I hope they convey a small piece of the love I feel for this magic place called Cuba.

evening in Habana Vieja.

in Cuba, time stopped in 1959.

the entrance to barrio chino.

magic hour. NYC, June, 2006.

Towards the bottom of the showcase, @stormsky_dw says, “NYC is where the best and worst of America duels it out day-to-day on the streets.” New York is a personification of man, and “What kind of freak is man?” asks Blaise Pascal, “He is the glory and the scum of the universe!”

We are walking, breathing, freak-ish contradictions. We profess love with tongues that curse. We have hands capable of healing or hurting. Our hearts often betray our own well being. We are created in the image of God & doubt our own worth or beauty. On any given day, we can believe the lie that life is meaningless, existence is an accident & nothing matters but pleasures available right now. Or, we can see the magic of it all, the art in everything and our own place in this giant narrative.

As I said in the story, I put the camera away just before something profound happened. However, if I have any regrets, it’s not that I don’t have the image I described – of my wife and the light. No, I regret that I didn’t see her like that sooner – that I don’t see her like that more often.

“If the point of life is the same as the point of a story, the point of life is character transformation,” writes Donald Miller, “…in nearly every story, the protagonist is transformed. He’s a jerk at the beginning and nice at the end, or a coward at the beginning and brave at the end. And if story is derived from real life, if story is just a condensed version of life then life itself may be designed to change us so that we evolve from one kind of person to another.”

I didn’t know it at the time, but that moment, running up 49th St. changed me and helped to transform my marriage. Whether or not you have the image to look at, take time, regularly, to remember those moments that make you, you. Try and understand your place in the narrative.

Ask your self, “What is my story and how is it changing me?”

Addison Road, Feb. 2010

When I got home, we set up a phone call & I was instantly drawn to the ideas that were floated out there. By nature, I’m collaborative and enjoy the process of making images and the process on this job was incredible. I colaborated heavily with Travis Lawrence on the concept, which draws, tonally, on the stories they hear from their fans on the road – stories of loss and heartache – and, hopefully, captures the intangible ‘thing’ that draws people to Addison Road‘s music.

After hearing a handful of the songs off this album, you understand that loss is a subject the band knows well. They have endured equipment theft and travel woes, but nothing worse than what happened to them just a couple of weeeks ago. Somewhere just outside of Flagstaff, their RV, rented for a new tour, caught fire while they were driving and burned to the ground along with their equipment & merchandise.

I recieved a text from Travis (in the driver’s seat above) the day after the RV fire that said, “we count it as a blessing that we are in battle.” Their bus burns and they say, “We’re blessed” and press on, drawing from the same hope their music gives its fans. This was the intangible that I picked up on in our early conversations & was the thing that I really wanted to photograph.

“Stories” gets released on June 22, but the first single, “Fight Another Day” dropped last week – and it’s fantastic. I’ll post the link here once it’s on iTunes, which I hear will be May 25th.

**UPDATE** you can purchase the full album through Addison Road’s official website & get an immediate web download, or the first single is available on iTunes here.

when I work with non-profits, I’m always looking for opportunities to extend their reach & help them connect with a broader audience. writing the article for RA, was a great way for me to connect a relevant current event to the causes of my clients. you can click on the image above & read the story.

if you have one and are looking for a way to make your home & lock screens look awesome, i created a few free wallpapers that you can download. they’ve been optimized to fit perfectly whether you have the device turned for landscape or portrait mode.

bali hai | the bow river

view from The Grove Park Inn | foggy morning in The Great Smoky Moutains

sunrise at Enchanted Rock | sunset in E. Texas

if you end up downloading them, tell me what you think. i’m planning on releasing a couple more sets if these end up being something people like. i hope you enjoy them.

I have written about the trip in several places but haven’t shared anything here, but today – as I was choosing which image we were going to use for the Photo of the Week (below), I felt compelled to share some of the work I did on that trip.

a young girl clings to her jerry can in Tarekeka, South Sudan.

I can’t explain how overwhelming the scene in Tarekeka was when we arrived, late in the day on the 9th of November. It was late in the wet season & everywhere we went, people were making preparations for the dry season, with its oppressive heat & lack of crops.

I had read reports of the Dinka cattle herders that raided a Mundari village in early October. The disputes over grazing lands led to the Dinka burning the Mundari village to the ground, displacing them all. But reading reports can’t prepare you for seeing 24,000 refugees.

