Went up the canyon to Alta on Saturday for a small test shoot with my Subaru ‘prop’ (just one of its many talents when it comes to the IRS). It was going to be the first of a series, but I think the concept is headed back to the drawing board for now since I’m not in love yet…
Shot day for night with 4×5 film and composited in post with some digital elements (see the raw film scan below). No retouching footage this time around, my machine was taxed to the max this morning 
Last spring I was pleased to be featured on the CA website, here. Now, a year later, I am once again delighted to have been selected as their Fresh pick in the current issue of Communication Arts!
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After a year in the making, my new stock photography website is up and running, allowing creatives to search for images from my personal collections of travel, landscape, portrait, and adventure stock imagery, and create lightboxes of potential images for their layouts and campaigns.
Please take a look!
My father is an ophthalmologist, so naturally my childhood was spent watching cataract surgery videos with dad (accounting for probably half of the movies I had ever seen before I turned 20). I guess the basic idea was that there’s something to be learned by watching a huge, unblinking eyeball on the screen get poked around by various instruments. I actually thought they were pretty fascinating to watch, which nearly got me suckered into a medical career later on. My mom, on the other hand, had no interest whatsoever. She liked seeing eyeballs in the scale and context God intended.
Some will no doubt feel similarly about watching these retouching clips from a few recent personal images, although luckily they’ve been sped up x10 (an advantage I rarely enjoyed with dad). Mostly just color-tuning for now, but I’ll try to post a few more with significant compositing when I come to it.
Example 1:
Example 2:
Example 3:
Example 4:
Norway doesn’t have a lot of flat terrain, so people have to travel for hundreds or even thousands of miles to visit the rare exception and have a picnic, even if that spot is as small and exposed as Preikestolen, located in Lysefjorden (near Stavanger). With sheer 2,000′ drops to the fjord on three sides you definitely want to keep an eye on the kids.
My personal favorite. This dude's pose was awesome
Me on vacation. © MMF
Went for a ski down to the fjord on New Years Eve with my Nordic muse outside her home on the island of Jeløy. It was a refreshing change in pace from the sort of skiing I’ve become accustomed to here in Utah, where performance, adrenaline, and technology reign supreme over wooden skis, wool sweaters, and simple pleasures.
To be sure, Norway today has one of the most sophisticated ski teams in the world, rumored to spend more on just their nordic wax R&D than the entire US Olympic ski team combined. However, strong vestiges remain from an era when skiing was simply the most efficient way to get around during the dark half of the year (see exhibit A).
Exhibit A: Knud Bergslien's 1869 'Rescue of Haakon Haakonsson'
These photographers called themselves the Nikonians in reference to their collective choice of camera brand. Although my Graflex 4×5 became a brief conversation piece, their considerable brand loyalty was undeterred. Thoroughly courteous, they always offered to step out of my shots – at least until I reassured them that they weren’t interfering. ’Are you sure?’ Yes, I’m sure.
Location: Death Valley
Cabins in Norway are the real deal. They dot the landscape like tiny shrines to Thoreauvian minimalism – usually without running water, indoor plumbing, electricity, or even road access – and usually seem as relaxed and natural in the landscape as a herd of deer. Nothing like the faux-timber monstrosities that awkwardly overpower our landscapes in the west.
Things to remember for when I build my dream cabin someday…
Photos from one of several 2000km road trips through Scandinavia this summer:
By sheer coincidence I managed to experience both of 2009’s solstices in Norway.
Midday sun over Oslofjord
Midnight sun from a ferry in the Lofoten Islands:
Homage to Caspar David Friedrich:
On the roof of Oslo’s new billion-dollar opera house.
