Summer at Fontenelle

My time spent walking through Fontenelle Forest has reached its fourth and final season. The woods are entirely different in the summer, full of buzzing life and weedy greenery. It's a shame that the humidity around here is enough to kill a person off after just a mile or two of the hilly terrain that defines much of Fontenelle. Despite my many visits to the forest, there are still a few trail sections that I have yet to see. I find myself revisiting many of the same places repeatedly, my favorites.

The project is coming along nicely. While I'm not sure when and how it will be exhibited, I look forward to showing the images off at some point. It's been a great change of pace for me.

May is finally here...

May started out with sub-freezing temperatures and a heavy, wet snowfall. At least it appears to have finally straightened out. I've been working through it, continuing to photograph the Loess Hills region of Iowa and Fontenelle Forest, and reworking my South Omaha series.

Here are three images from the past few weeks...

from

Fontenelle

from

The Magic City

Council Bluffs, Iowa

The State of the Artist: 2013

01/01/13 #9 (Burt County)

As yet another begins, I feel ever more confident about the direction I've been moving as a photographer. While much work remains, especially in regards to the exhibition of my photography, I have reached a level of competency in my image-making that surprises me on a regular basis. I remember spending hours circling large pieces of Nebraska searching for a single photograph during my travels for ninety-three, struggling to come up with anything that would work. Now I find myself working in small areas with far more success and feel increasingly connected with the environment that surrounds me.

2012 was an important year in my life, both personal and artistic. In my personal life, I found love and a sense of contentment that has brought new meaning to my day-to-day existence. This inspiration and stability will guide my work moving forward and give me the courage to take more chances rather than continue to drift through time without embracing it.

from Fontenelle

Artistically, I began two large-scale projects and exhibited another during the year.

Fontenelle was not begun until later in the year but has become somewhat of an obsession for me since then. This series marks several changes from what I have been working with since my first serious work in 2006. I'm not working via a road trip, instead spending many hours simply walking through Nebraska's Fontenelle Forest. This lends a very intimate feel to the work, a documentation of these walks and the details of a quite small piece of this world. The photographs are also black and white, something I haven't done since my time at school. I have wanted to work in black and white again for quite some time but had not found the right project until now.

Fontenelle should be finished by the summer.

from the Platte River series

2012 also marked the (early, early) beginnings of a study of the Platte River from its beginnings in the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming to its confluence with the Missouri River near Plattsmouth, Nebraska. I have been researching this project every now and then since 2009 but did not set out to start on it until July of this year. It's still too early to see what direction this work will ultimately take or how long it will be until I see fit to call it finished.

The Magic City

at Hot Shops

In May, I exhibited

The Magic City

at the Hot Shops Art Center in Omaha along with the work of William Hess. While I love the images from the series, I am still a bit unsure about the quality of the prints that were created from the film scans. That aside, the photographs looked quite good together on display and I received many compliments over the course of the month. To anyone who visited the Hot Shops and is reading this entry: Thank you so very much for your support.

2013 begins, much as 2012, with a series of thirteen photographs taken on New Year's Day. One of these images leads this blog entry. The others will be posted to

my Flickr page

over the next two weeks. As I did last year, I will be posting an image to Flickr every weekday. This has proven to be great motivation to get out and shoot as much possible, a requirement if I want to publish 250 or so good (or better) images over the course of a year.

I will do my best to update this blog a little more regularly with what's going on. I also regret that the

ninety-three

 book has not yet seen the light of day. At some point, I lost the files I had made for the test printing of the book and life has kept me from getting back to it. I will do my best to remedy this delay soon.

Here's to another year of growth and discoveries. Let's make the most of it.

A walk in the woods

I spent a few hours on a chilly Saturday morning walking a few trails in the Fontenelle Forest just south of Omaha. This morning followed the first overnight freeze of the year. Despite this, I was determined to get out and enjoy the fresh fall air while I explored an area I've been meaning to spend some time in for the past couple of years.

Nature photography is a lot different than most of what I've been doing for the past few years. It requires a different eye and quite a bit more patience. I've also found that I'm incredibly unskillful with a tripod, especially on the uneven terrain of the forest floor. No matter. I plan on making a habit of it in the coming months as winter begins to set in. It will be a nice change of pace and get me a bit out of my usual photographic routine.

All told, it was a gorgeous morning full of that crisp fall light that I love so much. I felt quite alive alone among the trees and the sounds of wildlife scurrying away. Life makes more sense out there, away from my everyday world, I think.