Willamette Speedway. Lebanon, Ore.
Visual Blog
Columbia County Fair and Rodeo 2023. St Helens, Ore.
Unknown Atmospheres
Unknown Atmospheres is an immersive art installation, created in collaboration with Seth Nehil and Parallel Studio, currently being hosted at Hopscotch in Portland, Ore. The 7,000 individual LED bulbs sync up to multi-track audio and encourage the audience to enter the piece and experience the different scenes created by the light and sounds.
A Decade Between: Red Rock Canyon, Las Vegas
In 2012 I went on a road trip from southern Illinois to Las Vegas, NV with a group of dirtbag rock climbers. It was the first time, as a pretty green journalist, that I was able to really be immersed with a group of people and just learn what they were all about.
I could go on and on about witnessing the beef jerky/monster energy drink farts that filled the car the whole way there (never pick the car with 3 nineteen year old guys), or the triumphs of finally finishing a route that plagued a climbers’ mind for days. I took a lot away from that experience, and it has certainly influenced my journalistic practice over the last 10 years. Oh and I ended up dating, then marrying, one of the climbers.
We had the chance to go back to Red Rock Canyon for our 10 year anniversary this spring. It was fascinating to see what has changed in the area, and even more so what has stayed exactly the same. Taking photos there now almost felt like flashing back in time. Here is a collection of photos from the original trip in 2012 (LEFT), and photos taken from our recent trip in 2022 (RIGHT). I little piece of my heart will always be in that canyon.
That Ethiopian Light
This trip to Ethiopia started with an unexpected roadblock. Our group planned to travel from Addis Ababa to Arba Minch with one interpreter and a driver. We found out last minute that the interpreter had a family emergency and would not be able to make the trip with us. A time and budget crunch had us leaving the city with no backup interpreter, and some justified concern that communication would be an issue going forward.
The ten hour drive, from the major city of Addis Ababa to the small village of Areka, became a crash course in communication with body language and cues. I leaned on an Ethiopia travel guide book to point out photos and try to trace our route on the map. Needing to stop for bathroom breaks became a comical journey, and asking how much longer the drive would be was out of the question. I thought this hiccup was going to be detrimental to the work I hopped to do and the stories I wanted to tell. I couldn't have been more wrong.
When basic communication was taken away I had to find ways to adapt. It forced me to look at every situation and analyze it for myself, not just be told by someone what is going on. I felt like a green photographer again, throwing myself into unfamiliar situations, looking at everything around me for details to add understanding. I think it opened up more honest interactions with the people I encountered, if I had to relay on an interpreter to communicate it would have felt like a wall between me the person I met, too professional maybe. Having to figure out a way to communicate put us all at the base level of human interactions, things I would have just had the interpreter explain to me transformed into hands-on lessons.
I learned the steps to make injera, had my hands in the flour and felt the heat of the wood burning fire. Injera is a fundamental part of any Ethiopian meal, as it is made for everyone to share from one plate. On this trip it almost became a tool to measure how comfortable we all became with each other, from simply sharing a plate on the first day together, to feeding each other by hand on the last. I squeezed through tight hallways to catch moments of worship in small stone homes, and shot portraits by candle light in rolling power outages. I stood in the middle of the largest market in Sodo while our group shopped for colorful vegetables. I was waiting for someone in my group to buy what they needed from a produce stand and this group of boys noticed my camera. They all started doing strongman poses to get my attention, the moment turned into an impromptu buddy portrait session.
Would any of this had felt the same if I had someone tied to my hip? Would I have been approached and welcomed and taught lessons? I’ll never know, but I do know that what I thought would be a detriment to the trip ended up being the greatest asset.
The Tallgrass Bison
There was something pretty amazing about seeing a herd of Bison roam and graze freely. This herd is part of an experimental trial to see how they help restore the prairie land and prairie bird populations being monitored at the Midewin National Tallgrass Prairie. I was lucky enough to have the herd close to a fence (they have over 700 open acres to roam) to see and photograph them. Like stepping back in time.
Kankakee Fantasy Con
Spun Alpaca Wool
Renaissance Man, Willie Dixon
Kidz-Kan-Do
