they row

had a slow moving day today and got to the beach town of portobello just in time for the last two rowing races in their regatta. here are a few images of the people i met there.

wasted at the beach

edinburgh night 2

musselburgh night 2

the train

atop the law, north burwick law

no, i don't know why they call it a law... but it was a wonderful climb and awesome views

musselburgh night 1

edinburgh night 1

first of what will probably be many walks home from edinburgh in the beautiful glow of dusk (you know 11 pm) when there is light here the golden hour lasts for hours, it is pretty amazing... however so far there have either been no clouds in the sky, or the sky will be full of clouds, very little in between...

edinburgh graveyard

on one of our first days of the scotland field school terry and lyntha sent us out in groups of five with disposable cameras to find different notable locations throughout edinburgh weaving up down and around the royal mile, rose street and up calton hill for amazing views of the city... the scavenger hunt gave us the opportunity to navigate the city, interact with the people there, as well as enjoy a rare beautiful sunny day... we took a moment to wander through canongate cemetery burial ground of such notables as Adam Smith, and Robert Burns's love Clarinda

sunset walk to the sea

musselburgh, scotland
day 1
wandering through the town towards the sea

amsterdam randoms

from the water: amsterdam boatride

what a beautiful city. amsterdam is so much more than the stereotypes, and am so happy that we took many people's advise and hit the water. took a guided boat tour at dusk (10pm) here are some of my images from the water. and oh, how i adore the crooked buildings!

homeless

recently i have been thinking about home, and have come to the conclusion that i really have no place to call home. when people ask where i am from, i kind of stumble. sometimes i am completely honest and tell them that i grew up in maryland, spent the last 10 years in florida, and am now going to school in ohio. but that is a mouth-full, so depending on where i am or even what mood i am in i will usually pick one of the three...

when doing work in some small towns in ohio, i realized it was easier for some subjects to relate to me if i told them i was from maryland (even though i hadn't lived there for more than a couple months in the past decade), but it was close enough to ohio that it made kind of made sense to someone who rarely left the county he or she was born in. but if they pressed and asked about college or recent employment, yeah, i was from florida. and then there were the questions of how my family could stand me being so far from home.

but the thing was, i never saw maryland as home. i hated so much of the culture that i saw as attached to the area where i grew up that i wanted out. sure i have always loved my family and would call it going home when i left florida to visit. and, despite my generally negative view of this area's culture there are still aspects of it that i adore and take pride in. but calling somewhere home comes with a feeling. and though i definitely feel a sense of comfort when i visit my father who now lives in a condo littered with memories of our past, home does not seem like the right word...

on a recent road trip south, traveling with two eastern european friends, i found it amusing when people would ask where we were from and we would just respond 'ohio.' it was true, we had just spent the last eight months of our lives there, but it kind of reminded me of the old coneheads skit on saturday night live - they were clearly aliens from another planet but they just told everyone they were from france....

i realize that though these places have most definitely shaped me, i have never used them to define who i am (only which sports teams i root for!).  i often think of the cliche, 'where ever you go, there you are.' there is this myth that people find themselves when they travel, or have these life altering experiences. and yes, travel can open  people's eyes to many new things. but there were times when i knew that i needed to change things in my life, but i realized that it didnt matter where i was, if i wasnt happy with myself, sure a cool place could distract me for a bit, but once the newness died down, i would still be an asshole with issues to work out...

so the thing is that i travel and i wander and i photograph because that is what makes sense to me. though i have places that i love and people who i love there. i have no place to call home because i don't need to. so when people ask i will stick with the simple answer, france.

walkin in memphis

views from the backseat III

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