Ironically, I have just had the most delightful time photographing my mom's back-porch flowers this year. When you are constantly on the move, you often forget that there is some truth to that whole, "stop and smell the roses" thing. Unlike my usual Novembers, I've made it a point to do just that - stop and enjoy this city.

10.2011

What Pennsylvanian's fall is complete without a trip to an apple orchard? The fam and I took a trip out to Soergel Orchards in Wexford on a glorious fall day to soak in a few hours of delightful seasonal festivity. Pumpkin treats, kettle corn and apple cider. Deeeelish.

I didn't take many photos at the orchard, but this is my current desktop shot.

The drive back from Falling Water in Mill Run, PA may have been one of my favorite parts of my Pennsylvanian fall day with my mom. We happened to hit the Summit Inn Resort* in Farmington, just as the sun was setting over the rolling hills.

Perfect... except for the fact that due to construction, we couldn't figure out where to turn off to get to the resort - thus, sending us down to the base of Summit Mountain. Fortunately, by the time we drove back to the top, this was the scene that awaited us.

With the levels of light so even, the warm colors of the sky over the cool tones of the hills looked like strokes of a painter's brush. A moment where truly, the camera falls inferior to the sensory detail of the human eye.

In the years I've been shooting, I've never printed or framed a photo for my personal use, but this one I just might.

*Fantastic place, a ton of history, must go back.

10.7.11

A fond farewell to JoePa on the first day in 61 years he has not been a coach on the field at Beaver Stadium for the Nittany Lions.

I've watched him on TV, I've watched him in the stands, I've watched him on the sidelines and despite my heartbreak on many levels of this story, I am positive that the university made the only decision they could have in regard to Paterno.

This isn't how it was supposed to be, but this is how it has to be. Best of luck to Mr. Tom Bradley and the team throughout the rest of the season.

For the future that we wait,

Raise the song, raise the song.

Joe Paterno/Post-game press conference - Penn State vs. Northwestern/9.30.06

Architects may come and

Architects may go and

Never change your point of view.

When I run dry,

I stop awhile and think of you.

So long, Frank Lloyd Wright.

All of the nights we'd harmonize 'til dawn,

I never laughed so long.

So long.

So long.

So long, already!!

("So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright"/Simon and Garfunkel/Bridge Over Troubled Water)

Falling Water/Designed by Frank Lloyd Wright/Mill Run, PA/10.7.11

P.S. - For those unaware, the Guggenheim is, coincidentally, another Wright design.

A trip to the Guggenheim is always quite refreshing, particularly if you've found yourself on the iconic museum's roof with one of your closest photographer friends and MGMT. Hopefully, when the band's management clears some of the photos for personal use, I will be able to post some from the actual shoot!

9.29.11

Jack White's ex-wife has a band. Who knew?

My curls have almost set, so I think it's about time we get this show back on the road!

Photo by Roger Kisby

While I am no tech nerd, I find myself extremely saddened by the passing of Steve Jobs. Obsessed by the power of technology, I am not, but obsessed with the character and innovation of a great man - that's a fruit of a different design.

Someone once told me that life was not a book and thus, should not be lived as such. It seems to me that Mr. Jobs not only created his own narrative reality, but falsified the aforementioned notion by changing the world and shifting mass perspective in the process. Albeit its brevity, it's one of the most powerful and timelessly human outlines in existence.

Throughout history, many men have had similar tales to that of Mr. Jobs. I admire them all as I admire Mr. Jobs. I admire them because these are the people crazy enough, daring enough, intelligent enough to make waves in a pretty cynical world. Not only do these people rely on intuition and deep curiosity to craft their own story, but in doing so, they inspire others to drop the herd mentality and go fucking crazy. Crazy to do something, maybe not great, but new.

And new inspires. And new may eventually be great. And great may eventually change the world. And that always inspires new.

Not everyone can be great and even fewer can be Steve Jobs, but everyone can try new.

