photo essays

recently i sold my artistic soul to corporate america. i'll borrow a line from the greatest movie of my era and opinion, Oh Brother Where Art Thou.... "for that you traded your everlasting soul?" "well i wasn't using it." quite true of me recently... i sure wasn't using it. just like Tommy Johnson it's kindof worked out... now I get to get better at my art while working for the man. although in retrospect i should have brokered a deal to play guitar better too.

so anyway, i've really enjoyed my gigs so far. i do think it's advancing me as a photographer and a lot of the time i get creative license to come it with what I think are the best shots. nothing like being judged creatively by thousands of people. this was a photo essay from my first week at the fair.

i'm still here

it's been a long time and lot's of things have changed. i'm starting to shoot more consistently for the paper so hopefully i'll have interesting events to post. this is one i did about a month ago for the top recruited high school football players in shelby county. it ran as a promotional preview magazine just before the season started... so i guess they're not available anymore. i just saw it for the first time this week. anyway, it was a lot of fun technically & creatively figuring how these shots would work. chris, the sports editor had a lot of great ideas. this is what we came up with.

best boomboomhuckjam ever?

i can't tell you how many boomboomhuckjams i've been to in my life. i'm sure you could say the same. this one however was the boomboomhuckjam to end all boomboomhuckjams. why? because this was tony hawk's boomboomhuckjam. sometimes when you go to these things you leave wishing you could've had a little more huckjam or not so much boomboom. but this one seriously could not have been any more tasteful in their boomboom or their huckjam. glad i went.

you see i was always too scared to skateboard and was never allowed to ride a motor bike. seeing these guys perform for an hour so fearlessly was very impressive. erin and i have been watching the Xgames 14 this week. we both are fascinated at these guys willingness to put their life's in danger for something they are so passionate about. i'm glad my passion allows me to generally stand in one place and press and depress my pointer finger.... sometimes however my legs get tired and my fingers cramp. i guess i can relate.

seriously these guys have my respect and if you've never felt that way about extreme sports, listen to tony hawk for 5 minutes and i'm sure you'll feel otherwise. was there a skate park in homewood that got shut down? tony hawk said something about it to the crowd and how he had written the mayor about it. i still would never get on skateboard but sign me up for the picket line to bring back the skate park. i have been enlightened and it's time for change. "yes we can"

my son...

sounds weird but it feels right. meet grayben andrew nolen.



i love this little boy more than i ever imagined i could love my own biological child. we had less than 3 days to prepare for him but now that we have him it was too long. i know the rest of my life will be about this guy so i'll spare a long blog post now. he is just about the cutest & sweetest thing i've ever seen. sleeping like a champ as i write. i cannot say enough good about adoption. it can be hard but it is hands down the most incredible thing i've ever experienced in my life. grizzlies in yellowstone are still up there though.

much much more to come.

montana wildlife...

i have never before been to a place that i felt genuine concern for my life and those around me. it's unlike anything i've experienced... it's no estes park. hiking in glacier you actually have to think about bears because they really are there and really can jack you up if you don't know what you're doing... and sometimes even if you do. so we spent our whole trip both hoping we would see a grizzly and also hoping we never saw a grizzly. there was one day in particular that josh and i hiked almost 5 miles in to a frozen lake. i've never felt more vulnerable & humble by creation. not only was it beautiful but it was eerily void of civilization. we were in something else's territory and i don't mean the US government. thankfully josh is far braver than i am and we made the trip anyway. i will never forget that feeling of isolation & insecurity. it was great. thankfully we didn't see any bears on our hikes but did see them while we were driving. some of the photographers below worked freelance for national geographic.


i think my wife already posted these pics. this was actually about 2 miles in on a hike. the ranger said we were more likely to see a bear than a moose in glacier... he's only seen 4 in 2 years. we saw 6 in 3 days. this guy was literally 30 feet from us at one point (the moose not the ranger... the ranger was literally 3 feet away... it was amazing). it reminded me of the opening scene to "northern exposure" where the moose just strolls through town like nobody's around. he was totally chilled out trying to take a swim. flying out to washington the guy next to us told us how ferocious moose are and to never get close to them... doesn't he look tough?

erin has wanted to see one of these for a long time. this one decided to come in the car with us.

elk that we thought was a caribou.

if you live in the east & most of the west, black bears get all the glory. when you get into grizzly country, black bears get treated like teddy bears. this one was asleep in the tree which completely debunked my theory of climbing a tree to get away from one.

marmot

it is actually where the deer and the antelope play.

it wasn't hard to see a buffalo in yellowstone but this one was huge and just walking down the road.

honor among thieves....

alright, quick neighborhood check

# of times i called the police in 3 years living in helena: 0
# of times i called the police in 8 months living in bluff park: 2

2 nights ago stokes and i were watching a movie when we heard something banging around outside. i let attie out (like that would do anything), turned on the floodlights, and went back to watching the movie. next morning i walk out front to find one of 2 pieces of our yard furniture missing. what?

why would someone want to steal 1 bench from my yard and nothing else? maybe i scared them off. maybe attie bit a chunk out of their leg and they ran away screaming. or maybe as the police suggested it was just a neighborhood kid pulling a prank. if that is the case, i hope when they got back to their home or tree house or prison cell they tried to sit down on our bench. it was only ornamental. if someone ever tried to sit on it they would end up on the ground.

sad part is it was my great granddad's so it does have some sentimental value. my wife therefore tried a different approach to achieve justice by writing them a note should they come back for the second piece of furniture. i guess some thieves do have a conscience.

tim mcgraw...

tim mcgraw (i will call him tim from now on) is one of those people who i really could care less about but knew i would regret it eternally... or at least a few years... if i missed the shoot. he really is a phenomenon. not the greatest singer but i think everybody knows that. what you may not know because i sure didn't, is that women would throw themselves at his feet if they could. i would actually hear sighs when the big screen would inadvertently get a shot of his chest or booty. seriously i think a lot of folks paid to look at him... and $75 a pop at that.

i don't know if it was the mix but it looked and sounded like "the dance hall doctors" could have kicked a few physicians out of the practice. seriously there was a point where at least 2 of them stopped playing and i could tell no difference. i bet there were 27 of them... or maybe 8. somewhere in there.

i'm being careful not to give tim any real props (besides his chest & booty of course) for this reason. i used to like country music , a lot. somewhere in the mid to late nineties though it started turning into something very different. i won't blame tim entirely but "indian outlaw" is on my list of "songs that changed country music for the worst". also on there would be the tractor's "boogie woogie choo choo train" neal mccoy's "wink" & joe diffies "welcome to earth third rock from the sun". i mean really, do these sound like country? the problem is now there's no turning back. i have to listen to X Country (xm) to hear any true modern country songs now. tim you owe me $12 bucks a month.... you can split it with joe diffie. anyway, i digress. tim is a superstar who married up and is worth seeing (depending on your gender) for various reasons. mine was because i was certain faith hill (i call her faith) would show up.... she didn't.