(On assignment in the New River.  Fayetteville, West Virginia.)

            Time flies.  A few days after my last post about setting up shop in South Lake Tahoe I did what any sane person would do and hit the road again, this time only for one month.

            I flew to Georgia for a weekend to see family and friends, picked up a large vehicle remnant from my Mom’s days as a teenage-hauling Soccer Mom and turned the wheel toward West Virginia.  The following two weeks were spent shooting wastewater treatment plants, city storm drains, troubled creeks and abandoned coal mining projects as well as whitewater kayaking, rafting, squirtboating, hiking, climbing and even rappelling from one very tall bridge.

            It is amazing to me that this all fell under one assignment, but as I learned through the course of the project, West Virginia water quality is a very big, multi-faceted issue.  I only hope that my work will help draw more attention to the area.

            After finishing up in West Virginia on a Sunday evening, I dropped down to Blacksburg, Virginia in time to shoot another story on Monday morning.  I can’t say all that much about this one, but it is already getting some attention and my hope is that I will be able to share news with everyone about it soon!  I will say that it was very unusual, even by adventure sports standards.

            One hectic day, more driving and a few hours of sleep later I was in Washington, D.C. for a few meetings.  It all went well, but I unfortunately only had enough time to spend one morning in the city.  For scheduling reasons, I just had to get back to the mountains for a few more days of shooting before dropping back down to Georgia.

            In all of this moving around and shooting, I have been pleasantly reminded about one very important lesson.  As a photographer you get to be a part of many people’s lives, even if it is only for the fraction of a second that the shutter is open.  It is one of the most amazing privileges I know, and because of that you must treat it with absolute respect and care.

            I don’t typically strike up conversations with strangers, but when there is a camera in my hands I have no problem introducing myself and asking if they mind me photographing what they are doing.  It always leads to new conversations and I actually cannot remember one instance where the person refused or treated me like a weirdo (though that WILL happen if you don’t explain what you are doing first).  In fact, the whole scenario usually brightens both of our days.

            The point is, wonderful people are everywhere and everyone has a story.  My experience with cameras is that they tend to bring the good stuff to the surface.  Whether it is an older man telling me about childhood memories of fishing the same place I am photographing with his dad 50 years ago or a kayaker explaining his connection to a certain river, open conversations come up all of the time.  When it happens you can feel closer to a stranger than most people you know well. 

I can’t explain it and most people laugh when I try but you can feel it and you must try to project that same feeling of openness and trust to whomever you are photographing.  Once people let you in, it is your duty to step up and do their story justice by working your hardest to capture that moment.  In a sense, it is your end of the bargain for their trust.

I was fortunate enough to have this experience many times over in the last few weeks and even though I rolled back to my east coast home base exhausted, the whole experience left smiling in reflection.

I have learned that cameras connect me to other people, and my hope is that my images connect them to you as well J.


(The storm drain part.)
(Perma-grin after shooting an amazing sunrise.)
(Shooting from an 876 ft vantage point.  You can't tell but I was tethered.)