Back in 2021 I was shooting a bit more color, I think I wanted to get some photos of myself that were not black & white, and also it was sometime in the Fall.

In most ways the only things that now date these photos are that there is still a lot of construction equipment on the summit; everything else looks just about finished.

Will the circle be unbroken
By and by Lord, by and by?

No more dwelling on the past, I want to look forward.  I thought that I could tell a meandering story and trace a linear path to be read backward/frontward looking to a specific point somewhere in the past, but over time I’ve come to question whether my motives were ever pure or if I just lost the path somewhere along the way, and when.  My end goal was never in doubt, but I’m ending a few paths I’ve been exploring recently and running back into the arms of my family.  I’ve learned though that being open to all possibilities by oneself and broadcasting on all channels is likely to get one under some intense scrutiny and after all, how could I have hit the bullseye if I wasn’t even pointed toward the Target?
The only True beginning and ending

Actually not the Trolley but the 12-passenger van they call the 12-gauge.

It wasn’t full for a few tours so I didn’t necessarily have shot after shot taking up a full roll of film like I usually do, less to work with.  These ones work I think.

(I submitted this article to 35mmc a while ago, I think right around New Year’s, and by mutual consent we decided Mothers’ Day was the perfect time to publish it.  The article itself is mostly an expansion of a couple articles I already published (with pics from other posts thrown in), but I like its new form even better.  Their format is different from what mine has been, and is informing it more as this blog evolves.  Much more to follow: I think it’s the start of a beautiful friendship.)

When growing up, it’s often common to think of your parents’ house as “Home.” Somewhere you can always go back to, somewhere that should always be a safe place. My mother’s house was that for me as much as I was able to have that, and over the years I’ve been in and out of that house so many times, living there as well as just visiting. And through it all I’ve had my camera(s) with me, documenting the process. When I was young I remember looking through picture albums with one of my parents and them telling me stories or just reminiscing about certain events. I find that in my own life, the more I photograph something the better I can remember it later, whether it’s a space, a time, or an event: my friends’ houses, getting together for barbeques and whisky tastings, my bedrooms over the years, birthday parties, my times in COVID quarantine, and yes, my mother and her house. Over the years these all provided good fodder for my cameras.

And whatever cameras I accumulated over the years, those eventually found their way Home at some point, and if I didn’t end up using them anymore they ended up in a closet or later in my mom’s garage, until I brought them down to sell them all at my local camera store. I was forced into this more than anything else, due to a lack of space, and because my mom’s house ceased to be Home after she died a little over a year ago–my brother and I couldn’t make the numbers work to keep it.

The last few months I was there are what I’ll most remember now: spending my birthday looking for my mother’s will and breaking the bad news to her upstairs renters, living there alone while we figured out what we could do with the place or preparing to sell it, sleeping in her bed, watching movies on her TV, all the categorizing, cleanup, etc. In a sense these aren’t really the memories I wanted to keep but they’re what I have, and perhaps the biggest part of that are the pictures I took while I was there.

My mother succumbed to COVID very quickly after she contracted it; ironic considering how much she complained about the ridiculousness of the whole situation over the last two years. From cancelling Thanksgiving dinner to going to the hospital to the confused information my family got from that, to seeing her for the last time, to putting her under sedation to try intubation, to pulling the plug: less than two weeks. I don’t have any hospital pictures and don’t miss not having them, but as soon as I was at her house for the first time in months the pictures started coming.

From the way that she left the house to the places that I spend the most time in, to the view that I always had whenever I sat on the couch: all the times I was alone there. And then there were all the people that helped my brother’s and my collective family during that time, all my boxes that were stored in her garage, the grand moving day, and all the empty space after most of the furniture was gone and the house was ready to put on the market, and the times during the Winter when it snowed and I had to shovel the driveway, just walking around the place during blizzards trying to capture the perfect snow pictures of the house. That stuff is all there but when I go back through the pictures there were more mundane things in the moment, evocative of a longer time spent in that particular place:

The way I’d use the folding bathroom mirror to cut my hair and look from different angles.  The way that I’d bake something in the oven and there was always that one spot where the condensation would accumulate and then drip off the door when I opened it–I tried to take a picture of that and it was the one time that it didn’t happen.  And the boxes of tea that she got me that last Christmas, that I really didn’t want so I left them behind and then when I was up there I used them all up in a few months.  The spots in her shower that for some reason in 2009 reminded me of Åse from Peer Gynt–I told her to never clear that off and she never did.  I’d forgotten about those instances sometime after I took the pictures but finding them again brings it all flooding back.

