I hit a bit of a milestone birthday this month, and feel 100% celebratory about life (looking forward, looking backward and looking at here-and-now), photography, possibilities and potentials.

In the category of “They never tell you _____ when you’re younger”, I would include that the appreciations in life continue to grow, year after year.

I appreciate so much, both breadth and depth.

I appreciate meaning and beauty and honesty and calm and art and connection and so much more….

I appreciate where I’ve been. I appreciate where I am. I appreciate where I’m planning to go.

Stella….

I’m asked almost weekly if I’ll photograph pets. The question always surprises me, because I LOVE pets, and believe that family photos without pets aren’t really family photos, at all!

This lovely couple (he works in Alaska but in Bloomington — long cool story…) wanted to celebrate the life/legacy of their oldest dog, Stella (pictured in the middle). Stella has cancer, but is bravely undergoing chemotherapy and related treatments. The couple wanted to preserve the family unit while there was still time….

If you’re reading this and considering whether to schedule a portrait, and whether to include your furry buddies, by all means please contact us. We genuinely feel blessed that we’re able to give families these precious visuals (this one is blown up and framed in their home). Preserving moments, connections, love through the sense of sight…. It’s an indescribably honorable, humbling feeling.

If I could affect one change in this world, without hesitation it would be for the abolition of meat consumption.

I find the practice of killing/consuming animals to be immoral, unnecessary, vulgar and repugnant.

There are many, many diets far more healthful than those including animal flesh. Countless studies have proven animal consumption isn’t necessary to our wellbeing, physical fitness or mental aptitude.

People eat animals, to my mind, out of simple disregard, and/or a sense of superiority, over the animal. The animals don’t stand a chance against the mass collective of humans who inhumanely raise them, grotesquely slaughter them, and then casually, dismissively, consume them.

The entire structure of the meat-industry make me forlorn, disgusted and, frankly, angry.

To have an animal in your home, call it your pet, and yet to eat, randomly, another animal? To love watching birds in your backyard, but eat others on your plate? To love your family/friends/parents/children but eat an animal who itself had family/friends/parents/children?

I’ve no idea how many people read my blog. Google tells me there are 3,000-plus monthly on the site. I would ask, if you’re reading this (and, it’s true, this post has nothing to do with photography), to please consider meat substitutes, alternatives, recipes, lifestyles that don’t require slitting the throat of another living creature.

I’ve been a vegetarian for at least 30 years, and can say (and show) from experience that a plant-based diet is wholly healthful and life-enhancing in every imaginable way — not the least of which being spiritually. I love the sensation of knowing I can look into the eyes of every living creature as an equal. I’m not going to hurt you, and I respect and hold sacred your own personal life journey. I’m literally rooting for you.

No-one and no animal wants to be abruptly slaughtered. Even more true when the killing is for no greater purpose. Life, being an inexplicably awe-inspiring gift, should play itself out in its own due natural course.

For the environment. For the love of your fellow earth inhabitants. For doing your own small part to help. each. life. live. full.peaceful. lifespans…. Please consider alternate meal preparations. They’re fun, amazing and much more healthful.

My mom, when I was a boy, told her family and friends that she was positive I’d move to Canada if drafted (late days of the Vietnam War). She was likely right. I certainly don’t believe in killing, for war, for sport or for food. It’s all so fundamentally wrong.

Every artist I talk with agrees that one of the most challenging aspects of a career in the arts is looking back on prior work.

Regardless of how good or bad an artist’s earlier work was, the actual artist believes the prior work was inferior to what he/she is producing now. And, it likely was.

We improve. We get better. We sometimes get much, much better.

I know I look back on my work from several, or a few, years ago, and I’m not necessarily embarrassed, but am unquestionably aware of the higher ground I’ve attained. It’s both a positive and a negative sensation, simultaneously. I would like to have been better before, I’m proud of where I am now, but I’m also keenly aware that I’ll be significantly better in another few years….

The key…. Maybe it’s not to be too proud of anything we’ve done — We’ll get better, if we work hard. But, equally, don’t be disappointed if you’re not where you want to be. We’ll get better, if we work hard.

Commercial/Corporate/Business/Industrial Photography is so rewarding. I love spending days in new-to-me cultures, and then, further, of course having access to actually capture images of the workforce and the products/services…. This career is such a rewarding adrenaline rush.

One of the most memorable and thought provoking weeks of my life wrapping up this evening…. I’m heading out for a long run to think about life, death and a couple of the things pressed in-between…..

Magic is believing in yourself. If you can do that, you can make anything happen.

Goethe

Open a map. Plunk your finger down. Enjoy the journey (and pack your golf clubs).

this business is a daily gift.

a quiet, peaceful, meaningful meandering through the lives of others, sharing so much more than words alone are capable of expressing.

i deeply love photography, and am correspondingly deeply blessed that my professional life is 100% vested in watching for moments and catching those moments for clients throughout the state of indiana.