I tend to let the photos that I take for myself fall through the cracks. They sit among the blurry moments of my life that get filed away into a pile that ultimately becomes too big to deal with…. so I make a new pile. This post is an attempt to pull out a few favorites from the past few months. Their only cohesion is that they are taken by me.

I took this photo of Laura as we walked through the Cambridge Arts Festival. I love this photo… and her. She lives with a photographer that can’t seem to leave the house with less than everything. The flip side of dealing with me complaining about the weight of my camera bag is that she always has great Facebook profile pictures.

Meet the Monsters. My friends call Zoe (above) the stealth ninja kitty, I call her misunderstood. Zoe is Harper’s mom and sometimes I think she wishes she wasn’t. She is the best six pound badass anyone could ask for. Harper (below) is a spaz. No one has told him that he is not a kitten anymore, and I don’t plan to. He likes to jump off the fridge and onto Zoe, among many ways in which he makes Zoe wish we had kept a different kitten from her litter. None the less, they love each other……. I think.

The colorful shades below are made from old reels that buses put in the window to show the route and stop. These have been in the attic since before I was born, some of which were used the same way in the house I grew up in. It wasn’t until I unrolled them in my new place that I realized they were for the bus that runs by where I live now in Somerville.

This is Jezebel. She is Tara’s cat. She is a very chill and very hairy chat, and a great one at that.

These are of my friend Lance in Jay VT. He reminds me of Bigfoot in the top one. We got fogged out of any good riding, but we still had a good time.

I love to photograph fire. Whether it is forest fires, house fires (which is always heartbreaking, but also extremely powerful) or smaller fires in their controlled environments. There is something very hypnotic about staring into a fireplace or a campfire. These still frames offer a Rorschach like look into the fire.

All i wanted to do for my birthday was go to the Aquarium. Me and my grandmother hopped on the train and spent the day with our noses pressed against one giant tank after another. I can’t think of a better way to have spent my birthday, and what a great way to feel like a kid again.

This last one of the jellies was not taken at the Aquarium. It was taken in the Charlestown Shipyard. We looked over the railing and there were thousands of jellyfish.

This is is how my birthday ended.

I was formally introduced to rock climbing this week. Ben and Vince Schaefer are two friends of mine. They are brothers who join superpowers to become Avenna Studios, a wedding and portrait studio that is blowing up the Boston scene. These Alaskan natives were chill enough to show me the ropes (pun intended), show me how easy it looked and then let me find out how easy it isn’t. I absolutely loved it! I was like a little kid getting off a rollercoaster and getting right back in line. We were rockin out in the Quincy Quarries (also intended), which is a place I love and have spent much time. It is an old granite quarry that has since been filled in and turned into a park. The park is mostly used by rock climbers and graffiti artists (I use the term loosely). I will say that, after years of seeing unimaginative scribble about peoples moms and which high school rocks, I am finally seeing work worth looking at. Thought out, well executed pieces, many of which are in places I can’t imagine getting to, never mind bringing 10 different cans of paint to. Unfortunately the climbers and the artists are not a symbiotic relationship. The thick heavy paint that the graffiti writers use covers, and makes unusable, a lot of the holds you need at the beginning of the routes. I am torn, because I love graffiti, but now I love climbing too. At the end of the day I did do a little shooting. One thing I will say, the bright colors of the graffiti makes for good pictures.

A big thank you to Ben and Vince………. climb on Avenna.

My guides for the day. If you climb, or are thinking about it, buy Boston Rocks, it’s a great resource.

Ben working on some bouldering problems, despite the paint.

kinda like spiderman