In June of ‘01, we found ourselves driving from Maine to Montreal. We needed a break and so stopped at the Ben & Jerry’s factory in Waterbury, Vermont. I paid my respects to the dead in the flavor graveyard behind the factory.

Before we moved in.

When you’re at the beach it’s all so clear, but later, looking back it fades and blurs and starts to feel more like the lazy aimlessness you felt while there.

Sometimes photography yields happy accidents like this random shot made with a junky underwater throwaway camera. I find this blurred and washed out image far more satisfying than whatever I was actually trying to do.

This is the beach outside our hotel in Cancun. We were there in Jan ‘98 for our honeymoon. The water was rough, black flags and all, so the calm Carribean seemed more Pacific to me.

We stayed in Cancun a few days drinking gringo drinks from coconuts before renting a car and breaking out for Yucatan. We visited Tulum, stayed a few days in Merida where we went to Uxmal (I posted a picture of some of the ruins here) and the Puuc Hills before returning via Chitzen Itza.

I got this shot of Honolulu, looking out towards Diamond Head in July of ‘79. During that summer, we moved from Washington, DC to Subic Bay Naval Base in The Philippines, but the journey was as exciting as the destination since we had a three-day layover in Hawaii.

I was between 2nd and 3rd grade, but all through 2nd grade we had studied Hawaii. I learned all about the various islands, King Kamehameha, the attack on Pearl Harbor, the humu­humu­nuku­nuku­āpuaʻa, and had even tried poi. We were in Arizona visting my grandparents when we found out that we were going to get to go to Hawaii.

I was very young, but I remember it all very clearly. I think it was the combination of spending a year studying it before actually getting to go that had the effect of searing it all into my mind. Unfortunately, I was recovering from chicken pox and had some kind of infection on my foor that prevented me from getting to go to the beach, but we saw quite a bit of Oahu anyway.

I’ve been meaning to get back into Old Photo Fridays, but since we had the floors done, we haven’t got eveything put back and the old photos aren’t too accessible. And then, the screensaver served this one up, which is only a year old, but old enough, I guess.

I took it from the back of the boat on the morning we cruised up the Canyon of the Eagles. The view is looking downriver, below the canyon, looking towards Lake Buchanan, all glass early in the day.

It was a quick snap off the back, but I really like the flat colors and that bird who just happened to fly into the picture while obeying the rule of thirds. Smart bird.

I wrote two posts about that trip with more pictures. They’re here and here.

Sometimes the sunsets around here make me think of Jupiter, and I wonder what it would be like to live on a moon orbiting a gas giant.

I took a color photography class as an undergrad in ‘92. This was in that box. I’m sure I made the image during that semester, probably in Round Rock. It could be anywhere, but the houses in the background feel like Round Rock to me.

The print was too big for the scanner so it’s cropped a bit from the original, in which the tree isn’t quite as centered.

One of my favorite central Texas hikes is the Good Water Trail that follows Lake Georgetown west as it turns into the North Fork of the San Gabriel River. My dad and I hiked the whole thing in the summer of 2002. It’s not too long, but it made for a good, hot and exhausting day.

This is a picture of the springs, the good water, I suppose.

This was taken sometime in the early ’90s at the quarry on McNeil Road in Round Rock. I spent a lot of time out there when I was at UT taking photo classes. Some of my favorite images came from those excursions.

I took this one on the same day.

It’s funny. I couldn’t find an old photo since some rearranging has made the Closet of Old Photos and Other Unfinished Projects more difficult to reach, but then sitting back at the desk, I saw this one framed and waiting right where it’s always been. I guess I just haven’t noticed it in a while.

It was taken in March of ‘95 somewhere in northern Arizona. That’s me in the middle. The woman on the right is my wife, but not then. We were still just friends. The woman on the left is L. She introduced us, but I haven’t seen her in years. J took the picture.

That trip took us to New Mexico, the Grand Canyon, Vegas and finally to LA where I fell in love as the sun fell into the sea.

This sunrise was taken from the summit of Mt. Monadnock, New Hampshire during the summer of 1988, just before we moved to Texas.

It was the last thing I did as a Boy Scout and it was probably the coolest. We started hiking to the summit around 3am and arrived just before dawn. All around we could see the tops of other mountains poking out of a sea of clouds.

It’s the best sunrise I’ve ever seen.