Spent the morning shooting Old Sacramento with my Leica M6 with Kodak Tri-X film (expired).

After an interesting and eye opening chat I had with Reuben Redding a few weeks ago, I have been shooting various subjects with different cameras in an effort to try and find my way. One thing that came up in that discussion was that I seem to want to label myself a “street photographer” or a “landscape photographer” instead of just a “photographer.”

The class started with Gus discussing his various exercises for the street. These included some common street photography tips such as fishing (staying in one location for a while) and following (pursuing an interesting subject). He also talked about having shot lists and wish lists before going out and also forcing yourself to take half a dozen head shots if you’re feeling nervous or timid. But the real star of this lecture, and the most useful, was his idea of Sketching.

Street photography is a bit of a mystery to me. Probably because its origins are surrounded in mystique and filled with famous names and even more famous photographs. But what sets an iconic street photograph apart from just an average or a not very good one?

A brand new magazine for creatives called Lots has just issued its inaugural issue. I’m excited to be featured in their Street Photography section.

I took a walk through downtown Roseville to see how the local shops and restaurants were dealing with the crisis. The place was a ghost town with only a handful of people out and about on a beautiful spring day.

We took a trip to Santa Cruz over the Labor Day weekend. We usually go to Aptos when we come to the area but my youngest wanted to stay in the mountains for a change. We found a nice Airbnb in Boulder Creek, a small community in the Santa Cruz mountains. It was a nice change of pace to staying at the beach. I can’t say I like it more, but it is nice to change things up now and then.

We had been mulling over several options to get away for our 25th Anniversary week and we finally decided as a family to head down to San Diego. We were there in Mission Beach with my wife’s extended family in 2017 and had a great time, so we thought perhaps we could recapture some of that magic.

This past weekend my wife and I took our 17 year-old daughter down to San Francisco for the weekend to experience Pride weekend. She is a lesbian and has a hard time meeting others where we live so we wanted her to know what it felt like to be around lots of others like herself.

I was in a weird place when I arrived at the start of the weekend and I left with even more confusion and some clarity at the same time. We spent all day shooting Saturday and then spent all day Sunday critiquing each other’s work in the most brutally honest way I’ve ever experienced.

On a beautiful weekend at the end of March, my wife and oldest daughter went down to Napa for the weekend. The weather had been rainy and cold for most of the month but the sun and warmth came out for that weekend. Before our trip, I had recently received Lomography’s 800 speed color film in the mail and I was anxious to try it out.

During the weekend of March 23-24, I attended a 2-day black and white workshop with renowned street photographer Alan Schaller. It was a fun but tiring weekend and I learned a lot, probably more than from any other workshop or class I’ve ever attended.

We took the opportunity to celebrate our 25th Anniversary a little early in the year and booked a cruise around New Zealand.

I met up with Amy, a friend from college, for a Documentary Family Photography shoot. She suggested I shoot her and her kids while they played a around of golf. Turns out Amy’s son and daughter are both on the golf team in High School and Amy thought it would be fun to capture them in that milieu.

This past weekend we went out to Folsom Lake to watch my niece’s High School Mountain Bike team compete in a race. It was fun to see her compute in such a wonderful sport.

With a few days left of vacation time, we decided to head down to our favorite part of California: the Monterey Bay. We usually stay a little north in Aptos but there was nothing available at the last minute so we booked a place as close to Carmel as possible in Pacific Grove.