The trip from Yei to Tarekeka took 8 dusty hours and when we arrived the low sun dappled through the leaves of banyan & mango trees on the bank of the Nile, and if not for the circumstances, the scene would have been idyllic.

sunrise over the Nile & a woman scarred with traditional Mundari decoration

the White Nile serves as both water source & recreation spot for the people of Tarekeka

Thousands of internally displaced sat beneath the low hanging banyans and seemed to inhabit every nook & cranny in the tiny Nile town, living in schools, government offices & every available public space; in most cases, their shelter simply a mosquito net. The scene was beyond comprehension & their presence had disrupted village life, closing schools & causing tension.

Everywhere I went, this was the story – shortage leading to conflict.

a local cattle herder surveys the drilling project on the land given to the refugees.

a young boy slips into a new shirt provided by WiB donors.

a Mundari man hands out some candy brought by someone from the local church.

I brought in the incomparable Austin Mann to help me shoot during the Feb. 6th game against the Phoenix Coyotes. Because the entirety of the story takes place between the locker room and the ice and we were shooting the players on game night (meaning, no second takes), we only had four opportunities to grab all the images we needed. Logistically it was rather challenging, but also a lot of fun. We had 5 camera bodies, two set up remotely and three that we worked handheld.

For the most part everything was shot between 5 & 8 frames per second in-camera; I then created image sequences at frame rates from 6 to 30 frames per second, which I then edited in Final Cut. The story evolved a bit during the edit process, enabling me to bring in some of the work I shot for the Stars over the last two seasons. For the music, I chose one of my favorite MUTEMATH songs – ‘Reset’ – and am hugely thankful to them and everyone at Teleprompt\Warner Bros. Once we locked picture, I took the whole thing to Defacto Sound, where Dallas Taylor (yes, I only work with people named after Texas cities) did a masterful job on the sound design.

The final edit contains just over 2,200 still images and is being used in the team’s 2010 season seat holder renewal package. They are using variable print technology in the final online delivery, so each seat holder sees their name on the locker at :30. That piece of the puzzle was handled by Channel 1 Media.

photo by Chang W. Lee/The New York Times

In case you hadn’t heard, Animal - the artist formerly known as The Flying Tomato & Shaun White – took gold on Cypress Mountain last night. His performance was inspired, clinching the gold without needing his second run.

And then Lindsey Vonn, limping onto the mountain with a bruised shin only to fly down the hill at over 80 mph, finishing the run on her one good leg – to take the gold. And I think, for me, that’s a huge part of the draw of the Olympic Games. The performances of the athletes are a reminder that we are capable of doing far more than we think.

photo by Doug Mills/The New York Times

One week in and these are three lessons I’ve learned from watching the Vancouver Games:

Lesson 1: Pain (and gravity) be damned.

Life is resistance training. Most of it is lined up in opposition to whatever goals I have set. Watching Lindsey defy her body in pursuit of achieving gold was breathtaking. I wish I had 1/3 the heart, drive and toughness she showed at Whistler. “My leg hurt throughout and it still hurts,” she said after taking gold. ”There was so much going on and so much adrenaline, I just blocked it out.”

But denying physical pain is only half the battle. If you can push through you still must contend with the fear of leaving the mountain. I have to remember not to let natural laws hold you back or keep you grounded.

Lesson 2: Be a Pioneer

Shaun spent time on private half-pipe tucked away on some picturesque mountain inventing tricks. Actually, there were several tricks, but the one in questione they call the Double McTwist 1260. Before he figured out a way to dazzle the world on the Olympic stage, Shaun trained and trained and trained trying to perfect this thing that existed only in his head.

This is what pioneers do. They don’t hang with everyone else and polish up someone else’s creative; pioneers define the future.

Lesson 3: Always Go Big

Shaun White knew the gold was his before he made his final run, but he hadn’t done the Double McTwist. He didn’t need it, but he did it.

In his mind, the decision was a simple one, “I just felt like I didn’t come all the way to Vancouver not to pull out the big guns.”

I want to be like that – pushing myself even when I don’t have to.

So, over the next two weeks, my DVR will be full of hockey, snowboarding, skeleton & speed skating. I love cheering for Team USA, but this year I have a friend from Finland who will be participating in the games, the captain of the Dallas Stars (and my favorite hockey player) is playing for Team Canada and I have no doubt Jimmy will tell a story about someone whose name none of us know – and the story will tug my heart and ask me to cheer for them as well, no matter their homeland.

