This is my daughter, my one and only daughter. I spent a lot of the year dragging her around with me on photo shoots, to art shows, and on adventures.  It was all probably just an all-too-late, last ditch – attempt to hold onto the little girl she was. She’s not the same girl she was a year ago. She’s growing into the beautiful woman she is going to be. She is headed down her own path, and I guess it’s my job to watch over her and make sure she doesn’t veer too far off course.

I captured this photograph at the Stand Together Rally in Rapid City in February. Nancy and Jennie held hands as they watched the speakers. They were turned down for a marriage license at the Pennington County courthouse and have since filed a suit against South Dakota for not recognizing their marriage.

The dead of winter is a tough time to be a photographer in South Dakota. It’s cold. I don’t like being cold. To combat my unending drive to be creative, I pulled out our projector and over the course of several photoshoots captured some very unique art. We played with images, fog and light. This is a shot of my friend Andrea(‘s shadow). She was more than a great model, She danced with the light and together we had way too much fun.

One evening, I found myself on Skyline Drive… like I often do. I thought the sunset was going to be amazing, and it was, but not in an earth shattering photo kind of way. It was very soft and subtle. Rather than looking out over the hills, I turned my attention to the delicate grasses under my feet. I also pointed the lens to the north instead of west at the setting sun. There was a great big thunderhead that was holding onto all the orange and pink light as if it was saving it for later. There were a handful of lovely shots from that evening that have since entered my catalog, but this one stands apart and remains my favorite.

For about 3 and a half minutes, I considered hosting photography parties. Parties where I would haul my gear to peoples houses, we would fill rooms with fog and psychedelic images and shoot. It’s great in theory, until you consider that A) I get tired of things way to quickly and B) Party booze and  expensive camera gear doth not mix. I did have some fun playing though and this shot was captured at one such event. My friend Steph was a very good sport.

Some images are just killer… aren’t they? This American Coot was more than tolerant of the strange camera lady that kept eeking closer and closer. He stayed put though as if he knew exactly how good he looked on that log. This photo was taken at the reservoir at Bear Butte.

“ICE CREAM CASTLES”: There was about a 2 month period this year when I was out shooting several times a week. This particular evening, I had committed fully to staying in. I had parked my butt on my couch and had the remote in hand. Then I looked outside. It was as if the sky was yelling at me, almost mad that I had chosen laziness over art. I submitted to its not-so-subtle courtship and flew out the door.

There’s something about this shot. I’m sure it has to do with the circumstances behind being there, I find that’s often the case. Regardless, I love this one… it’s soft and, quite simply, nice. It was taken at Terry Peak in early spring. All of the slopes were closed. The skiers were gone, but the snow certainly wasn’t. A heavy thick fog rolled in just after we had arrived and I had enough daylight left to get out and do a little shooting.

OH, the rattle snake – I wrote up the story behind this one already, you can read it if you want to. I think though, after putting some time between then and now, this really was one of the best moments of my 2014. There’s something that is truly me about this one, and I think if you know me, you know why.

In an abandoned house in an abandoned town, I found an abandoned swallow nest that had crumbled and left a handful of dead or dying baby birds on the rotting floors below. I know, I know, it is very sad, but you can’t deny the poetry. The poor little fella in this photo had already perished but one hatchling still held onto a thread of life. Its movements were slight and you could tell it was close to giving up too.  Two sides of myself argued with each other. “You have to leave it alone, this has nothing to do with you.” vs  “You have to do something, you can’t just leave it here to die!” It was devastating and heart wrenching, while at the same time completely engaging – by far the most interesting thing I photographed that day. I ended up scooping the tiny creature up with some random artifact left behind in the forgotten home and placed it into another mud nest affixed to the wall above a broken window. Was it the right thing to do? I don’t know, it was something to do as opposed to doing nothing. The whole experience was so much of  a metaphor of life itself. The lifeless town, the lifeless house, the lifeless bird – the bird that held onto life. Me, watching the bird, in the house, breathing, moving, living…. I will let you write the rest out in your head. I can’t do it justice. Just know this is a lot more that a photo of a dead bird.

Such a huge part of my year consisted of traveling. I went everywhere, sometimes I went with people, sometimes I went with my dog and sometimes I was all by myself. I clocked a lot of miles on my recently purchased Pathfinder. This particular photo was captured right after the sun had gone down on the Platt River. I had the brilliant idea of forcing my daughter to hang out with me by putting her in the car, driving to Sioux Falls and then taking the super-long-way home. We spent 3 days on the road and camped along the way.  Having a kid is a funny thing. Every step of the way you want to freeze and hold onto forever. You dread the “growing up” part, but inevitably, it happens and you find yourself loving that phase just as much as the one before. All you can do is hold onto the moments like this and face the future with anticipation. She’s a cool kid and I have no reason to expect that to change. I can’t wait to see who she turns into next, but until then, I will secretly hope she stays just like this… forever.

On another “Throw the kid in the car and drive around” adventure we found ourselves down in Wind Cave National Park. I was doing an exceptionally good job of annoying my kid by “taking too long”. I was wandering out in a field chasing bees and dragonflies when something special caught my eye. It was this beautiful Monarch Butterfly. It was very restless and kept me super busy as I chased it around. It was an excellent exercise in shooting though, as it bopped in and out of my field of focus.  I read somewhere that they migrate up from Mexico to Canada over the course of 4 generations. That means the ones who leave Mexico never make it north, but their great grand kids do. However, once in Canada they give birth to a “super generation” of Monarch and it is able to fly all the way back down in one life span. Now, that is pretty much the extent of my Monarch Butterfly knowledge (with out enlisting the help of the great God Google) So I cant tell you where in the cycle of butterfly this one fits, It doesn’t really matter it was what it was, a flutter of an encounter in a field in western South Dakota, and it was a treat. They are a very fine creature.

