Dad

Today is the 9th anniversary of my father’s death. I wouldn’t normally advertise something like that on here except that something odd just happened about 15 minutes ago that should be shared.

I got a phone call. I didn’t answer it because I was in the middle of eating dinner and I didn’t recognize the phone number. However, whoever it was left a message.

When I checked the message it was the voice of a young boy, probably between 3 and 5 years old. He was talking very quietly and was difficult to understand and I didn’t catch what he said the first time. I listened again, and made out the first words he said to be “Dad, I love you so much…” I couldn’t understand anything after that, but that’s all that really mattered to me. 

I’m not a dad. This was obviously a wrong number, but it made me wonder how much of this is coincidental? I don’t know. I go back and forth in my thoughts and beliefs about the afterlife and coincidence and phenomena, but this incident is too much to ignore. Maybe it’s hitting me more because it’s intensely personal and down right weird. It’s something that my dad would appreciate.

I called them back to tell them that they had the wrong number and that whoever the message was intended for would probably like to get it. Nobody answered. I left a message. Ha!

Do me a favor and tell someone you love them.

Up North

My fiancee, Deborah, and I went up to Minnesota for a week in the beginning of October. My brother beat both me and my sister in the Twin Cities Marathon (the reason for the trip) by 7 and 8 minutes, respectively, and after two days of recovery, D and I headed further north. There is some debate about exactly where “up north” begins in Minnesota. It may begin somewhere around the center of the state in Brainerd, MN which is where a talking statue of Paul Bunyan and Babe the Blue Ox stood as the welcoming committee to the state’s upper region before the pair was loaded sideways on the flatbed of a tractor-trailer and relocated. But really, I think “up north” is a state of mind that begins once you are able to get away from everything else. Up north can be anywhere.

We spent a couple days in Duluth, MN at the Voyageur Lakewalk Inn, a throwback motel in the downtown area near the lake shore. Liquor stores close at 10 pm in Minnesota, and as we found out from the hotel manager, after then you have to cross the bridge to go to Superior, WI for a drink. We went to get a six-pack and he asked if we’d grab him a bottle of Crown Royal since we were going that way. It was that kind of motel. We happily obliged.

Deborah commented on the light in northern Minnesota as having a Spirit. She added that she’s felt it before in Santa Fe, New Mexico as well. It was crisp, but maybe that was the just the cold air messing with our senses. We’ve got wonderful orange and pink dripping hot sweaty sunlight down here in Florida. Up there it seemed blue and clear, even sharp at times. But good light is good light, no matter where you are and it certainly added to the trip especially considering we were there while the leaves were changing color.

The main goal of the vacation was to get lost, and we managed to do it a few times. Here are a few photos from the weekend.

FADER – Brisco

I’ve been fortunate to have shot a few assignments for FADER magazine over the past year. It’s an honor to be asked to contribute to a publication that utilizes a lot of incredible documentary photographers and uses their photography extremely well. So when the new issue came in the mail the other day I was excited to see that the latest assignment I shot for them about a rapper named Brisco from South Florida was used for the opening of the Gen-F section.

Windsurfing

TED & James Nachtwey

TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design) has had me hooked ever since a friend began poking me in the ribs, telling me all about the presentations on the organization’s website. They have an impressive collection of speeches by inspiring people who are exploring the limits of how we think about anything from science to food to marketing to music to whatever, all in the interest of obtaining greater knowledge of the world both around us, and within us.

Photographer James Nachtwey won a TED prize in 2007 granting him $100,000 and his “wish to change the world.”

“I’m working on a story that the world needs to know about. I wish for you to help me break it, in a way that provides spectacular proof of the power of news photography in the digital age,” he said during his speech.

The story will be broken tomorrow in grand and alarming fashion no doubt. Help spread the word.