Travel in 2017 ended not with wistful excursions to Nice and Riffelsee but rather with the standard home trip to the US. After a month without much snowfall, I left the Allgäu in the middle of a snowstorm and left myself plenty of time to get to Zurich Airport. It turns out I planned in too much time, as I arrived before the parking garage opened. I decided to circle the arrivals area, but I forgot I was in Switzerland; of course they would charge drivers to pick up arriving passengers. I drove to the garage after 5 CHF paid for my fifteen minutes of shame, turned on my blinkers, and stubbornly blocked one entrance to the parking garage until I could enter, thinking I had left the snow behind until I got back to the Allgäu in January. Boy, was I wrong.
Charleston
A matter of time
Photography is typically about light or composition and how to portray the emotional juxtaposition of the two given some subject. A photograph is the result of some amount of planning and motivation; ideally, it evokes an emotional response. The ability to photograph comes differently to photographers: some nail technique with no issue, others find the perfect composition without much thought.
Regardless, photography takes time. The amount of time it takes to expose a photograph is typically orders of magnitude shorter than the amount of time it takes to prepare for a shoot. Sometimes it surprises me just how much I’ve let work consume my time here, so I decided to put together a few shots from over the past year. There are no mountains here: where I typically derive my inspiration from the large rock formations that border Seattle or Switzerland, I’ve finally begun to learn that the beauty is in the details in the Lowcountry.
Earth
I never thought I’d work in manufacturing and enjoy it, and none of my previous work would have suggested that I take final placement in a plant. But it’s incredibly fun, a bit chaotic, and a perpetual challenge. Every so often, on some Charleston-area beach I find a spot with footsteps untarnished that reminds me of where I’ve come from — and how little that can sometimes matter in where I’m going.