7.1.21BrightonA good corner of Brighton.

7.2.21Silver Grove Dari BarI helped dig holes and fill them with wood and cement all day. Thankfully, the weather was beautiful and I’m not too tired from it. I think the key is drinking lots of water and taking a rejuvenating shower afterward. Despite needing to build a deck, I also need to do my photo jobs, though. One of the jobs involves the Silver Grove Dairy Bar. I went out to it this evening to get a few shots.

7.3.21Disappearing Camera in NorthsideJob in Northside this morning before getting back to work on the deck. It’s a beautiful renovation on Cherry Street. I had to get this done today because the couple sold the house and will be transferring keys to the new owners early next week. They wanted to document all the fine work they did, and fine work it is. I don’t know what the new owners paid for it, but I can imagine it’d be well out of my own price range. I did my patented disappearing camera trick for this bathroom photo. When it works, it’s very satisfying.

7.4.21A Gift From the PastAshley’s grandfather, Ray, gave us some old artifacts and family heirlooms this week while he’s been popping over to check out the deck construction. Today he gave me an envelope with a 1941 Reds schedule inside. The folded piece of paper is old and fragile, and I can’t help but imagine the tree that was cut down so many years ago to make it. On the reverse side is an advertisement for a restaurant that once stood at 9 East Eighth Street—a building that no longer exists and has been replaced by a parking lot across the street from the Public Library.

7.5.21Hidey HoleI took precisely one photo today, and it was this one. I am tired in every conceivable way at the moment and just don’t have it in me to do anything more. Despite my mental and physical fatigue, I am worried about Myrtle. She is suddenly very sensitive to firework noise and has been having a rough go of it the last week. To mitigate her stress, I tried building her a bed full of blankets in our tiny closet. I then draped another blanket over her to make her feel more enclosed and cozy. Thankfully, this little hovel of hers seems to be helping soothe her anxiety. Last night she stayed in this spot after being coaxed out of the basement and seemingly got some sleep.

7.6.21BrushleyDay five of deck-building. It should be usable tomorrow if everything goes according to plan. Anyway, I needed to do some quick portrait stuff for my in-laws and Ashley was my stand-in while she got ready to go to dinner.

7.7.21An Interesting JuxtapositionI have been photographing the TPS Hotel for Luminaut on and off for weeks now. Today I needed to get some exteriors for them, and zoomed in on the transition between the massive infill and the older building. Personally, I love what they did with it.

7.8.21Sitting In Darkness On My New DeckAfter seven days, a few minor injuries, and endless sweat followed by rejuvenating showers, I have built a free-standing deck off the back of my house with help from my father-in-law and my father. Today I added the railings and topped them with solar lights, finalizing the deck’s aesthetic (for now). I need to wait a few months before I can stain the wood the same color as the grey composite boards on the floor. Anyway, I still have to build another piece that stands next to the deck, so a full photo of everything is still incoming and this little sliver is all I’m willing to share for the moment. I took this with my iPhone in what looked to my eye to be near total darkness, and somehow that little palm computer lightened it enough to make it a decent, albeit grainy, image overall.

7.9.21The Newbees[The original caption to this photo was lost] I shot the Newbees show at Union Hall tonight. It was the smallest show I’ve ever been to. They sounded really good regardless of the audience size.

7.10.21Laying Sod[The original caption for this photo was lost] I laid a bunch of sod yesterday and it looks great. I hope it takes. The area where I put it was dug up for the deck construction and looked awful before the sod went in. Myrtle, of course, loves it.

7.11.21Bellevue AmeristopThere was a lobster roll food truck in the parking lot of Ameristop today. As far as I can tell, it is the first time that parking lot has seen a food truck. And based on the way people reacted to it, the truck was a huge success. I waited a half hour for a Maine-style lobster roll before getting to enjoy it. The wait was worth it and I hope they do this again. After I ate my roll, I went into the Ameristop and got ice cream from Meghal.

7.12.21Alternate Modes of TransportationWhen I arrived in Denver, I relished the chance to ride into the city on the train. The route ended at the beautiful Union Station. The area was bustling with activity, though I don’t know how much of that was due to the All-Star Game that’s also happening at the same time.

