Blog / Photography

Humanity is rightly obsessed with the paradox of good vs evil. Death before life, the bittersweet, pride before a fall.

The twists and turns of life become the unmappable labyrinth becoming with each hesitant footstep. A fearful journey jammed with wonder.

The beauty of humanity is not in its brokenness, but in its resilience. Compelled by love and connection amidst a fury of twisty, turny curveballs of art and war. Sheer will pressing ever onward, no matter how unbelievable.

It’s what I’m celebrating in this holiday season.

This gutterpunk anarchism gives me hope for myself, to burn the chaos in a flame of hope. To stare at death in the face and say look around. You can’t win.

Even the best-reviewed cities, in all their coffeetable-worthy builtworld gloss, harbor a hidden vein of real humanity. Because people still live here. Day-to-day life isn’t a curated social reel; there’s sorrow, shame and pain nipping at the heels of the stories we tell ourselves, about ourselves. Whether you’re John Wick or John Doe, there’s no escaping this shared human condition.

I excavate these buried fissures like a Skywalker senses The Force—an attunement I developed on the streets as a kid. It used to feel like that. A superpower. But with age, I’ve learned to despise the signs of what we categorize humanity. What we’re really referring to is that sorrow, shame and pain that reminds us that something is deeply wrong.

Now, like everyone else I know, I exercise denial as a form of protest in the face of decay and death. If the light is everlasting life without fear, I rage against its death.

As autumn knowingly clears the path for winter, the slow sun struggles to pierce a gray blanket overhead. It’s crisp, cold and silent. Bright snowfall packs the footpath’s edge, and I walk through each cloud of my frozen breath, letting it pass over me like a purifying ghost.

I walked through Rolland Moore Park today and shot a few trees and the pond. This was my favorite. I liked the high contrast and the warm leaves contrasting the snowfall and crisp sky. It was pretty cold out, but the brisk rucking walk was very enjoyable with the welcome sunlight.

I took a handful of shots around this train track footbridge overpass. There were a few non-functional bicycles. one had the chain off the rear derailleur. There were a couple carts full of random stuff pushed together making a sort of camp underneath the ramps. It was very cold and I had to turn the camera off between shots to get my hands back in my jacket pockets. It was really fun, though.

I hadn’t used a Ricoh GR since the first “GR Digital” back around 2007. I have missed that camera ever since. But now I finally snagged a GR iiix, so I’m posting some of my favorite shots here as a sort of unofficial photo-doc. I loved the temperature of this shot and how the cold air vignetted the lights. The green from the streetlamps offset the red gauge needles almost festively… as if to mark the holiday season.

I actually took a moment to walk around Old Town in Fort Collins and take some photos. I really fell in love with this “Pizza” sign and this shot in-particular. I’ve always been drawn to simplicity, but I love the vintage feel of the sign, coupled with the texture of the brick wall and the shadow playing angles with the traffic lights. This shot made my day.