Water Rescue

This past weekend I headed up to Dutch Springs in Bethlehem, PA to completed my open water SCUBA diving certification. This has been on my bucket list since I was ten years old and I’m very happy to be part of the underwater club.

After my last dive I hung out a bit, floating around topside (trying to keep my camera out of the water) and captured some images of the rescue class that was underway. It’s a difficult, fun and ultimately rewarding class that I hope to take in the next year or so. Huge thanks to One Ocean Scuba in Silver Spring, Maryland for teaching me the ropes and keeping us all safe. If you live in Maryland and you’re interested in learning to scuba dive, or if you’re just looking for a great local dive shop, you should definitely check them out.

The Fossil Hunters

Alex, 2016. Calvert Cliffs State Park

Time seems to stand still when you’re dealing with increments of a million years. Maybe there’s some perspective to be gained by standing on the beach holding a 15 million year old tooth in your hand, knowing that it has survived volcanoes, and ice ages, storms and wars and mass extinctions.

Similarly, five hours on the coast looking for fossils goes by in the blink of an eye. At times, walking the beach with your eyes glued to the ground feels like a walking meditation. You have to be “present” to spot the little dark triangles–the fossilized shark teeth–that you’re after. At other times it’s adventuring. Wading in the surf, scrambling over downed trees, slipping on soft, bluish-gray clay. It’s a mix of different sciences–geology, paleontology, meteorology, oceanography, etc– with long lonely walks on the beach.

While I didn’t really understand this when I began the project, the Fossil Hunters series is about passion. The hobby seems to attract passionate people (some may say “obsessive”) of all ages and backgrounds who want nothing more than to spend hundreds or even thousands of hours on the beach and creek beds, day and night, literally leaving no stone unturned. Some love the hunt. Others love the science, the latin names, the eras and epochs. For others it’s a romantic idea of finding something that hasn’t see the light of say in 10 million years. A welcome distraction during this pandemic era, it’s no surprise that the hobby has exploded in popularity since covid, getting people of all ages outdoors at no major expense other than time.

Passion is also contagious. Even now, I’m not sure if I’d shooting the project to support my photography career, or using my photography career to justify a new hobby. But passion can also lay dormant, buried under the weight of the daily grand. When I was ten years old I was sure I was going to be a paleontologist. The plan was to discover my first new species by twelve, and then find a real living dinosaur by fifteen. Part of what attracts me to fossil hunting is how it taps into my younger self, reminding me of less complicated times when my “job” was just to learn and explore.

This is part One of the project. Check back!

The Fossil Hunters Project, or Long Walks Alone on the Beach, Part 1

If there’s one thing I love, it’s a good personal project. Something interesting and twisty and turny to sink my teeth into. Which, segues really conveniently to sharks, and more accurately, (fossilized) teeth.

The Fossil Hunters (working title) is a new project I began in late spring, 2021, documenting the wide variety of folks who explore the western coast of Maryland’s Chesapeake bay in search of fossilized shark’s teeth, whale and dolphin bones, and whatever else they can pull up. The art of fossil hunters traipses across multiple disciplines from paleontology and geology, to meteorology , climatology, and biology. On its journey it brushes up against anthropology, local tourism, commerce, ecology, and, coming full circle, art.

This is a part 1 of sorts, as I plan on exploring this topic from various angles and in a variety of mediums. Stay tuned!

The Learn Project, 10 Years On...

I looked at my calendar the other day and realized it had been 10 years (!) since I began The Learn Project, a personal series that followed adults learn how to do unusual things.

When I moved to D.C. in 2010, I realized I needed to shake-up my portfolio. I had been working squarely in the corporate and PR space, but I wanted to something a bit more… adventurous. People recommended that I start to make pictures about my passions and hobbies.

That’s when it hit me. I. Had. No. Hobbies. (sigh.)

A few days later, I was sitting in traffic on the corner of Connecticut Ave and K Street when I saw a crane raising a load of i-beams up to a building. I remember thinking, “how in the hell did they learn to do that???!?” And just like that, The Learn Project was born. (The answer, by the way, is the aptly named, “The Crane School.”)

I’ve always considered myself a “101” kid–you know, those survey courses in college that are largely the domain of those who haven’t declared a major yet. Truth be told, I like knowing a little bit about everything, so immersing myself in a project that was as wide as an ocean and as deep as a kiddie pool seemed just about right. It was really a celebration of experiential education, and those teachers, professional and otherwise, who share their knowledge with others. Growing up on a college campus, the son of two college professors, it seemed like I had come full circle in a way.

The outline of the project, which I developed over the course of several beers at the late, great, Science Club , was simple:

  • The subjects all needed to be adults

  • The learning had to occur in person but not at a desk

  • It had to be unusual.

I’ve always said that the best thing about traveling is that wherever you go, you can see different horizons. Once you’ve been somewhere different, the logical conclusion is that there must be somewhere else out there, just beyond the ridge Being somewhere makes it very evident that there’s always somewhere new. Similarly, once I began shooting TLP, it added a whole new dimension to which I would look at everything. Life shifted from just being “hey, look at that sword swallower!” to, “Holy shit, how did she learn to do that without slicing off her own head?!?!?”

Getting past the what and noodling around in the how, inevitably leads to the why, makes life much more rich. This is, I realized, led me to really understand why I wanted to be a photographer in the first place. The ability to put myself into someone else’s boots for a moment and to see the world from that perspective, and then step out of those shoes a better person, in addictive.

For various reasons I quietly put the project to bed after a few years. I’m revisiting the concept from a slightly different angle, which I’ll be sharing soon. In the meantime, here’s a celebration of unusual education, and especially the humans–teachers–who spread knowledge, arcane and otherwise–to the rest of us. These are the beekeepers, the survivalists, the makers, the doers. Those that perform in the literal spotlight and those who work quietly in the odd hours of the night. Some learn for learning sake, others for well-being, and others to make ends meet. Each student has their own reasons and philosophies, and I’ve enjoyed meeting every one.