The strawberry moon. That’s what they called this one. And that strawberry moon gifted me the opportunity of a lifetime.

But let’s start at the beginning.

About a year ago, I first met the founders and owners of Oakwood Gardens when I was assigned to photograph one of their cottages for Airbnb. When I drove onto that property, I did NOT expect to be greeted by a field of alpaca.

I have no idea how it happened, when it happened, and if it wasn’t for these images as proof, if it even ever happened at all. It seems like just yesterday I packed up all my stuff and migrated to Portland, Oregon. But apparently it was many many yesterdays ago. So just for documentary’s sake, here’s the evidence of my third consecutive Spring in the Pacific Northwest - some of my favorite images from the past few months here. Hope you dig’.

T'was a crisp winter's day in the mountains high above the city is where this tale hath begin...

For real though, it wasn't just crisp, it was frickin' freezing! I was up in Welches, Oregon, essentially the gateway from Portland to Mount Hood, to shoot a property for sale in the area for a client. She offered me run of the condo if I wanted to stay a few nights, and being as the mountain was covered in fresh snow from the day before, my camera would not allow me to say no.

So…

As a self-employed freelancer you spend most of your life looking for jobs, bidding for jobs, creating decks and proposals and quotes and presentations for jobs and, if you're lucky, about 15 to 20% of your time actually doing jobs.

Furthermore, more often than not, 80% of those jobs that you're actually doing are ones you don't even want to do but have to do to pay the bills.

But every now and then you get a gig that reminds you why you're doing what you're doing to begin with.

One of those gigs where you have to stop, slap and ask yourself "Am I seriously getting PAID for this!??"

Well, this was one of those gigs...

For all of you that know me, you know that there are few things more important to me than ensuring that not another generation goes by that doesn't connect to Mother Nature and understand her importance and role in every aspect of our lives, from clean air we breathe to the water we drink.

I will do everything in my power to ensure that not another single generation goes by downplaying the effects of climate change and the role we humans play in it.

And one of the things that I'm proudest of is getting involved with Ecology in Classrooms & Outdoors (ECO)…

I recently had the distinct pleasure of photographing the Society of American Foresters convention, this year held in Portland, Oregon, and I must say, it's quite refreshing to see how the face and core of the organization is adapting and evolving with the times and today's realities.

For one, while there was plenty of talk about forestry in the sense of the old paradigm - logging, clear-cutting, lumber and industry - there was an equal, if not even more pronounced presence bubbling just underneath the surface prepared to discuss things like climate change and sustainability…

We were only 55 miles in when it happened. 

This was a trip that has been in the works for a year.

Ever since we won a raffle prize for 72 hours with a Tesla, we’ve been giddy about getting the thing scheduled. Time gave out on us during the Summer of 2017, and winter in the Pacific Northwest is…well…winter in the Pacific Northwest, so we held out and waited until just before the one-year expiration date on the prize - Spring of 2018, which seemed totally worth it - I mean look at those Falcon doors:

As you are all aware, a big part of the mission of my life, especially in the current climate in the United States, is to help bring science and nature to the up-and-coming generations. I'm attempting to do this by using emerging imaging technologies like virtual reality and augmented reality to introduce them and help stoke their curiosity in our natural world. This is a generation coming up that will never know a world in which these technologies do not exist, and I am determined to take full advantage of that.

So it is with great pleasure that I have accepted a role as

If you've been following along, you know how integral our natural world has been over the past near-decade to my development and evolution as a human being, both personally and professionally. You may also be aware that I migrated up to the Pacific Northwest after a lifetime in Los Angeles to work on photography and virtual reality video projects to help connect people, and especially the younger generations, to science and our natural world. Well, with that move has come no only a drop in blood pressure, a rise in energy, and a higher genuinely-nice-to-acting-genuinely-nice-to-get-something-out-of-you strangers ratio, but, well, my first experience experiencing the seasons.

The world hath DEFINITELY gone done lost its marbles!! When somehow, someway, I find my photos on a wall in an exhibition alongside images by Ansel Adams and Art Wolfe, among a slew of additional top-notch talent, it is irrefutable proof that insanity has infiltrated the collective human mind. But hot damn, I will do all I can to take advantage of that and roll with it...

So it was early August and the posts and information for Scott Kelby's WorldWide Photowalk began to trickle through my streams. I've attended a few as a walker in the past, and was excited to participate again, this time in a new city, but when I logged on to register, there wasn't a Portland chapter or event scheduled. Seeing as how this was the 10-year anniversary of this annual event, I wasn't having any of that!! So I applied to lead a walk in Portland, and hot darnit, they agreed to let me do the thing.

This was one of the main reasons I moved up to the Pacific Northwest...the great outdoors are not just a thing to do, they're the thing to do. Life, for the most part, revolves around Mother Nature and the wondrous gifts she bestows upon us, both physically and mentally, and one of the best ways to experience this is by disconnecting from anything and everything that dings, rings, or pings, and giving yourself completely up to her. 

In this case, it was some good ol' backcountry backpacking.

As I explained in a previous post, I've recently made the migration to the Pacific Northwest and now proudly call Portland, Oregon home. In this post, I figured I'd let the pictures do the talking, for they will do a far better job of explaining why than any combination of words I can aloofly type here. So here are a few images of my first few months as a resident of this insanely gorgeous region. Hope you enjoy...

A few months back, I had the pleasure of joining "the one and only" OutdoorProject on a hike through the Oregon Wilderness and we shot it all in 360 virtual reality video. We did this in conjunction with Superswell VR, the virtual reality production company I co-founded, and it was a blast!