Up With the Chickens

Sometimes I just want to grab a camera and go for a walk.

No project. No destination. No list of photographs I'm supposed to make.

Just a camera, some time, and whatever happens to be waiting outside the door.

I've always enjoyed being out early. There's something different about familiar places before the rest of the world gets moving. Empty streets. Porch lights still glowing. Fog sitting over a field. The first light reaching the side of a building. A place I've walked past a hundred times suddenly looking different for a few minutes.

I call these mornings Up With the Chickens.

The photographs I make aren't necessarily intended for a portfolio or a larger body of work. Some are simply observations—a record of something that made me stop, look, and raise the camera.

And that's the point.

Photography doesn't always need an assignment.

Sometimes the best thing I can do is walk out the door without knowing what I'm looking for and trust that I'll recognize it when I see it.

A shadow across a sidewalk. An empty parking lot. A tree in morning light. Someone starting their day. A building I've never really noticed before.

Ordinary things.

But hopefully seen in a way that feels like mine.

This part of my Journal is where those photographs live, along with some thoughts from the walks, places I wander into, cameras I happen to carry, and whatever else I discover along the way.

Some mornings may lead nowhere.

Others might lead somewhere I never expected.

Either way, I'll probably be up before the chickens.