Portraits - Yannick

Yannick is a professional snowboarder from Belgium. Yannick hates being in front of the camera, and consequently his mother has no recent photo his. When a friend had heard this, he gifted him a portrait session so Yannick could send a portrait back to his mother for Christmas. Despite his reluctance, I managed  to capture some nice images portraits.

Madison Santa Swimsuit Run - 2013

On one of the coldest days of the year, swimsuit clad runners took to the Madison Capitol Square for charity.  The Santa Swimsuit Run starts with a pre-party where the majority tank up on booze to get prepared for the run.   Two laps around the square and back to the post party for more.  It's all good fun and for a good cause.

Test Subject

When setting up the studio for a photo shoot, it's nice to have a stand-in while configuring the light set up. Mark is an often unwilling subject, but is a good sport about it. As a way to distract himself from having a camera pointed at him, he tends to goof for the camera. This time I managed to captured him displaying his opposing moods.

Charleston - Over The Road Tanker Truck Driver

Another installment of my personal photo project documenting life on the road of over the road truck drivers.

I rode with Charleston, a Milwaukee, WI based driver. He drives tanker truck for Klemm on a dedicated route between Milwaukee and St. Louis, Mo delivering 4,000 gallons of laundry detergent 3 nights a week.

I met up with Charleston at the terminal in Milwaukee on a Friday afternoon, jumped in the truck and hit the road to St. Louis. It took a little getting used to how the truck handles with a tank full of a liquid. Unlike box trailers, this product moves and shifts and can pull and jerk the truck when stopping and starting.   Being with a tank driver also gave me something new to work with visually. 

Charleston is a great guy. He welcomed me in his truck and was quite comfortable with having a personal paparazzi on board.  He's been driving truck since 2005, first as a long haul and now with a dedicate run. For some, dedicated runs can get a bit boring and mundane, but the advantage is that you are home in your own bed on a regular basis. It also helps to have a great soundtrack of disco and R&B on the iPhone as Charleston does. 

Since this was a short overnight trip, I didn't feel I had the opportunity to get a variety of images and situations. It didn't help that the company we delivered to would not let me out of the truck with the camera. It's not unusual given security and company secrets, but it's typically where the more interesting things happen visually.  I do felt like I came away with some keepers for both myself and Charleston.

It was great to finally meet Charleston in person and get to document a bit of his world. I'm always grateful when drivers such as Charleston take the chance to have a stranger in their truck in support of my project.

Dipping My Toes Into The World Of Tour Organizing

For the previous 5 years, I had been doing some part-time tour directing for a local motorcoach company as a way to earn some extra money and do my second favorite thing...travel.   As a tour director, the trip and itinerary was all planned out for me. My main responsibility was to research our destinations and make sure the trip went as planned by the office.

After leaving my tour director position this past year, I  thought it would be an interesting challenge to organize some small tours of my own.  My first trip was a four day to St. Louis, and this most recent tour was weekend to Chicago.   I made all the arrangements, rented a 12 person van...which I discovered is really not made for 12 people...and got 10 friends and acquaintances to sign up.

The weather was perfect and the group all got along great.   We took a Wendella Chicago River Tour, saw a show at Second City Comedy and spent an afternoon at the North Halsted Street Market Days and finished it off with a relaxing stop at the King Spa & Sauna in Niles, IL.   Overall it was a great success and everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. Just might have to do this again...