Photos

I bought my D70 back in late 2004 while I was living in Mammoth. With it I got two kit lenses, four filters (two were identical), a cheap bag and a 1MB memory card. The strap on the bag broke within a week.

This was the first picture I ever took....


And this was the second...I'm still proud of this one...


Since then I've managed to use and abuse that camera to the best of my ability. I've dropped it in piles of snow, left it outside overnight, and in my brightest moment I dropped it (inside its bag) 20 feet off of a boulder in the West Bluff Talus. It now has two cracks running up the right side and another on the base. Those could possibly be from the hundreds of times I've bashed it accidentally on some random boulder at the lake. No guarantees though.

The memory card reader randomly decides not to work and I've lost hundreds of photos because of it. I've since figured out that I can treat my formerly $700 camera body like a Nintendo by blowing into the reader. It works most times.

About 4 years ago I bought a wireless remote and the first time I used it my camera shut off and an error message came up on the screen. I had to send it back to Nikon to get serviced. Cost me about $300 and I still have no idea why. The remote cost 10 bucks or something. Money well spent and I've been terrified to use it since. It's still sitting in my bag, collecting dust.

Then, a couple years ago the built in flash stopped working while I was using it with an off camera flash. I've made due since then and have been far too lazy to take it somewhere to get looked at. Despite finding detailed instructions on the internet to fix the issue I've yet to try and go 'under the hood'. Obviously I'm afraid of breaking my poor camera even more.

Through all of this my camera has treated me abnormally well. Really, truly, oddly well.

I've been lucky to get a few nice photos over the years. I've been even luckier to do that without photoshop or any sort of editing software. Frankly, I'm far too lazy to spend any amount of time "processing" my photos, though I do appreciate the effort people go through while spending hours editing their pictures. Everything I've learned is self taught and there are MANY reasons I'll never throw a watermark or signature on my photos.

What you see is what you get, imperfections and all. I find that charming to a certain extent as photos are rarely perfect and if they are, chances are they've been photoshopped a fair amount. All too often they're edited to the point of not resembling the original in the slightest. I like putting pictures out there that are true, natural moments. Whether the light was shitty or the sun wasn't sparkling just right, they're real snapshots of time. I enjoy pictures that aren't perfect in every imaginable way.

When it comes down to it, I'm a V3 photographer and I like it that way. It keeps things fun, light and Katie and I get to have the enjoyment of going home after a day of bouldering and uploading the photos onto my etch-a-sketch of a computer. I love that that's the extent of my "photo processing".

So here you go, a few of my favorites of the last 6 years. I'm very proud to say that there isn't a bit of editing in the bunch.













































































On a totally unrelated subject, this is my 300th post. It's incredibly mind blowing to me that this site has lasted as long as it has through the past 2 and a half years. We've seen huge, incredible changes in the landscape of midwestern bouldering and I'm happy to know that everyone here has been a large part of that.

I do want to thank the 'regulars' that have been showing up since the start. Sweaty, Eggnuts, RV, Remo, Nic, Runnells. I would have stopped this piece long ago if it weren't for you and I love that I can always count on you guys to carry on conversations in the comments.

One thing that constantly blows me away though is the random readership. I'm always surprised anyone outside of the people I just mentioned reads anything I write. I want everyone to know that I really appreciate it though. Whether it's someone from Texas that checks in every now and then or if it's people like McB and Em that comment once or twice. I really appreciate it and want to thank everyone for that.

When we were up at Nic's wedding Jeff said something about injuries making for funny blog posts and it stuck with me. I really had no clue that he read this collection of absurdity and I was caught off guard. I still find it so odd that people outside of the midwest read what has very much turned into a 'local blog' as Runnells puts it. I'm glad that this site is entertaining though.

Finally, the support that everyone showed me last week was incredibly nice and made me smile. Thanks for that pick me up.

And just so we don't end on a lovey lovey note, RV........you suck.