Light in a Box

Last year was supposed to be the year of travel according to my 2017 outlook last January. It lived up to expectations with trips all over the country and beyond. In a year full of travel, I took a picture or two. While I continue my ten lists of ten to start the new year, this next one was hardest list to put together. Here are my top ten pictures taken this year. 10. Octopus in Aruba The video for this shot would have been higher up the list but this is a top ten photo countdown so the still will have to do. This made my list of top ten experiences of 2017 and the picture brings back the excitement of watching this alien stare me down. The video is even better because you can see it change color and it even darts across the screen for a new hiding spot at one point. The image quality here isn't great but the memory is the reason for this shot making the list.  9. Quandary Mountain Goats A fun "before & after" for all you Wheel of Fortune fans, and the s...

What a year 2017 was. Aruba, Hawaii, Savannah, Death Valley, Disney, Great Sand Dunes National Park, Sarah and I bought a house, there were weddings, babies, parties, an eclipse, a lot happened this year. So in a year that flew by with all the activities, I thought I would look back and pick out my top ten favorite experiences from the past year. 10. To Go Cups Savannah was a great trip, so great we might be back before we visit Oregon for a second time. The best moment on the trip was the afternoon Sarah and I walked the streets of the historic district. Savannah is covered in more history than Spanish moss and the historic district is the center point. While the sun beat down hard for a spring afternoon, walking those cobblestone alleys with my wife was as carefree as I have ever been. It also helped carrying a frozen daiquiri around on our self guided tour. With sweat being unavoidable, taking advantage of Savannah's "to go cup" policy helped keep us cool and made w...

College was where my passion for photography exploded, fueled by the stars. It became a nightly routine to drive the 20 minutes out of town to the dark shores of Lake Superior to photograph a sea of stars I've yet to beat. This would lead to my experimentation with light painting, steel wool burning, glowing orbs by inserting flashlights into balloons, and eventually lighting my hands on fire. The stars became the subject of my make or break personal art review series for which I photographed specific constellations for an hour and extracted just the star trails of that group (an example can still be found in my logo of the constellation Leo). This was some of my last work with astronomy until the eclipse. I'll get the travel complaints out of the way now, it was a nightmare but by no means reduced the experience. On Sunday morning I woke up in Ripon, WI after celebrating my sister's wedding day. I drove an hour and a half to the Milwaukee airport to catch a flight to D...