Jere Lehtinen will be playing in his 5th Winter Olympics for Team Finland.

You can imagine my excitement when the Dallas Stars called two weeks ago, asking me to shoot their four Olympians. I knew immediately that I wanted a simple setup because time – and patience – would be in short supply. But more than anything, I wanted something simple because I wanted the colors of their country (and the pride these guys take in wearing them) to be the focus of the images.

I used a 9′ seamless roll (in the very versatile arctic white) & a couple of mono heads. I love how the white turns gray from lack of exposure. It seemed the perfect way to show off the sweaters & the pride.  Needless to say, these are my favorite images from the day.

My thanks to Jere, Brenden, Karlis & Loui – and to the Stars who are graciously allowing me provide you with the following desktops. Just click on the size you want and enjoy.

Brenden Morrow – Team Canada

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Karlis Skrastins – Team Latvia

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Jere Lehtinen – Team Finland

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Loui Eriksson – Team Sweden

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Dallas Stars – The Olympians

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EDIT: It seems that people using Internet Explorer were having some issues. I have made a few changes to the images & the links. Please let me know if there are still any issues.

Just before the holidays, I completed the first of many projects that I shot in Sudan.

I was commissioned by Seed Effect, a microfinance initiative, to tell their story & articulate their mission. It seemed like a daunting task, to be honest. How do you get to the heart of what prompted Missy & David to start Seed Effect in an intimate way and wade through the minutia of microfinance, for those unfamiliar with the idea? The answer, it turns out, started with a sewing machine.

In one of our initial creative meetings, Missy offhandedly told the story of how a few women called her aside & asked for a sewing machine so they could make & sell clothes in the local market. With that request on her heart, Missy came home & she and her husband launched Seed Effect. It was a powerful story and, to me, the sewing machine became an icon of hope and the story is such a clear picture of how microfinance works – small loans for practical items that have a tremendous impact on lives, families and communities.

That is the Seed Effect.

i hope your holiday’s were incredible.

it’s been a whirlwind few weeks since returning from Sudan – old work needed attention, new work needed bidding, the blog needed blogging, videos needed editing, family needed loving, thanks needed giving. you get the idea. life didn’t stop just because i had a life affirming experience in Africa. and in the hustle & bustle, something fairly momentous almost passed without my notice. almost.

one year and three days ago, i celebrated the first anniversary of going full-time with my photography business. what started with the panic inducing “we have to let you go” has turned into one of the bigger blessings of my life.

that’s how it goes, i think. bailout rarely produces success, but have-to almost always does. wife, two kids, mortgage, the potential for “i told you so” from those whose opinion i value most – moving forward was my only option and because of that (and a lot of grace) my business took off after getting put on the runway by a layoff in a terrible economy.

that’s my story. and i don’t know all the details behind the birth of Pictory, but i followed the JPG magazine thing pretty closely and i think Laura Brunow Miner & I may have a few things in common. so, when i received an email from her about the new online magazine she was launching, i got very excited.

from the the near death experience that was\is JPG magazine & it’s user generated model, comes something new. maybe it’s the future, maybe it’s just the best one girl can do from her living room; whatever it is, i think it’s exciting.

things are changing – everyday seems to bring news of another magazine closing its doors and chicken little cries, foretelling the death of print, litter our RSS readers. if i were sane, i’d be wondering if i picked the wrong business at the wrong time. i mean, who would pick to start a photography business on Dec. 1, 2008, when the economy was crashing down around us, unemployment daily reached new highs and one of the main avenues for photographers to sell their work (print media) was dying?

failure is good for the soul. it forces you to take stock of what’s important, dig down to find your inner Ben Franklin and get to work. necessity is truly the mother of invention and i couldn’t be any more thankful for the @lbm’s of the world, who see the failure of one thing as an open door to the future.

kudos to you Laura & to all the others like you who, when arriving at the Brink of the Unknown, jumped barefoot into the abyss, so that those of us who find ourselves at the Brink find a bridge and not a void. oh, and thanks for including my image in Overseas & Overwhelmed – I’m honored.

of course, there’s more to the story than the 140 or so words on pictorymag.com. if you’re interested, you can read more on waterisbasic.org.