiple aspects of the notch from camping to hiking and climbing, to tourism, swimming and weather.

It's so crazy to me that I'm photographing in one of my favorite places in the world and where I spent a lot of time growing up. Because of this, I didn't want to turn a potential project idea into a quick hit just to fill a hole. Unfortunately, however, day-in-the-life and week-in-the-life approach to stories seem to inevitably be the approach pushed on ideas. I decided I didn't want to subject something so cool to me like Franconia Notch into a quick-hit picture package with a tight, medium, wide, scenic shot...so I began by taking one aspect of a larger idea. Fulfilling my job and dipping a toenail in the project puddle with the first tramway in North America.

That mountain with the antenna in the foreground is Mount Agassiz. On the other side is the home where my grandmother grew up. Although she passed away when I was 2, the house has remained in the family.

Summer Feature Hunt

Brown's vs. Markey's

Recently my partner-in-crime and I pitched an idea to do a project on the New Hampshire seacoast. The idea was to paint a picture of the country's shortest coast by working on long term stories over several months. Since, it has morphed into the newspaper's annual summer series and has been more about daily assignments and the day-in-the-life style coverage. This was from one such quick-hit about a supposed rivalry between two restaurants in Seabrook. They're separated by highway and about twenty years, but as customers are fiercely loyal to one establishment or the other, the owners get along and often share supplies if one runs out of, say, ketchup.

A Belated Celebration

Fireworks were rescheduled for July 5th after a storm cancelled the show on the Fourth.

Seacoast

It's ok to make pretty pictures that have no other relevance or point than being a pretty picture. I think I spend too much time attempting to make a picture at a certain level, with a certain connection, a level of intimacy, a clear moment, that I forget to just take a pretty, graphic, simple picture. Here's to the moments between, because after all, they're moments too.