What's Limiting You Today?

Why do we put ourselves in a box? Why do we limit ourselves to what it is we want to achieve, but tell ourselves we can’t because we aren’t properly equipped?


Any photographer (or insert any other vocation) knows this all too well.

If only I had that lens…

If only I was shooting on that camera instead…

If only, if only, if only…

At the beginning of the year, I gave myself a personal challenge to create more portraits, constantly, no matter what gear I had at hand. After all, the best camera really is the one you have with you.

Which leads me to this portrait of Mike, a case study in using what you have at hand. A fellow coffee aficionado and news junkie, we ran into each other one Saturday at my favorite local coffee spot, and I had to create a portrait of him in that light. My gear? My trusty iPhone 5, coupled with the fantastic Moment Tele lens, and, oh, the white side of a menu I was holding just out of frame to bounce a little light back onto Mike’s face. I shot it with my go-to app, VSCO Cam, in which I applied some mild post-processing.

This was one of the earliest images I shot with the Moment lens, which I received as a Christmas present. There are a lot of iPhone photography accessories on the market, but this lens is by far one of the best and worth every penny. With high-quality craftsmanship, optical-quality glass, and ease of use (it twist-locks onto a small adhesive plate you affix to the back of your phone), it’s a great way to step your game up when shooting photos with your phone.

Here’s the thing. The skill to create a strong portrait comes from being able to see a strong portrait, not because of your gear.

Our ability to achieve, to rise above, and to succeed? It’s helped by various outside influences and resources, to be sure. But do you have within you the fire and the drive to do something in spite of circumstances?

 What’s limiting you today?
"I'm not going to believe that only a few people are permitted to be gatekeepers or creators or generous leaders. I have no intention of apologizing for believing in people, for insisting that we all use this moment and these assets to create some art and improve the world around us."

The moon is down.


Our lives are frequently marked by the unexpected.
Coming home on a Saturday night, I didn't know that within half an hour I'd be on dark desert roads headed to Las Vegas.
My friend hadn't known until that afternoon that his father was lying in a Nevada hospital bed, body wracked with cancer.
It must've been sometime around 2 a.m. when we got there. The halls of the ICU were hushed, dimly lit and smelling faintly of the chemical smell all hospitals have. Joseph went in to spend some time at his father's bedside while we waited down the hall. At one point, he text-messaged me, asking me to take a photo. 
It's one thing to shoot these kinds of images for a news story, when there's a certain divide between you and the story. It's another when it's of a close friend, sitting there watching a machine keep his father alive. 
And frankly, as powerful as I find this image, I wouldn't have posted it unless Joseph had asked me to, after his father passed this week.

A sunset kind of love

After a few weeks of circling the runway, so to speak, I've landed. I moved into an apartment in Edmonds, just a little bit north of downtown Seattle. It's a great little shoreline town that reminds me in some ways of Ventura, California.
Yesterday, I capped off an afternoon of garage sales and furniture hunting by walking down to the waterfront, taking in the sunset and capturing a few images along the way.
This is probably one of my favorite images recently. It's candid, well-framed and (despite being just a little blurry) tells a story of a moment in time. This couple only stopped long enough for me to pull out my phone and quickly frame a shot before they moved on.


Seattle moments

The past month has been crazy. After nearly 11 years in Southern California, I packed my life into the car and headed north, to the Evergreen State. It's time for a new chapter, a new season. So I'm settling in and getting acquainted to life in the Pacific Northwest, moving into a place minutes from downtown Seattle.
While I've been doing a lot of iPhone shooting lately, a few days ago I pulled out the SLR as well, and wandered downtown with a fellow photographer. Seattle is a great city for street shooting.

Coming and going...






I've fallen in love with the iPhone as a photo tool. There's nothing like having a quality image capture device on you at all times, particularly one that is part of your phone and takes up no extra pocket space.
Lately, I'm shooting mostly black-and-white images with Hipstamatic.