The ironic part of this blog entry is that the fellow who told me that my life was not a book is the same fellow who turned me into a believer in the genius of Steve Jobs and his products. An unfortunate disconnect in philosophy and practice, I suppose, but his love of technology eventually made me more efficient and for that I must tip my hat.

I posted this quote from Jobs' Stanford Commencement speech in 2005 back in August, but its truth is as relevant as always.

"Remembering I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything - all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure just falls away in the face of death, leaving only the truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking that you have something to lose. You're already naked. There's no reason not to follow your heart." - Steve Jobs (1955-2011)

So Mr. Jobs, there is no better way to end this note than to say:

I will stay hungry and I will stay foolish.

This photo actually doesn't look real. Yes, Photoshopping happened, but truthfully not that much. I'll tell ya, the Williamsburg Waterfront's view of the sun rising and setting are unbeatable in the urban category. Working a show whilst the sun sets behind the city? One of my favorite seasonal gigs.

This photo was shot from our stage, pre-Widespread Panic load-in, pretty much in the same place as the below, but with a longer focal length.

8:00 a.m. at the Williamsburg Waterfront/Brooklyn, NY/9.17.11

Center stage at 8:00 a.m, just prior to the start of load-in for Widespread Panic.

Williamsburg Waterfront/Brooklyn, NY/9.17.11

The sun setting prior to the start of the Andrea Bocelli concert in Central Park on 9.15.11.

Sadly, I didn't have a wide enough lens on me to do this sky justice.

Sometimes Serbian tennis champions propose marriage to you atop iconic skyscrapers... annnd sometimes you just take their photograph.

Sorry, Dad, this time it was the latter.

Call me crazy, but I will say, however, that these photos mark the first time I went to a press event for fun and not for work.

Thanks, Matt McCullough!

Empire State Building/9.13.11

Fashion Week is one of the most bizarre weeks on the planet. Months and months of planning and meticulous preparation involving hundreds of people for a four-minute fashion show.

All of us that take part are crazy.

This show, however, was awesome because I was reunited with one of my favorite Madison Square Garden buddies, Ms. Jessy Qussar, who now works in marketing for Vita Coco Coconut Water. I pretty much took the job so I could hang out with my long-lost friend and support her company's delicious product, of course!

Backstage at the Ohne Titel show at Milk Studios.

9.12.11

Annnd back to work and to New York for Fashion's Night Out, the Christmas Eve of September's Fashion Week.

Stuart Weitzman's boutique/9.8.11

Energy, neither created, nor destroyed.

2011 has brought a lot of reflection on life and on death. The more people who pass, the less I find myself comforted by the practices of religion. Not that I've ever been devoted to any particular faith, but it seems counterintuitive, doesn't it? The more I think about death, the more I rely on science, as I'm infinitely more at ease with the idea that our energies breakdown and shift to create other forms of life. That energy has to come somewhere, doesn't it?

When someone dies, where does their light go? You know, the light - the thing that makes their eyes bright and their smile warm. The thing that is delicately detectable when that person walks into a room. Where does that go? And for that matter, what sort of chemistry makes that reaction to a single soul possible?

When you see that person void of their light, void of their motion, lying still in a serenely pretty box, the word "gone" takes on a whole new perspective. I have never been more sure in my life that the body has very little to do with the soul. A wonderful union, yes, but very separate.

Final frame.

9.6.11

9.5.11

This was the first year that I'd ever been out to New York's annual electronic music festival on Randall's Island known to electronic music fans everywhere as the Electric Zoo. I don't know if I was in a terrible mood, or simply just didn't have the patience for a crowd, but it definitely wasn't my cup of tea. However, it was great for people-watching. Definitely can recommend the people-watching.

9.4.11

Following our day at the U.S. Open, Mr. Merritt and I took a stroll to Flushing Meadows Corona Park's World's Fair Marina. I begin to frame the above shot when the below shot happened!

9.1.11

I've been really into my 85mm lens lately, but sometimes it just doesn't do the trick. I knew it was the wrong lens for the U.S. Open, but I wasn't really sure what the camera policy was, so I figured, if anything, they'd allow that into the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. As it was my first time at the Open, the wrong lens was definitely better than no lens.

