North Light

I've been thinking about Block Island a lot lately. Beyond the fact that I've spent a good deal of time practicing my photography there, it's just a beautiful place. It has this magical way of giving you permission to take as much time as you need to do what you want to do. This long exposure photograph from 2012 is a good example—the North Light is miles from where I was staying, it was long past sunset, and I had never tried to blur the waves crashing on a beach with a long exposure before. Yet I spent half an hour photographing the lighthouse from this vantage point. Block Island gave me the space to capture one of the first long exposures I've ever been proud of. I can't wait to go back.

Fire Over Hurricane

During the culminating Colorado Plateau field trip that my Regional Field Geology class took in the summer of 2014, we passed through the town of Hurricane, Utah. We had driven past some small and distant brush fires during the day, and then camped in a state park on a reservoir outside the town. But as darkness descended, we realized that the fires were bigger and closer than they had seemed, and appeared to be looming just behind a ridge over Hurricane. After dinner, I stood on the back bumper of one of our vans and balanced my camera on the roof to take this 30-second exposure. Neither us nor the town were in danger though, so we just watched in awe...and started singing "I set fire to Hurricane" to the tune of Adele's "Set Fire To The Rain."