7.13.21Not the Skyline I WantedWhile doing my job in Highland, I was on the 14th floor when I happened to catch a view of the city below. I took my shot and was pleased that at least I got the outline, but it’s not the skyline shot I wanted. The haze was so bad, you couldn’t even see the mountains. I guess this just means I’ll need to come back again with Ashley during non-wildfire season.

7.14.21The L LineRode the L Line from 25th & Welton back into downtown this morning. Much like our own Cincinnati streetcar, it was nice to hop on and relax while I made it around town. I liked this specific shot because I caught a bike in frame with it.

7.15.21DuskFor the architect. Several frames edited and merged into one with Photoshop’s sky replacement adding additional mood. I don’t usually like doing this much processing, but marketing photography is different from conventional documentation. Polish is harder to achieve in the real world, especially in an uncontrolled environment, thus it requires an increased level of attention in post-production.

7.16.21Constant Incoming AnxietyA storm was rolling in behind me when I took this quick photo on my phone. The wind was blowing so hard at certain points, I almost dropped my phone. Clutching it tighter in my hand, I waited for some people to meet me at ICON. There, they’d go over photoshoot details for a Foo Fighters concert I’ll be photographing soon. It’s going to be a long day and I’m going to be on my feet for all of it, so I’m wary of the assignment. This happens constantly—I accept a job, then I get extreme anxiety about it leading up to the day while making sure I do not communicate that feeling to anyone else. I know I am capable of doing this job because I’ve done stuff like this countless times before. I know event photography is within my wheelhouse, but even though I intellectually know it to be true, there’s a part of my brain that just doesn’t allow me to feel comfortable about any of it. It wants to tell me I’m going to fail this time. Then, I do the job and the client is pleased, I get my invoice, and life goes on. Repeat cycle. I’m not certain I’ll ever get over feeling this way.

7.17.21JCCHad a job at the JCC tonight. I don’t really feel like talking about it. Amid the chaos of running around trying to snap candid moments of well-dressed people laughing, I stopped to get a photograph of this section of the outdoor courtyard. I like the script on the sign and the shape of the building behind it. Reminds me of Crosley Tower in a way. I generally find non-Christian iconography and architecture to be more interesting, but I wonder if that’s a grass-is-always-greener bias.

7.18.21Wiener RampMy sister’s wiener dog, Luna, is having back trouble. According to her, she’s not acting like her usual self and has noticed she doesn’t do certain things that would otherwise place strain on her back, like sitting upright to beg for treats. She lives in a ranch style house but has two steps leading off her back door to the patio where the dogs run through to get to the backyard. Luna is having trouble navigating those steps, so she asked me to build her a little ramp. I used two 1x6 planks and some leftover plywood she had in her shed for the base, then used a 1x2 with a dowel rod for a railing (to visually guide her down the ramp). I also cut up a rubber outdoor mat into strips and fastened it to the surface to give her traction. Luna understood immediately how to use it and stopped doing the stairs within moments of the “grand opening" of the ramp. It turned out well and I’m glad she doesn’t have to place undue stress on her back any longer.

7.19.21UnwellLast night, I felt something creeping up on me somewhere in my subconscious. This morning, I woke up feeling unwell. Not physically, but mentally. I got on social media and it ramped up that feeling ten fold, forcing me to delete whatever I had on my phone entirely to get away from it. For the rest of the day, I stayed analog—a strategy I use from time to time to mend myself when I feel this way. I worked in my workshop, chainsaw’d an old wooden pallet, handled some household chores and organizational tasks, and cancelled my only photoshoot so I could lay on the couch, eat pizza, drink beer, and watch Star Trek. As the evening wore on and the sun subsided, I burned a bunch of cardboard I had collected in my basement. Something in me at the moment is extremely anti-social and anxious, and I wish I knew why my chemical imbalance causes this. I feel like a crazy hermit.