Thanks again to John Merritt for taking me to my first U.S. Open!

Top: Updating the tournament board

Middle: City behind Arthur Ashe Stadium

Bottom: Roger Federer being interviewed after defeating an early opponent.

9.1.11

Lower Manhattan from Brooklyn Bridge Park.

8.28.11

Manhattan Bridge from the Brooklyn Bridge.

8.28.11

Post-hurricane sunset in the West Village on Sunday evening.

8.28.11

Mom: So if you were in Battery Park in the evening, you didn't evacuate?

Me: No, I did. I brought my stuff uptown around 10 a.m.

Mom: So... you went back downtown?

Dad: Clearly she doesn't understand what it means to be evacuated.

Walking from 76th and 2nd to Union Square, Megan and I decided to cab it from 14th to Battery Park in interest of time. Again, for as long as we waited, things were pretty calm, much to the dismay of our journalistic intent.

8.27.11

Penn Station, pre-Irene. All subway, LIRR and Amtrak trains canceled or suspended.

8.27.11

Times Square, pre-Irene.

Lines at all the drugstores, people using sandbags as benches and of course, closed subway stations.

8.27.11

Bryant Park, pre-Irene.

8.27.11

Manhattan evacuations and free subway entry due to hurricane was something I never expected to see. Ever. Granted, the free rides only applied to stations in evacuation zones (my neighborhood included), but still! $2.25 goes a long way, man. Thanks, Irene/Bloomberg for allowing me to see almost a 48-hour period in New York without a functioning subway system.

8.27.11

Bloomingdale's? Boarded up? You'd think there was going to be a hurricane in Manhattan or something...

8.27.11

For the first time, my anxiety about not having a camera in-hand, from start to finish, did not get the better of me. For the first time, I was able to hand over my camera and, cautiously at first, completely participate in my surroundings. One small step, as they say.

Photographers, if you will, are professional observers. Because you are oft an outsider, your experience is secondary. While Hondros would argue the contrary and this may seem like a bad thing, for the craft, it's quite a valuable skill. Not only do you have control of your specific action, but of the documentation of a multitude of actions with no direct influence on the situation, other than angle and light.

In that respect, journalism goes from basic reportage to art form, in that you, of course, are creating a true-to-life situation purely from your perspective as an observer. Key word being: create. The difference between taking a photo and making a photo.

The tricky thing, however, is knowing when to give that up... to put down the camera and to just be where you are. While racing this sailboat, it happened. I was nervous about it, but it happened.

I watched boats sail in and out of my frame of sight, painted with the rich tones of a setting sun. Truly a photographer's dream leisure scenario. I would take my eye off the spinnaker for a second to glance at the frames I was missing... at one point, handing Achille the camera to try and direct him to shoot what I was seeing (Thanks, Achille!). Still, it wasn't the same.

By the time the wind had changed enough to release me from my duties, it was nearly dark. This was the first, last and only frame I took during that race.

And I like it.

This is one of those events in my life that I wished I had posted sooner. Just the circumstances surrounding ending up in a sailboat race in Detroit (the new Miami, or so I hear...) with such an eclectic little 4-person crew aboard a little crescent sailboat, was enough to warrant skipping everything else to get here. The skipper's quotes alone, were enough to make this one of the greatest events of the summer. I'm going to need Achille's help in remembering half of what Steven said, but I will tell you this... that the first two things I really remember him saying were:

1. "You know, I've sunk three of these things."

and

2. "One of my favorite commands, 'Take off your shoes! Abandon ship!'"

Yes, I do believe this was worth leaving work early, the day before a show. And this is coming from someone who is usually last out of the stadium...

Lake St. Clair/Detroit, MI/8.19.11

Sometimes you've gotta leave work early to go race a sailboat.

A sailboat fully equipped with PBR and whiskey.

Lake St. Clair/Detroit, MI/8.19.11