46

ƒ/8.0 | 1/400 | ISO400

Greenhouse

One of the wonders of Grímsnes, Iceland is the greenhouse restaurant called Fríðheimar. I’ve been conceptualising a science fiction movie that would shoot in Iceland and use spaces like this to substitute for spaceships. When you are in this place you feel like you are in the future, cultivating food to sustain a colony of people who live in a remote part of the universe.

45

ƒ/6.3 | 1/60 | ISO160

Summer Nights

The idea that every single aspect of a photo needs to be in the perfect exposure range is something that is relatively new on the timeline of photography. I haven’t totally jumped on board with it as I feel like the photos always look unnatural. I don’t think I’d be able to get this photo on film without a lot of heavy editing in the darkroom, burning & dodging the top and bottom a good amount. Having a camera with the dynamic range of the Q really makes life easier when shooting a photograph such as this one.

44

ƒ/4.9 | 1/60 | ISO800

44 | Nov. 4th, 2008

Why not a throwback to a time when things were looking totally different for the world? I remember this day so well: I was working the floor at the Ralph Lauren Rugby store in Chicago constantly checking the computer for updates as to how the election was unfolding. I had recently returned from spending the summer in East Hampton, New York watching the richest community I’d ever lived in look on in horror as their August vacations were being cancelled left and right as the banks on Wall Street were collapsing in an epic worldwide economic meltdown.

You might not remember, but Obama spent the first 10 months of 2008 campaigning on changing the world based on one word: Hope. He represented the next sea change that my generation was desperately clamouring for. We had been raised in the 1990s with so much wealth dripping around us, it was a huge shock that our educations were being sold at prices that were going to saddle us with debt for the same amount of time a mortgage would by the same people that our parents told us to vote for who happened to love sending our peers off to die in wars that were sold on lies.

Obama was a new thing. A chance for the USA to go forward into this economic crisis and re-write how we would rule the world as the greatest country on earth. Obama declared, “This is our time, to put our people back to work and open doors of opportunity for our kids; to restore prosperity and promote the cause of peace; to reclaim the American dream and reaffirm that fundamental truth, that, out of many, we are one; that while we breathe, we hope. And where we are met with cynicism and doubts and those who tell us that we can't, we will respond with that timeless creed that sums up the spirit of a people: Yes, we can.”

Looking back we know it took only 3 years for Obama to forget he included in his speech was this passage: “Let us remember that, if this financial crisis taught us anything, it's that we cannot have a thriving Wall Street while Main Street suffers.” Because it only took 3 year for the Millennial segment of Obama’s movement to move on from him and become Occupy Wall Street. Had Obama listened to this movement, where would we be now?

But I digress, I was working on the sales floor of Rugby, checking updates and simultaneously trying to get my ticket to be at this historic event. After countless disappointing refreshes of the site, I checked in with my mom and found that one of her co-workers had gotten a ticket that wouldn’t be used and I jumped at the chance to meet her downtown and go see Obama give his first speech as President-elect. The energy of this moment was unparalleled as a quarter of a million people filed into Grant Park to catch a glimpse of the man that meant so much to the world at that time. What a moment it was.

43

ƒ/3.2 | 1/1000 | ISO100

Kastrup

Walking through an airport as big as Kastrup in the throes of a pandemic is otherworldly. These benches caught my eye as a place that normally would offer refuge for those waiting for their loved ones to make it through immigration or just a nice spot to relax in between long layovers. During my own layover, I saw under 100 people over the course of 6 hours. A total mind trip.

42

ƒ/10.0 | 1/125 | ISO 100

Been a while, as it always is when things get busy. Now that things are slow, I may as well post some photos and tell the story a bit more. I was recently on a production in the Faroe Islands, which as you can see is a special place on this planet. Yes, that is a waterfall ending in the Atlantic Ocean. Pretty simple landscape photo, open the aperture, lower the ISO and try to balance the light for the highest highlights and dark lowlights. My favourite part is the colour of the ocean, which was as beautiful a colour of the ocean as you’ll ever see.