Trainspotting

Earlier this week we actually got rain - probably the first really significant amount of rain in weeks. And the rain and clouds helped keep the temperatures down that day, resulting in a rare day this summer that wasn't over 100 degrees. Honestly it felt like a miracle to be able to actually go and enjoy being outside again.  

To celebrate the rare break in the ovenlike summer temps, I headed out around sunset to try to get a few pictures. On my way to Riverfront Park in North Little Rock, I drove by this stretch of old buildings and got a few pictures:



I went to Riverfront Park in North Little Rock, but was soon kicked out by the NLR Police. Apparently the park now closes right at sunset, which it used to be open later. Not sure when or why this changed, but it does get in the way of people taking pictures down there now. So instead I headed over to the Junction Bridge and got a few pictures there instead.



Maybe instead of closing the parks early and getting the police to remove people from the park, the cities should fix all the lights on the downtown bridges instead?



From the Junction Bridge I headed across the river and went to the old Baring Cross Bridge. This is the oldest railroad bridge in Little Rock, and the only one that is still used by rail traffic. In fact I didn't have to wait very long for a freight train to slowly make its way across the bridge.



And with a loud squeal of breaks, the train rolled to stop. On the other side of Cantrell Road there is a small bridge over the tracks, which has a nice view looking up towards Union Station and the State Capitol. The train was still stopped, but there was a slow stream of freight trains making their way to the bridge on the other track.

Dark And Stormy Night

Some storms were about to hit, so I decided to run out with my metal tripod and see if I could try to get some lightning pictures. I rushed over to Riverfront Park in North Little Rock, and set up under the new I-30 bridge. But of course, the storm system sort of fizzled. There was no lightning, but there were some cool clouds in the sky for a few minutes.

Dogtown

A few weeks back, some massive storms brought some heavy rains to the state. In between the rounds of storms, I managed to find time to head out and try to take a few pictures. I drove over to North Little Rock, and went through Burns Park. The first stop was the old pioneer cabin, which was built before the Civil War.



Across the street from the cabin is a concrete path that heads up a hill to a small cemetery.



A little bit of fog began to develop, slightly obscuring the vibrant green of the tree's new Spring leaves.



And then I headed down to the old covered bridge:





I grew up in North Little Rock, so I felt it was my civic duty to make a visit to The Old Mill. I arrived and was a little surprised to see that there wasn't anyone else there. I guess the heavy storms kept everyone else away, but it was a little strange to have the entire place to myself. The only other creatures there were some ducks, who lazily drifted about in the water.



My grandparents used to live in Lakewood, just a few blocks away from the Old Mill. So I've made tons of trips to the Old Mill over the years, and I don't think I've ever seen this much water flowing over the waterfall here.





And from there I headed to the edge of North Little Rock, where the city meets the flat lands of the Arkansas Delta. Sitting in a field is an old house, slowly collapsing away.





A guard dog approached and barked a few times and then headed over to the field and posed for a few pictures by the old house.

Under The Bridge

The newly rebuilt I-30 bridge, which cost 634 million dollars and took four years to complete, recently opened up. And along with it, large swaths of Riverfront Park which had previously been home to construction equipment. I had some free time so I headed to the park, and set up the camera under the bridge for a few pictures.



The bridge is nice, I guess. I mean it accomplishes the goal of getting cars across the river. But it's a bit boring, though. For all the money they spent on it, could it have hurt them to make it look nicer? When the Golden Gate Bridge was built, it cost $35 million (which was the equivalent of $610 million in today's money). But for the same amount this looks like the basic and cheapest bridge option from the first Sim City game.

The Fog Is Getting Thicker...

The fog from that morning got thicker as the day went on, and by evening there was hardly any visibility. Which was, of course, perfect time to get out and take pictures again. After getting both kids to bed I hurried over to the Big Dam Bridge.



It was a little eerie to see the bridge seem to fade out and disappear into the fog.





Despite the thick fog, there were still several people out walking on the bridge.



As I was standing here taking photos, a loud siren started to blare. I'm not going to lie, it was a bit startling. I may or may not have jumped and did a little scream. Apparently it's a warning to boaters (which there weren't any) that water was about to released from the dam.



I walked away from the siren, and followed the bridge as it passed over the Murray Lock. From here, the buildings and lights drifted off into the foggy expanse of the river.



And one last shot from the bridge, as the fog swallowed and enveloped the night.

New Shots of Old Mill

Jonah was out of school for parent-teacher conferences, so I decided to take the day off from work too. To get out of the house, we made a quick visit over to the Old Mill in North Little Rock. The fall colors weren't really showing there yet, things were mostly green still. So I took the infrared camera instead for a few pictures.



