Soccer photos from the other day in Hanover, NH. Thanks James for the edit.

Because today is Friday, the day where i'm not taking pictures or cleaning stalls, I drove to Middlebury with the sole purpose of getting myself some of their super limited edition pumpkin Cider at Woodchuck, and then took a tour of the plant. I took some photos on the way back too.

Driving around looking for stand alones today- I found these kids swinging. The girl definitely didn't want to have her swing messed with.

Progress Update and Website Info

I just updated my Website, which now includes my butcher project in its infant stage- which includes a few repetitious photos that I still can't decide between. I also added a couple new singles, and took a few old ones away.

The past two weeks, I've felt kind of stagnant, like I haven't been pushing myself hard enough, or looking at enough of other people's work. I've set some goals for myself in the next couple of weeks, especially since we are beginning to hit hammer time for internship deadlines- especially the big guns (Washington Post, St. Petersburg Times, Virginian Pilot, etc, etc). I want to expand my current story, as well as work on my new one on the family tradition of deer hunting.

Goals for my current story:

I have plenty butchering photos of Chet and his son as well as the VT mobile processing unit. Now, I need better photos of Chuck teaching the gang to butcher. I also need photos of the slaughter classes in a few weeks, and some photos of buthchers at home, their overbooked calenders, etc. I have two shoots planned for this week, one for next week, and hopefully more to come.

I think I also need to polish my singles to the point where I am happy with all of them 100%. I am happy with them on an individual level at this point, but I want them all to flow together when in my portfolio.

Jeff came to visit me this week. We met up with Ian for his birthday, then went to a dive bar to play darts. We were all terrible at it.

It's Starting to Come Along....

My in-progress story on the changing face of the meat processing business in the Upper Valley- I've been photographing a lot and thinking a lot, and both will hopefully get me somewhere...

Montpelier at Thetford.

The field there was in the prettiest spot for a sports venue I've ever seen. Light was strange for about half the game, but it was still fun to work with.

First of a few pig slaughters around the Upper Valley area- starting to figure out a tighter focus to the idea of slaughtering/the locavore movement/ new people to slaughtering vs old.

These are probably the last focus-less photos of dance I'll put on here for the next few months: I've finally found a focus for my nutcracker piece:

The City Center Ballet is performing the nutcracker completely by themselves for the first time ever, this year. In previous years the major roles have been filled by professional dancers of the Albany-Berkshire Ballet Company- this year, these roles will be filled by the upper level dancers of the Lebanon-based City Center Ballet. Many of these dancers have been with City Center since the age of five, and all are under the age of eighteen. Three girls this year will graduate, all of them having plans to move away and go to college, leaving the ballet. These three girls for the first and only times, will have the top roles in the ballet.

I will be exploring the idea of the short life of the spotlight as well as the relationships the seniors have with the other girls.

For a feature on a soccer coach who had beaten cancer four times. He was a quiet and humble man, but you could tell he was tough.

Go-Kart Races

More Nutcracker Photos

Family

My family visited me this weekend. We went to Killington and Woodstock and Quechee and ate too much pizza and watched movies and they vacuumed all the bugs from my room and we laughed a lot and celebrated Caroline's 16th birthday. After they left I had to photograph happy families all day- which made the goodbye harder than usual, along with the fact that I won't see them for about two months now- the longest I've gone without seeing them. But regardless, I had a good time while it lasted.