I went back through my photo archive to find the last picture I took of my mom and it was a full five months before her death, part of her birthday celebrations where my brother, our friend and I took her ziplining. I suppose that I thought (as we all do in the moment) that there will always be plenty of time to take pictures later, another time. If you’re reading this, maybe rethink that. Tell your parents you love them, take their pictures, make something you’ll be proud to hold onto. I made sure to do that with her house to capture as much of her imbued spirit as I could, because I missed my last chance with her while she was alive. After all is said and done all that will be left behind us will be the pictures, and the memories associated with them. And that’s what I will remember about what used to be Home.

Technical notes: I have many cameras, the ones I’m using at the moment are featured here: Nikon F2 (unmetered), Nikon F2A, Nikon F Apollo (unmetered) (plus a couple minor ones thrown in: Minolta SRT-MCII, Canon AF35MII).  Primary lens was an AI’d Nikkor K-series 35mm f/1.4, with a little bit of AI’d Nikkor-S 50mm f/1.4 and AI-s Nikkor 28mm f/2.8 (plus the Minolta MD 50mm f/1.4 for one shot).  I shot a few different film stocks around that time: Kodak Tri-X 400, Ilford XP2 Super, Ilford HP5+, Kodak T-Max P3200, expired Kodak BW400CN.  Lab: Cameraworks, Colorado Springs.  Scanned/finished by myself using the Pakon F335 and Affinity Photo.

You can find me at The Resurrected Camera or for strictly photo project work, my Instagram: @thefamouspdog.

Dear D: I’ve written you letters here, but in respect to The Letter: that was never meant to wound you.  Just how far past your guard did I get?  Girl, you left yourself wide open; I had been waiting for you to cross that boundary just once more before I pounced, and you generously obliged me.  I’ll have you know you had a good riposte (if it was indeed yours).  And I fully acknowledge that The Letter was directed at God and you were an innocent bystander caught in the crossfire (though that doesn’t fit with the fencing metaphor).  But I’m asking, was I wrong?  Too rough, perhaps, but that isn’t the same thing.

I was playing with my nephew just a few days ago, flipping him off a rocking chair/glider, and he seemed to be enjoying it, continuing to climb back on, all the way up to the time when he faceplanted.  Yet he didn’t blame me, he just wanted Mama to kiss it and make the pain go away.  My instinct in the past would have been to beg an apology out of the kid but I realized he didn’t want that from me, didn’t resent me, and still wanted to keep playing even if I subsequently directed it toward more gentle activities.  I don’t feel the need to make an apology if it’s only in the service of assuaging my own guilt at causing unintended pain.

But I woke from a dream not an hour ago and that has me making edits, or at least an addendum.  Will others follow in time?  I don’t know, when it’s so little to go on.  But you’re right to keep your guard up.  Protect yourself!

Thanks to my bro for holding the camera on these, he’s just as good at focusing as your mom.  

I’ll bet you think this post is about you
Don’t you, don’t you?
-Carly Simon

I remember the first time I heard this song I was walking through the thrift store hunting after books, stereo equipment, or cameras, just minding my own business and this song snapped my head around, almost gave me whiplash.  I was 23 or 24 and had just recently moved to Colorado, was really not in the best headspace, and this song felt like a dagger stuck into me.  As I write this I went walking around town last night, it was First Friday and a photographer I had met at my portfolio reviews had a gallery opening so I went to support her, but only stuck around for a few minutes because the other exhibition (of paintings pertaining to online dating) and the text she’d written kind of triggered me, it felt like another attack but in a different way.  And this morning I was thinking about how poorly I’ve been sleeping over the last two or three years, it’s hard to say exactly–possibly another kind of attack.  I guess I need better armor surrounding me or I’ll think absolutely everything is a personal attack against me, and that will send my thoughts spiraling ever downward.

Because really it wasn’t me who was being attacked but this little boy inside of me, the one who liked drawing and singing songs, who was innocent of everything the world would throw at him.  He didn’t know yet that he shared the same first name with one of the worst mass murderers in history, that he’d struggle so hard almost every time he reached out for a place to be, or wonder what hope of a future he has with the examples he’d been given growing up.  He just wanted to make things for the sheer joy of it, and be told how much he made people proud of him.  I want to protect that little boy to my dying breath.