Jonah was the one who decided we should go there, and I was really glad he did. I grew up in North Little Rock, and my grandparents used to live just a few blocks away from the Old Mill. When I was kid, right around Jonah's age, my cousins and I would often all walk over together and visit the Old Mill. It's really nice to see that while there have been some improvements (nicer bathrooms, a little waterfall feature), that the Mill remains mostly unchanged over all these decades.

The Natural State in Four Seasons

I'm happy to announce that an exhibition of my work, titled "The Natural State in Four Seasons," is now on display at Laman Library in North Little Rock. The show contains 33 photographs taken across the varied landscapes of Arkansas over the last fourteen years.  Locations in the show include the Buffalo National River, Blanchard Springs and Hot Springs National Park. But there are also pictures from less visited locations, like an oxbow lake in the Delta or a waterfall deep in the Ozark Mountains.



There are many things that Artificial Intelligence is hurting, and one of those is the art of photography. True photography requires skill and patience, and the ability to be at the exact right place, at the exact right time, with the exact right conditions (along with a fair amount of luck). It is much more than fake images attempting to be a lame facsimile of reality. It is my hope that this exhibition showcases photography for the art form that it is, one that is under assault from those who see it as nothing but “content” to post on social media for us to see between ads and scams.



One of the photographs in the show is of the setting sun hitting the summit of Pinnacle Mountain, which makes it look as if Pinnacle Mountain is erupting. This photo was taken from Two Rivers Park Bridge, and there is only a brief period every year where the sun and mountain are perfectly aligned for this to occur. In order to get this picture, the horizon also has to be clear. Clouds in the sky can obscure the sun, even clouds that are hundreds of miles away.



Other photographs represent similar moments - a swirl of fallen leaves caught in a current below a waterfall. Thick fog reflecting the bright lights on the Clinton Park Bridge, turning the night sky into a deep shade of purple. The explosions of fireworks over the State Capitol Building, captured by the camera during a 1.6 second exposure. These images could have probably been much easier achieved through some Photoshop edits, or some prompts on AI. But the photographs on display at Laman Library represent real and decisive moments. Ones that I hope serve as a reminder of how powerful and important photography can be.



To view the other photos in the exhibition, please visit HERE.



The exhibition is open now, and I'd like to kindly invite anyone reading this to please head on down to Laman Library to check out the show (2801 Orange Street in North Little Rock, gallery is on the second floor). There will be an opening reception on Friday, Oct. 18th, from 6-8 PM. The show will be on display until November 27th.



Here is the Artist's Statement I put together for the show:

It was almost what you’d imagine hiking through a rainforest would be like, except we were still in Arkansas. A storm earlier that day had saturated the woods, turning the leaves into a deep green too vibrant to be real. Water puddled on the trail, which at times looked more like a small creek flowing through the woods. The only sounds were raindrops hitting the trees and the wet squishy sound of our hiking boots in the mud.

The trail was heading towards a waterfall as unique as its name - Fuzzybutt Falls. It is a delicate 16-foot-tall waterfall, sitting at the end of a short and narrow box canyon deep in the Ozark Mountains. It started to storm again when we arrived. The sounds of heavy rain, combined with the splash of the waterfall, created a cacophony of sound that echoed off the rocky canyon walls. But those canyon walls also provided shelter from the rain, allowing us to freely move about without worrying about getting soaked. We spent a lot of time there taking pictures, from just about every conceivable angle, reluctant to leave. Eventually we set the cameras down and just watched as the raindrops rippled across the creek, and the waterfall slowly and steadily increased its flow.



I know it sounds cliche, but sitting under those rocky bluffs while a storm raged on was a peaceful and sublime moment; one of those rare moments when things seem to perfectly converge, when you are at the right place at the exact right time you need to be there. The photographs in this exhibition are more than just snapshots. Each one represents a unique moment that I was lucky enough to capture with a camera. I’m humbled and grateful that you are here to see them.



Increasingly, it seems that photography is being devalued in our ultra-modern and overly-online world. Photographs are being reduced to nothing more than content on social media feeds, squeezed unceremoniously between ads and spam. But photography is much more than just a way to get likes and engagement. At its best, photography is a way to showcase and document the world and our times. To paraphrase a quote: We don’t just take photographs, we ask quietly to borrow a fraction of time. To preserve that fleeting moment, which would have otherwise floated on like raindrops hitting a creek.



