Featured

The Quarantine Blues (And Reds)

Dr. Susan Baker is a virologist who has been studying virus transmission for over 30 years, which is obviously relevant at the moment. When I met her in her lab last week, she was cheerful and extraordinarily giving of her time as I fumbled around with my equipment that I haven’t been able to use nearly as often as I’m used to.

Polar Vortex Hits Chicago

Who doesn’t like long walks on the beach, even if it is -22 (-51 windchill)? Walking around in this type of weather for an extended amount of time feels like you’re inhabiting another planet. The only sounds to be heard are the constant whirring wind gusts and glassy ice crunching and grinding under foot. The […]

Photos of the Year 2018

Pretty sure 2018 couldn’t have been more different than 2017. I went from freelance photographer to staff photographer. And instead of shooting photos all over the world, I spent 2018 shooting photos (mostly) within the confines of a few acres of campus. While the traveling was a great experience with some unforgettable stories, I’ve thoroughly […]

Seeing What I Don’t See

During a presentation of his work, photojournalist W. Eugene Smith famously responded, “I didn’t come here to talk nuts and bolts” to an audience question asking what type of camera, lens and film he used. Those who know me know that I’m not much of a “gearhead” when it comes to camera equipment. I put […]

Access to the Madness

Back in early March during a brief meeting of our Marketing and Communication staff to gameplan for our March Madness coverage, we said to ourselves, “Wouldn’t it just be great if they win that first round game?”

For Loyola to make the tournament at all was historic—this was their first trip since 1985—so the decision was for me to travel with the team, documenting what it was like for Loyola’s first team in 33 years to go to the tournament.

Oh, The Places You’ll Go

With this being my 10 year “anniversary” of my first visit to Cuba I felt strangely stuck between two time periods as well. In 2007 I was a 17-year-old who knew relatively little about photography (or Cuba) other than that I thought it was cool. To return as a 27-year-old getting paid to photograph in Cuba and teach 17-year-olds about photography felt surreal and inspiring at the same time. It sort of felt like living out a real life version of a favorite childhood book of mine, Oh, The Places You’ll Go.

A Changing Cuba

Cuba—which in most people’s minds is Havana—feels defined by its dilapidated chic of crumbling mansions, vintage cars and fading grandeur. Much has been written over the future of the island now that American tourism is surging, which increased 450% this past year. On one hand I find the idea that American tourism will somehow change the country to be arrogant if not naive. After all, Cuba welcomes 3.5 million tourists a year and Americans only make up a fraction of this. If tourism “changed” Cuba it’s happened well before hoards of Americans arrived.

Morocco: A Visual Feast

Casablanca’s humid ocean breeze mixes sounds of motorbikes, car horns and call to prayer that provides a suitable soundtrack for reflection.

For the past month I’ve been working as the Photo Instructor for Rustic Pathways’ Advanced Photography Workshop in Morocco. I taught photography to a small handful of incredibly thoughtful and motivated high school students with the help of a crew of indispensable Moroccans who guided us around their beautiful country. The trip itself was a fast-paced tour that had us cruising across a large portion of the country to see many of Morocco’s famous sights.

New Orleans

The Best of Wurstfest

Spent an afternoon shooting Wurstfest in New Braunfels over the weekend, and it involved a lot of weird mashups between German and Texan traditions. Having grown up in Wisconsin where German heritage is much more pronounced, it was pretty odd to see how Texans embraced and changed the Octoberfest-esque event to make it more Texan […]