Since I started taking photos, I've been drawn to long straight paths - vanishing points. There's a certain magnetism that makes my eyes and sometimes my feet wander, guided by light.

Denver has systems of long, stretching alleyways in many neighborhoods. Most are purely functional and non-descript, places to park your car or to put your trash out for collection. Certain areas, such as Lodo, have more trafficked and utilized alleys. Very few are what you'd call pretty. They're not faster to walk down than the sidewalk and some of them are trash-strewn and, well, gross.

I try to find beauty in unexpected places and in the mundane. I still contend that you don't always have to look too hard, even in urban alleys.

Too be continued, I'm sure.

Photo #7 NSFW.

Photographers talk about chasing light. Light creates. Light defines.

I need some light to counteract the darkness permeating our nation. Since November 8th, I’ve felt an anger and a sadness that are new to me. Every fiber of my being feels uncomfortable with most of what our government is doing and especially with how they’re doing it. I feel a desperation, a fog of disgust, a true fear for the future.

So I’m going to chase light.

I’m going to resist through beauty. In this small way, I will do my best to surround myself with the opposite of what I’m reading in the news. I will be a fortress of beauty and kindness. A reminder of it’s power. I will refuse to let these people affect me any longer.

As long as the weather cooperates, I’ll be spending the 3rd week of February traveling around and photographing a part of the country that, in its way, matches my current mind-frame: isolated, a bit remote and bleak. I’m planning on driving through the Nebraska panhandle, south-west corner of South Dakota and the eastern side of Wyoming. Wind, sky, snow and not much else. I will look for light.

I hope I'll meet and talk to some good people along the way. If you know of anyone fighting the good fight in that part of the country, please consider putting them in touch with me.

I’d love to photograph these people and give their efforts a platform, however small my personal platform is. I’ll also donate a percentage of profit from sales of prints from this trip to the ACLU or Planned Parenthood or some other deserving charity.

I have to do something. Time to fight back. I’ll start by chasing beauty.

Chasing light.

#resistancethroughbeauty

Denver Alleys

Chasing Light