These photographs were taken with either a Canon 6D or an Olympus E-30, between 2010 and 2024. They are the culmination of countless trips spent driving or hiking across the state, from the Delta to the Ozarks. I would like to thank Richard Theilig and everyone at Laman Library for hosting this exhibition. Also I would like to thank Matt Kennedy and Zack Andrews, my hiking and photography buddies, who accompanied me on many of these trips (including the one to Fuzzybutt), and who helped make sure I didn’t get lost in the woods or fall off a cliff.



And I cannot thank enough my wife Caroline for her encouragement and infinite patience. And also my sons Jonah and Elliott for all the times they’ve indulged their father stopping to take a picture of an old barn. I would never have been able to take these photographs, or put on this show, without their support.

Burns Park

I drove through Burns Park the other day, the first time I've been there since the park reopened after last year's tornado. The damage there was immense. The little Funland amusement park was completely destroyed. Many of the park's pavilions were damaged, along with the RV Park and the soccer fields. But the most notable change is the trees - or the lack of them. The tornado took down over 20,000 trees in just Burns Park alone. You can easily trace the path of the tornado through the park, following the long gash where it looks like the forest was mercilessly clear-cut.

But the tornado just narrowly missed a few of the park's most notable landmarks. The old pioneer cabin, built in the 1850s, was just outside the tornado's path.





Luckily a lot of the park's forest remain undamaged:





And the Burns Park covered bridge was undamaged by the storm as well.



Which is good, since all residents of North Little Rock are contractually obligated to get at least one portrait taken at either the Old Mill or the Burns Park covered bridge (I say as a native of Dogtown).





It'll be interesting to see how the park changes, as new growth replaces the lost trees and a new Funland is built.

The Old Mill

Last week, Jonah and I visited the Old Mill in North Little Rock. I actually grew up in NLR, so I've made many trips to the mill over the years. My grandparents used to live a few blocks away, and we would always walk over there when we would visit. It's nice to see that the Old Mill still hasn't changed all that much - it's like an old reliable friend.

Whenever I visit the mill, I can't help but remember one of my teachers in high school. Way back in the olden days of the 20th century, I was a student at North Little Rock High School. There was a school literary magazine, which even had a photography contest. So I submitted a few pictures, including one of the Old Mill. As a true native of Dogtown, it's impossible to resist the lure of the Old Mill when you have a camera.

So my senior year, I actually joined the staff of the literary magazine as one of my electives. I soon learned that the Creative Writing teacher in charge of the literary magazine had some pretty strict policies on what could be accepted into publication. There were certain things that were instantly declined when they were submitted, like lovey-dovey or "dark night of the soul" poems, which did certainly help in keeping out some of the more angsty teenage poetry. But one of the teacher's biggest pet peeves was in photography, specifically Old Mill photos. She was so tired of seeing so many Old Mill pictures that she forbade any Old Mill picture from being published. Over the years, the magazine had received so many Old Mill photos that they even set up massive boards that displayed all of the collected images as a massive collage. So as a new member of the staff, I went over and saw the boards and soon found the Old Mill picture I had submitted from the year before. It was there, along with all the other rejects.

The Old Mill has been attracting photographers since it first opened (in fact my grandfather took pictures of it back in 1934). And with my most sincere apologies to Mrs. Ward, here is one more Old Mill photo to add to the mix:

Downtown

It went from either a drizzle to a light rain as I drove downtown for a few pictures. I first went to North Little Rock, and walked out onto the long ramp that connects the new Broadway Bridge to Riverfront Park. I set up the tripod and used an umbrella to shield the camera, and got this panoramic view of the Arkansas River and the Little Rock skyline. There were even a few geese sitting on the grass in the park - I wonder if any of them know Sir Goosealot!



I headed across the river, and ended up climbing the steps of a parking deck along Main Street. It provided this view, which includes an office building in the foreground that is home to a state agency. It was night, and the building was empty, but all the lights were on and running. Our state tax dollars at work, I guess...



And on the other side of the parking deck was this view. Here you can see the First Presbyterian Church, which was built in 1921.



I headed down Main Street to another parking deck, which was mostly empty on this rainy night. But the deck had a nice view of the intersection of Main and Third Streets. A storm was moving through, and I hoped to get some lightning pictures from here. I didn't have any luck with the lightning, since it was more to the north. Oh well.

But I wasn't as diligent with protecting the camera from the rain, and some moisture managed to sneak in. My camera is now considered to be geriatric by current technology standards, and it starts to act wonky when it gets water in it like this. But I was able to get this shot before calling it a night and heading home to go put the camera in a bag of rice (which worked! Happy to report that the camera is back to normal now).