I don’t usually go out for “Jesus books” but I’m currently reading Get out of Your Head by Jennie Allen which is one I’d wholeheartedly recommend to anyone, as long as you can stomach the verbal shorthand used by Christianity.  Because there’s something important that’s being communicated there, about protecting yourself from some sort of artistic voice of diminishment.  I’ve heard this discussed other places: from a few of the music faculty at UCCS, to this guy talking about Nick Drake.  This voice of diminishment inside of all of us, and the more we listen to it, the more we shut down to protect ourselves from attack, but the more we’re killing who we used to be: the little boy or girl inside of all of us who just wants to sing, dance, draw, whatever.  I think a lot of people killed off that kid inside of them early on just because it hurt too much to be open to the attack, and a lot of the ones who didn’t unwittingly use their art to attack other people’s inner child.  I don’t want to be either, and if I react against the world’s attacks, I want to make sure that I’m attacking the source: not the symptoms, the people themselves, or their Voice inside of them.  I hope you feel something similar.

Though maybe to be able to do that I have to consider the possibility that the song (or this post) is actually about me.

If you want new weekly pictures the previous post should hopefully satisfy you.

Annalies started following me in Instagram and I get some random women do that from time to time, for whatever reason.  I looked through a few of her pictures and realized how true it is, that it’s hard to recognize people you work with/near when they’re not in cowgirl getup.  But I followed her so I could send her a message and a pic of her that I’d taken last year (and then promptly unfollowed her so that my feed stays film-photography related).  Anyway that led to this interview and I’m so happy that it happened!  You never know what connections you’ll make or where your life will take you.

Klein House Interview (a few new pics in here as well)

It’s a meaningful experience being asked to dig inside myself to find the right answers and I dug deep.  I think ultimately, that the most rewarding aspect of it though was discovering an aspect of who I am by reading Annalies’s unique perspective on me: I’ve been searching for some of that recently so this was a real gift.

Encounter Night at Zeal.  I needed the reminder.

I don’t know why and I don’t know how.  And I don’t know the meaning of absolutely everything that I do anymore.  This series was taken during a time of absolute clarity and now the further I get away from it the more insane it all seems.

I’m sorry I ever voluntarily cut you out when you left something open.  I couldn’t bear the thought of further prodding from you, I felt like you gave me permission by starting first.  In retrospect it seems retaliatory and keeps escalating, but you can hold all the cards now.  It’s become a strange form of communication although at least I know now that you still read what I have to say.  I can’t say that I understand why, but you coming in now is kind of like judging a work in progress.  So be it…

Today started with a series of images, the first my hand pressed against a brick wall, the second a few books I’ve read recently (but primarily the current Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters), the third a triangle enclosed by a circle.  From there I ate breakfast continuing to watch From the Earth to the Moon and going in order, I was up to the episode about Apollo 13, where of course no one knew if the astronauts would make it back alive until the very end of the mission when the parachutes deployed.  I feel like I set off a chain of events very much like that back in January and now the suspense is killing me.  It could go either way and honestly a 50/50 chance sounds pretty good.  For several years now I’d say Col. Brandon is the Jane Austen character with whom I most sympathize.  Browsing Instagram I came across a couple images of walls and decided to make a post about it:

I woke up this morning with the Image of my hand against a brick wall, and I don’t know what’s happening on the other side of it, I only get split-second glimpses over the wall and that makes me always fear the worst. What I really want to imagine is that your hand is in the same place as mine, and we’re merely separated by a few layers of bricks. But it’s all indeterminate.
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In my feed this morning I found two images of walls right on top of each other, but they’re a lot more transparent, permeable or surmountable.
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My image is one I’ve had ready to post for some time, it’s a wall of my own construction. I’ve deconstructed it and put it away in storage. I keep it because it cost a lot to assemble, I value it, and ultimately I long to build walls around us, not between us.

The building blocks remain in storage for now, but I unblocked an account that I’d cut off.  While I wrote this letter for Her it could as easily have been to God, and as much as I might want a relationship with one, I’m desperately in need of the other.  I was feeling tired and tried to go to bed early but was only able to sleep for an hour, woke up with a song in my head which hasn’t happened for a long time, so I spent about an hour getting down what I’d heard and playing guitar to figure out chords, etc.  It’s currently just a skeleton but better than nothing and significant to me for being the first time in a long time this has happened.  I just hope I don’t hear it on the radio someday and realize that it’s already been written and I just heard it somewhere before.  Apollo 13 was America’s 23rd manned space mission, my thoughts immediately went to 21 which would be the triumphant Apollo 11.  What all this is supposed to mean I don’t know but it all seemed significant enough.  Now I just want to get back to sleep but it’s nearly 11:30 and I’m not tired…

Some nice shots of critters over the last few years, most of them rather close-up to me or my camera.