7.20.21Solo WorkMy mood from yesterday carried over into today, but I made an effort to be more social through electronic mediums. Anyway, I spent the day figuring out a few upcoming jobs, sweating over not receiving return emails, and wondering if I know what I’m doing with my career. Then I proceeded to eat Gold Star in my car before shooting an incredibly gorgeous Airbnb at 7 PM in Over-the-Rhine by myself. The image is from that shoot. Also, the richest person in the world spent a colossal amount of money to fuel his ego with an 11-minute sub-orbit flight instead of using that money for literally any other useful, benevolent purpose.

7.21.21Dumbing It DownIn the last six months, I’ve grown weary of always being connected. My best days are when I choose to avoid the Internet for the majority of my waking hours, and I slowly started to realize that wearing a smart watch kept me further connected. Text messages, emails, calls—my wrist would buzz all day. It started to wear on me mentally. Then, after I updated to the iOS 15 beta and my watch fell out of sync with my phone, I decided I’d had enough. This was my chance to return to a time when my wrist was merely a timepiece and not a computer. I bought this $20 Casio that looks almost identical to a watch I wore as a kid and it came in the mail today. It tells time, has a stopwatch, an alarm, and gives me the date. It’s all I need and all I want.

7.22.21The StripFilling my eyeballs with as much optical cotton candy as is legally permitted.

7.23.21Oatman’s BurrosWe drove from Las Vegas into California to see some interesting roadside locales, many of which were abandoned. The high temperature of the morning reached somewhere around 107ºF, and it’s reasonable to assume it was higher when we stopped in Ludlow in the middle of the afternoon. At several stops, I could feel the heat cooking the bottoms of my shoes when I stepped out onto the blacktop. As the evening crept closer, we headed south into Arizona and stopped in an old former mining town called Oatman. While the town is primarily focused on tourism based on its history, wandering donkeys are a big part of its charm. We weren’t even fully in Oatman the first time we ran across the friendly souls standing in the middle of the street to stop traffic and sniff around for food.

7.24.21Valley of FireWe piled into the rental car and headed out to see Hoover Dam this morning. From the bridge above it, I marveled at its size and tried to photograph it in a way that really highlighted its magnitude. From there, we drove deep into the Valley of Fire. I was struck by the vibrancy of the rocks and the dramatic shapes they took over the countless number of years they were formed. It was hot, and I am glad we had the fortune of an air-conditioned vehicle to keep us comfortable between stops; I cannot imagine how the hikers fared on their own air-conditioned-less walks through the park. The landscape was unlike anything I’d seen with my own eyes—the PNW certainly didn’t have a desert when I was out west last time.

7.25.21Neon MuseumIt was a slower day today than it has been over the last several days. With half our party having returned home, Justin and I worked in a coffee shop for a bit before finally heading to the Neon Museum in Downtown Las Vegas. Similar to the American Sign Museum back home, it features a collection of old signs in various states of preservation. Some light up and look generally well kept while others are rusted out and leaning against larger signs. The whole museum is outdoors and didn’t allow professional cameras inside, so I resorted to taking photos on my phone before it overheated in the sun and shut down. Also, one of the employees at the museum saw my Donatos shirt and revealed he’s originally from Dayton, OH. We had a reasonably long chat (in the shade) about Ohio and how he got to Las Vegas (his wife found a work opportunity here). We ate at Del Taco before heading back to the hotel at around 6 PM. I am incredibly tired.

7.27.21Event WorkShot an event for a company in a place for money today. This is the only photo I’m probably allowed to share from it because it doesn’t identify anyone or the company. If you’ve been here, you’ll know the venue. It went well.

7.28.21ICON’s First ShowI made better photos than this tonight, but I think this is the only one I can technically share since it’s outside the venue. Long story short, GBBN hired me to do a lifestyle shoot of everyone using the space on the first show night. For reasons, I couldn’t shoot while the band was onstage, so I had to get what I could while I had the chance. This wasn’t communicated to us beforehand, so it was a little disheartening. Since I wasn’t allowed to shoot after the band started, I just left. I don’t really care about Foo Fighters as is, and I really wanted chili, so I biked home on a RedBike and stopped at Gold Star.

7.29.21The Fruits of Today’s LaborMy iCal was totally free today for the first time in weeks. Instead of napping, I spent the entire day putting together the second installment of my Las Vegas trip series. I only left the house to walk the dog and get pepperoni for a homemade pizza.