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I’ve got fond memories of this shoot. For one, we shot in an area that’s special to me. It’s the only place near my home where I can run on dirt trails. Lindsay, Chad, and I walked down the hills where I earn my courage in the summer—where I run on dust-swirling trails in 100 degree heat, listening to the endless narrators of 2666 on my ipod. I don’t really run that far or that fast, but I go to my absolute max, and the endorphins created by that little act of perhaps foolish mid-day courage create a loyalty to the moment that I think will stick with me for the rest of my life. The summer’s barely over and I already miss it.
Of course the other reason is Lindsay and Chad. They drove three hours to make the shoot happen. She said she’s been looking forward to it forever. In fact, after the shoot as I drove them to their hotel, Lindsay interrupted the silence by asking aloud, “Now what am I going to look forward to?” There’s no substitute for clients who pick you. I’ll shoot, think, and work for them to my absolute max every time.


Operating on a hot tip that we’d run into some primo photo opportunities, I told Chelsea and Will that we should head to the Little Spokane River nature area. It was late evening when we got out of our cars. A couple mosquitos landed, but we slapped em and started walking down the trail. Three minutes later there was a mosquito on every freckle. We did that thing where you pretend that you’re frantically and endlessly applying soap to every area of exposed skin. I promised that around every bend we’d finally hit sun. Meanwhile, the river and trail were beautiful, but there was a buzz—a constant, tormenting, Edgar-Allen-Poe-like reminder that we were never alone, that we never numbered fewer than a hundred. Fifteen minutes in, we turned back.
These pics? These pics we took in a field along the road. Then we all sported calamine lotion for a few days.

An early preview because it’s lonely editing photos all day in a dark room with only Radiohead’s Airbag/How Am I Driving, chocolate milk, and an Old English Sheepdog for company.