I probably missed an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of James Herriot but then I never really considered being a veterinarian, that was always my brother’s dream.  I however, had a dream about horses last night, so…

(I wrote this a while ago but held back because I decided to wait until 35mmc published it; of course I rewrote a lot of the article so it’s worth checking out on their site as well.  It’s my first published piece outside of this blog, and I’m very happy it’s finally happened!)

It’s been probably 5 years now but I bought a whole bunch of 2017-expired Fuji Superia 200 off ebay, and it’s lived in my freezer since then; I shoot a roll or two every year.  With the run on color film right now I decided to pull out a couple rolls so that I didn’t have to dip into my stock of Portra 400, Gold, or Ultramax (or Velvia).  This is all shot around my backyard or in the city park just beyond it.  About the only time I get the itch to shoot color is when the leaves start changing, and these photos are the result of that.

I seemed to remember in this post that it didn’t handle the shadows as well as I thought it could so instead of shooting it at ASA100 I went for ASA50 this time, and wasn’t disappointed.  The grain structure is wonderful: occasionally noticeable, but tight and for the most part unobtrusive.  And the colors…I’ll always love Fuji’s colors more than Kodak’s for most applications and this film definitely has that look that I’m in love with.  These are mostly shot with the 28mm and 35mm AI-s Nikkors, because I think from now on I’m just going to trust the matrix metering on the F4 whenever I’m not shooting a film with which I’m intimately familiar like Tri-X.

Again, I don’t need to be famous, I just want to be loved.

Jeep tours 2019, though I think I actually published a couple of these here before.  These ones have been shared by some IG supporters of mine, either on their stories or their main pages, so thanks for that.  I suppose that’s one way to get a good handle on what your best photos are: see which ones make people the most enthusiastic!

Ahhhhh, tungsten-balanced film!  I wish there were more of you in the world!


Some people are blessed by the Cinestill gods and every shot they take is magic right out of the camera.  Others, like myself, have to really work for it; I kind of take it for granted that I’ll have to put in some effort in post making Cinestill films look right.  A few months ago I picked up a 52mm Nikon-branded Wratten 85B filter for use shooting Cinestill 800T outdoors, and it works like a charm, much better right out of the scanner.  Though I really do like the look of the unfiltered shot as well, even with early dawn light it was still pretty damn blue.  I really think that if you are planning on using this film in all conditions, it behooves you to get an 85A or 85B filter.  Armed with one of these Cinestill 800T easily becomes the most versatile color film you can buy; I just hope that someday Kodak makes something like a Portra 1600T so I don’t have to deal with the annoying halation effects…

I have a piano book that’s been in my family for ages, certainly all the time that I was growing up.  When I got back into taking lessons at age 16 I was playing a couple pieces out of this book, and with the copyright being earlier than my parents, it’s entirely possible that this book belonged to my grandmother originally.  In finding the number 21 coming up a lot, I went back to this book and found this song on p21.  I’d already taken note of the song on p42: it’s the only title in the book that’s just a woman’s name, and it happens to be yours.  Why such a coincidence?  Is it just because I’m looking for it?

If I do say so myself.  Modeling my brand-new shirt, self-designed (kind of) and custom tailored through Rutledge’s, my local Colorado Springs haberdashery.  They sent me a Christmastime coupon, and my boss gave me a gift certificate as well, which went a long way towards paying for this shirt.  I’ve worn it a couple times already to events where I needed to dress business-casual.

I’ve used Cinestill 800T a few times, usually indoors with very poor lighting, but I recently bought an 85B filter and am starting to use this film in more all-around capacities.  I’m happy to say that the results have been incredibly promising!

Hat: Stetson
Shirt: Rutledge’s
Jeans: Brave Star
Boots: Alden
Truck: Chevrolet
Dirt: Colorado

35mm f/1.4 AI’d Nikkor lens and she got right up to it.

Glen Eyrie castle tour, Jan 2023.

So tired of all this traveling
So many miles away from home
I keep moving to be stable
Free to wander, free to roam
-Peter Gabriel

I gave it up long before Ash Wednesday, but it’s been a slow process of weaning.  Nothing more to fall back to, no hidden places in my heart.