Stopping to smell the…trillium
I was thinking recently about Jim Brandenburg’s project in which he made one picture each day throughout the Fall. It ran in National Geographic in November 1997. He shot one frame each day for 90 days. Many days when I’m out for a run, I’ve wished I’d had a camera. It’s always for simple, beautiful [...]
Paradise Found
Leo and I were reading a book recently. A character mentions that living in a country with libraries in every community must be paradise. Leo stopped me. “What’s paradise, Papa?” I told him it was the most perfect place you could imagine. A place of infinite happiness. Sounding a bit wistful, he said, “For me, [...]
Next Up: Gigantic Brewing
This morning I rode down the street to pay a visit to former Hopworks brewer Ben Love at the site of Gigantic Brewing Company, his new endeavor with fellow brewmaster Van Havig. Not unlike the time capsule that I photographed at Hopworks before construction started, the Gigantic building in southeast Portland is layered with stuff [...]
Biketobeerfest – Hopworks rings in the Fall
Bouldering Bike Bands Breaking Big Beers. Bizarro! Saturday was the third year for Biketobeerfest at Hopworks and it was quite a party. Rain fell, and in true Portland fashion, there was somber talk of the moisture marking the end of summer. Yet, those same people took some time to toss a bike, cheers on some [...]
Cyclocross in Oregon
It’s almost like the holiday season and the urge to decorate and celebrate a few weeks earlier each year. There have already been several cross races and yet the big series is still weeks away. Yesterday’s race Pain and Suffer’n is an annual test of a racer’s ability to plow through pulverized hay fields and [...]
Traveling Cross Country…with Kids
Eastern Utah Has this summer already slipped by? I’m still trying to piece together this notebook full of thoughts and ideas that’s sitting here. I had two boys in the back seat asking questions. I had the best co-pilot in the world. We thought it would be a great idea to drive from Portland to [...]
Pickathon: It’s On!
Multiple times this week, I set out to put up a post about some of the awesome assignments and projects I’ve been working on. It’s been a great summer. But this is the peak right here…today Pickathon starts and I guess I can’t really think about anything else. Pickathonography is here, and people are saying [...]
Pickathon Book To Arrive Soon
We were out camping over the weekend and I asked my friend for a section of her New York Times she’d been reading in her tent so I could light the fire. She smiled and said that she’d been reading it on her Kindle. We’re living in a time when bookstores are being shuttered by [...]
Great Leaps of Time
Neskowin, Ore. I just realized that I’m still stunned by the incredible beauty of watching wave after wave crash into the powerful remnants of an ancient forest. Trees that stood tall, some say, 2000 years ago. Trees that collapsed into the ocean, perhaps, after an earthquake. Their torsos, their hips, their knees preserved by salt [...]
Pickathon book on Kickstarter
Pickathonography Volume One click on the image to go to the Kickstarter page This is five years in the making and forty-five days in the search for funding. My friend Patrick Barber and I are weaving together a bunch of images, stories from music writers and essays from past Pickathon musicians and making a book. [...]
Revisiting the house concert
Enjoying the potluck, waiting for the As Faiscas show. Last summer, right when things were crazy with warm weather everything, I threw out a request to let me know if you knew of a house concert at which I might be able to make pictures. I love the house concert. I made it to a [...]
From farm to fame
Jill Andrews watches as The Avett Brothers warm up in the parking lot at Pickathon 2006 If the Avett Brothers pulled out their instruments and starting playing tunes in a parking lot at a music festival today, I believe there would be a few more people perched on that tailgate with Jill Andrews. But that’s [...]
The mightiest toe
I suddenly felt the dreaded sensation of my foot beginning to slip out from under me as I ran down a slick little hill this morning. It’s one of my favorite spots on the trail. There’s a bit of texture to the land, a creek at the bottom of the hill, trees, leaves, roots. I’ve [...]
Snow Days
“This is the best vacation ever,” Leo announced. Jack agreed. Sara and I smiled. We hadn’t gone very far or done a whole lot or been gone very long. But as these guys get older, it seems they keep redefining what was, or is, the best ever. Leo’s face told the story on Saturday: a [...]
Langhorne Slim – Hard to Miss
I knew this year Pickathon would be different than any previous: More bands, fewer sets by each band, more friends at the event than ever, more decisions. I was going to miss music and I wasn’t super happy about it. So looking at the schedule, I started to do triage. I mentally crossed out Langhorne [...]
Big Mountain, Little Dog
With Mount Rainier hovering, Ryan Trebon rolls on during the Rapha Gentleman’s Race This summer, while photographing a bike race, I popped out of the woods and rounded a bend on Pittsburgh Road above the town of Saint Helens, Ore. Three beautiful volcanoes, Mount Rainier, Mount Saint Helens and Mount Adams, came into view. It [...]
Kiddie Cross
When you line up for any kind of race in Bend, Ore., there’s a good chance you’ll find an Olympian or ex-Olympian lining up nearby. That place is loaded with champions. Even the fans appear to be in better shape than the runners or cyclists who are doing the racing. So I wasn’t surprised to [...]
Shadowy Future
I just overheard the boys, now five and three, chatting in the bath. “Jack,” Leo said, “dinosaurs are dead. People have never, ever seen them alive.” Saturday, while on a little adventure in The Columbia River Gorge, we found ourselves face to face with a ten foot long sturgeon named Herman. He’s the freak show [...]
Unplugged
Just last night, Portland band Blitzen Trapper played an acoustic show at the Portland Playhouse in front of about 150 people. The audience was silent. The air was still. Vocal harmonies filled the room and sent chills across my skin. It was a different vibe than the past times I’ve seen the band. Those guys [...]
Rapha Gentlemen’s Race
Many times throughout the day, riders asked me if I was doing okay. How was I holding up to the heat, the miles. Was I getting enough water. It was, after all, closing in on 100 degrees and the race snaked through the Coast Range for 123 miles and more than 6000 feet of elevation [...]
Post Pickathon 2010
Langhorne Slim at Alberta Street Pub on Tuesday night Every year, something unplanned seems to happen a few days after Pickathon that brings a few folks back together to share a hug, a beer and some stories. Last night, Langhorne Slim and Woody Pines showed up at Alberta Street Pub and cranked out some tunes [...]
Summer of the Fish
First fish. Timothy Lake on Mount Hood, Oregon We’ve already spent a good chunk of these summer days out camping somewhere in the Cascades. Mount Hood, the Metolius River, the McKenzie River and two different Clear Lakes. The driving force and unexpected thrill of all of this has been watching Leo, 4, dive into fishing [...]
Passing Time
My dad, brothers and I heading out to go fishing in Colorado in 1977 Leo, age 4, with my dad in 2010 Photo editor and fellow PDXcrosser Mike Davis suggested on his blog just before Father’s Day to “make a picture of your dad, if you can, to remember him as he is this year, [...]
Finally Summer
Huckleberry ice cream The sun was watching the calendar up here in the Northwest. On Monday, as if on cue, the weather and my attitude changed with the flip of the switch that sent us into Summer. High lake, still snowy We were up in the Cascades on the Metolius River when it happened. The [...]
