Driving Through America

American Road Trip Photography

More from the road this winter. You never know what you’ll find out there, which is most of the draw. If you knew, what fun would it be? That’d be like fly fishing if you were guaranteed a catch every single time out. It’s about the hunt. The coyote image is a great example how the road always keeps you guessing. I only found them because of a pee break on the side of some desert parking lot in the middle of the Nevada desert. Parking lot is the only word available, because it didn’t seem a need for one. There was nothing around for miles and miles. Nevada desert. Which begs the question, why were the coyotes there? Clearly they were killed by hunters and placed carefully in that spot. It took effort to drag them from the kill location. Why not just leave them there? We’ll never know. Nor does it matter. Just the kind of thing you see on the road.

Click here to see more of my America series

Dave’s Pubb - Tetonia, Idaho

Lovelock Speedway - Lovelock, Nevada

Nevada desert

Mojave, California

Hawthorne, Nevada

On The Road Again

Winters are typically when I spend the most time on the road to get as much snowboarding in as possible. This has been a very dry year for snow but that hasn’t kept the miles off at all. The better part of the last 30 days was on the road for two different trips filled with a weekend getaway to Tahoe for Emily and I, a commercial shoot, two editorial shoots, personal shooting (of course), and a “ski” trip with old friends in Sun Valley, Idaho that turned into a fly fishing trip due to the severe lack of snow. More on all this later.

Click HERE to see some of my road trip photography

Happy New Year

People started writing off 2020 back around July or August and you can’t blame them for that. It’s been a shit show of a year filled with plenty to complain about. Where does that get you though? I’m certainly not impervious to complaining. I do plenty of it and am trying to be better in that category. 2020 beat up on me just as much as it did anyone else, but I made a conscious effort to be as positive as possible about making the best of a shitty situation. This last year was the slowest I’ve ever been commercially. Anything that was on the table got taken off because of COVID. Still though, there is plenty to be thankful for. Aside from the obvious things like health, family, and friends, I’m quite proud of the fact that I put out 2 books last year. Most photographers go their whole career without publishing once. Why, I’m not sure? And this isn’t me gloating in any way at all. I’m really proud of the books, but there’s also a million things I would change about both of them. At a certain point though, you have to let go. Mistakes are inevitable. You do your best to catch them beforehand, but once it’s printed, it’s there forever. You just have to move on and be happy with the fact that you put something out into the world during a time when most people just mailed it in. There is no such thing as perfect, so don’t abuse yourself for falling short of it. I fuckin hate that word, actually. And think it’s the most abused/overused one in the English language. It makes me cringe any time I’m out in public and someone uses it as a place holder for the fact that they can’t come up with anything else to say. 2020 was the opposite of perfect, yet we’re going to see as time goes on that a hell of a lot of good came out if it. I’m personally very excited for that. The bullshit will never stop. So it’s up to us to look through it and create something positive.

This was the first time I wasn’t able to go home (upstate New York) for Christmas to be with family. Wasn’t going to argue with my mother who was nervous about us traveling across the country and getting COVID, but I also wasn’t going to just sit around San Diego twiddling my thumbs. So Emily, Mojo, and I decided to take a road trip up to Montana, Idaho, and Wyoming. It was a great trip. Normally it takes a while to digest a trip to know who much fun it was. I can already feel it on this one though. That part of the country really please me, to say the least. Lot of images to come.

Click here to see images from my America series.

Road Trip

Another one in the books, and what a trip it was. This was the time that I planned to be heading east for our annual family trip to Cape Cod, but that was canceled due to COVID. That was a real bummer. Still though, I wasn’t going to let it stop me from being on the road. As you can see from the route, this trip was quite different from the rest. Then again, every trip is quite different from the last. Was very happy to see parts of the country not previously seen, most notably in Nevada. Overall this trip was filled with fly fishing, backpacking, camping, commercial shooting, personal shooting, old friends, new friends, good times, and as always lots of food.

After leaving Southern California, I headed out toward Nevada and went up the western border of almost the whole state. It was 117 degrees out there, so not a lot of productive shooting got done. Loved what I saw though. And northern Nevada is almost an entirely different state altogether. Very mountainous. From there I clipped a portion of Oregon, then into Idaho where I met up with a couple old friends and met up with a photographer that I greatly admire. Next it was on to Wyoming for some fly fishing and back packing with friends in the Wind River Range. More on that later. When that was done I made my way back to San Fransisco for a 3 day commercial shoot, which was also a hell of a lot of fun. Then Emily and Mojo met me there and we started a week+ long drive up the coast. Completing the 101 was never an intention, but it worked out that way. And I have to say, it was really special. That route has a great reputation for a reason. Almost sounds dumb saying it out loud, but the coast of California, Oregon, and Washington are world class places. We ended the meat of the trip up on the Olympic Peninsula, which could be a whole trip in itself. The amount of shellfish we harvested alone was worth the drive. Every day we were eating fresh oysters, clams, mussels, and crabs. Once we started heading south, my truck decided to act up, causing a detour and semi brief stay at the RAM dealership. Not a huge deal though. After that happened, it seemed like the universe was telling me it was time to head home. So, with some fresh clams in the YETI, I did just that.

Stay tuned for images.