Liz and I went shopping for fruit the other day, and not in the way you're thinking. Did we go to the supermarket and load up on fruit? No way! This is California, baby! Instead, we drove around town, stopped at people's homes and picked the fruit from their trees.

Today was tough because I'm a bit homesick. I miss the familiar sights and sounds that, unknowingly, have kept me comfortable for the past few decades. We are such creatures of habit that once we are out of our comfort zones we look for something to take its place. But I found solace and comfort in an unexpected place. It was in the most important photo ever created.

Great news! After months of house preparation in Massachusetts we sold our home of 24 years and headed west. It was a hell of a process, but we did it. Thankfully, Liz is an incredible organizer and ran the whole project (and me) the way she runs her consulting work—like a boss!

I’ve been so busy lately that shooting pictures and having fun hasn’t been a big focus. However, I had an amazing time at a photoshoot today.  I joined up with a great non-profit called Wish for Wheels  (based out of Denver, CO). Wish for Wheels’ mission is to get a new bicycle into the hands of second graders everywhere for families that can’t afford a bike.

I joined them for the giveaway day of the bikes at a Section 1 school in the Boston Public Schools system.

This may sound weird, but I love finding abandoned umbrellas in the city after a big storm. Especially if they are clustered in trash cans or lying prone on the street. I’ve wanted to get a certain kind of photo of an umbrella after a storm for a couple of years, but either I’m not in the city when a storm comes, or the timing is not good and the umbrellas are cleaned up before I can get to them. But while I had missed numerous opportunities, I kept thinking about the image I wanted. Then it happened.

I spent the end of last year and the beginning of this year working hard on getting my photos out for people to see. My efforts paid off. I was in a gallery last summer, had a big showing in a beer taproom this fall, and now I have one image in an exhibition on Plymouth, and one coming up with three images. All of this is great, and I’m blessed to have these opportunities to display my work. But there’s a problem.

While my photos were showing at the Woodman/Shimko Gallery in Provincetown, MA this summer, I connected with the representative from Untold Brewing, a craft brewery near my home in Massachusetts. Untold has a taproom in Hingham, MA, and while sipping a double IPA there with my wife Liz last spring I noticed that they have a massive wall that begged to be filled with images. Since Untold Brewing has a bit of a seafaring/maritime angle due to its location, I thought my images would fit in well with the vibe.

Back in the 1990s I was lucky to work as a ranger for Cape Cod National Seashore for six summers. My wife (Liz), our son and I moved out to the Cape for the summer, and both Liz and I worked as interpretive rangers taking people on hikes, canoe trips, walks, salt marsh discovery activities, and more. One of our responsibilities was that every Thursday we performed the Beach Apparatus Drill, a reenactment of a drill that was performed for more than 100 years by the Surfmen of the US Life Saving Service.

I am thrilled to announce that I will be having a gallery opening on July 14, 2023 at the Woodman/Shimko Gallery in Provincetown, MA. This follows a phone call with the gallery owner in late 2022 in which I inquired if he would like to have a couple of larger images from my collection this summer. His response was, “How about a gallery opening?” I immediately said yes, and before I knew it, I was reviewing my catalog for appropriate images.