The weather was really strange on this particular day. A fast moving storm dumped an ample amount of moisture on the great plains North of Rapid City. I was chasing the edge of it as it moved to the East. I started to notice though a strange thing start to happen after it had passed. All the recently deposited moisture started to rise back up and form small low clouds, and they weren’t following the storm to the east, instead they were moving rapidly back to the west. It almost seemed like the Black Hills were sucking the clouds back as if they were trying to quench a ravenous thirst. I had never seen anything like it and several moments of my drive-about were spent simply watching in awe. The particular formation shown here happened in an instant and was gone seconds after I clicked the shutter. My guess is that the cloud peak formed as the pressure hit Bear Butte which sits just below the cloud peak.

My dear friend Kelcy and I ventured out mid May to grab a shot of the moon rise over the Badlands. I found a precarious perch and straddled the famously unstable peak of a formation with my tripod.  After the moon came up, we found a place to sit and watch the darkness soak in and even caught a glimpse of some big horned sheep doing what they do so well along an adjacent cliff.

I took a trip to Sioux Falls with my Dad. He was showing me around when we drove through an alley. I had to stop and shoot this building. I simply couldn’t help myself. My dad smiled at me when I climbed back down from my sunroof as he said “I knew that was going to happen.”

I love this photo. I love how huge it feels, I love how you probably have no idea what it is. I love the light, I love the composition… I love it. Quite the contrary though. The space is tiny and it is actually just a photo of the space between the top of a coffee table and the floor.

“OH DEER”:  This photo will always be one of my favorites. It was taken on an evening drive with my dear friend Jaci. We did way more talking (as we do) than clicking as we crawled along the dusty back roads. As the sun was setting we spied a family of deer on the hill. I shot a few photos and we drove along. This photo was noticed by the editors of 500px.com and listed as an “editors pic” and is by far my most popular photo on their site to date.

There’s a stretch of road on the wild life loop in Custer State park that I find irresistible. My longest dear friend Rachel had made her way home from Arizona to the Hills back in May and I took her on a tour through the park. The problem with shooting buffalo is always trying to shoot a shot you haven’t shot before. They are remarkable creatures and its next to impossible to pass them by with out pointing the camera at them. The problem is though, how do you get a shot that is different from the 974 you already have. Sometimes the challenge is easy, sometimes the light hits them in just a way, or they show you some expression, they roll in the dust… sometime though they just are there, amongst the native grasses they have eaten for centuries, and the shot just happens.

A major point of excitement in my own personal 2014 was that I bought myself a new car. A Nissan Pathfinder that I fell instantly in love with. On our very first excursion together  We packed the car with dogs and friends and  we headed out to an area of the National Grasslands. A road that had called to me dozens of times but one I didn’t trust the old wheels of a minivan to properly explore. This photo was taken during a pit stop. It wasn’t staged, just simply one of those perfect moments.

“HOO ME?” If 2014 has been anything for me, it’s been a year of personal growth and exploration. A complicated year punctuated by both success and struggle. One particular day I was considering the value of it all and considering throwing in the towel. I headed out, just to clear my mind and had one of the most amazing “out there” trips of the year. The highlight was this fledgling owl. As approached you could tell that I had interrupted a flight lesson. Mom or Dad sat high on a power-line above the young owl who was contemplating his exact options for leaving his-fence-post perch. The encroaching photographer created the necessary push and it flew clumsily into the grass below where it proceeded to do its best, “I am grass” impression.  I was able to get out of the car and get the shot before it mustered the courage to fly off. This time it did a much better job and made it 100 yards to a cottonwood stand. I can not take any encounter with an owl lightly and this was no exception. I got back in my car and marked the significance of the encounter, I thanked the bird, took a deep breath and decided I could probably keep doing what I was doing.

“YAY SPRING”: Another shot I captured on my venture down through the parks with my friend Rachel. I really love the prairie dogs. I watched a special on them a while back. They are incredible creatures. They are social and they all look out for one another. They all have their own jobs and they are consistently hilarious.

There’s several things that are remarkable about this photo, I would like to tell you about two of those things. Besides the obvious, I feel compelled to point out that the lightning captured is traveling from the ground to the sky, not vice versa. It’s hard to point out that fact because it has nothing to do with my skill as a photographer, it is simply amazing and the fact it happened at the exact moment my shutter opened and closed really has nothing to do with me, except I pushed the button. The second point though I can take credit for. About 20 minutes prior to this moment, I was having a text conversation with my mom that went something like this; Mom: “Are you somewhere safe and dry?” (In order for there to be a rainbow, there has to be a little rain) me: “No, I am chasing the storm” Mom: “Be safe, ok” Me: “I will, I am trying to get a shot of a rainbow and lighting at the same time” It was at that point that in-coming texts turned from motherly concern to storm tracking updates. She said, “you should be good as long as you head north-east”. Which I could tell by the way the storm was headed, but I also could see where the storm ended to the west, and I knew that there would only be a few minutes between the sun dropping below the cloud line and before it hit the horizon. The key was to stay close enough to the storm to keep up with the lightning and far enough out that I could stand outside with a tripod without getting soaked. I found said spot, but it wasn’t with out its challenges. The recent rainfall had turned the dirt road into not just mud- but that kind of mud that makes you 3 inches taller with each step you take. I trudged through it though and set up the camera, I used a remote shutter and let it roll. To be honest, I didn’t think I got anything at first. I scrolled through the shots and saw this one in there, but my first impression was disappointment at how little the bolt seemed to be. The lightning display had been so spectacular and all I had captured was this little bolt – I decided to wait to form an official opinion until I was back at the computer. It wasn’t until then that I realized what I had captured.