Under Blue Skies

“There was only the enormous, empty prairie, with grasses blowing in waves of light and shadow across it, and the great blue sky above it, and birds flying up from it and singing with joy because the sun was rising. And on the whole enormous prairie there was no sign that any other human being had ever been there.” Laura Ingalls Wilder

These images, presented in 16:9 black and white, are possible contributions to the Omaha Sprawl project. Taken January and February 2024.

Numb Thumbs (A January Storm)

With winter feeling like it’s slowly becoming a thing of the past, I had to take advantage of a storm opportunity for some wandering around midtown and downtown Omaha. Four hours, eight miles, and 400 photos later in 0F/-30F windchill: here are a few shots. The tips of my fingers are still numb two days later.

Remnants: the Lincoln Highway in Omaha

At 174th Street in west Omaha, an old red brick two lane highway emerges from between two glitzy looking car dealerships like a ghost. It ends unceremoniously at an intersection, cut off by new development and the Dodge freeway.

This old bit of road is a remnant of the Lincoln Highway, one of (if not the first) transcontinental highways in the US. The three mile section of road between 174th and 203rd streets in west Omaha near Elkhorn contains much of the original brick from the paving effort of the 1920s. It’s an interesting slice of history and it feels like a small miracle it still exists today, given the gold rush of new housing development in this part of Nebraska.

Several dichotomies struck me as I walked the old 1920s brick pavement on two separate recent outings. The automobile culture that this early highway helped foster was also its demise. It’s beautifully ironic the way the road ends between two car dealerships. The road that helped spur development in the area also helps preserve small vestiges of something that feels like wilderness. A few native prairie plants line the old road corridor. A red-tailed hawk swooped over my head at one point. A remarkable silence envelopes its more isolated sections. It’s heartbreaking that in west Omaha, a person must travel old road and power line corridors to interact with nature.

This ghost from the past feels like a reminder that perhaps we should slow down and develop land with a little more care and intention.

March 18, 2023

It’s often worth re-tracing worn paths. Yesterday, I wandered into downtown Omaha, using a route I had taken many times. I was worried before I left that it would be a boring walk. That I wouldn’t see anything new. What I actually found was the opposite: subtle changes worth documenting and a dynamic sky that occasionally belched flurries of snow. Often, my walks result in few to no interesting images. Other times I find a few keepers. Either is okay. It’s the getting out and doing that matters.

It’s possible some of images below will make it into the Fronts + Sides series (working title), but I think I need to sit on them for awhile longer to see if they stay with me.

Early 2023 in West Omaha

A coil of old sod lies like a dead animal on a bulldozed landscape below power lines. Dried mud preserves tire tracks near a group of identical new homes. A sculpture that used to sit downtown now has a commanding view of new housing developments. These are a few images from two trips I made out to west Omaha in the first few months of 2023 that you’ll find below. As I post these, I’m realizing these new additions to the Omaha Sprawl series feel particularly bleak and apocalyptic. Maybe that’s because snow has been a little hard to find this winter in Omaha. Or maybe it’s a reflection of the general direction of Nebraska these days. This is increasingly becoming a state hostile to anyone who’s not male and heterosexual.

There’s an interesting dichotomy that plays out with these new developments, which I’ve touched on before in these blog posts. On one side, these homes represent new opportunities. You can get a large new home geared toward a family for relatively cheap. At some level, it’s the American Dream, even if the dream part is born from development run amok. Yet, oppression is very much on the horizon. Spring and Summer are coming, and with it, harsh sun to bake shade-less streets and homes. And new laws which promise to wash that American Dream away with the spring rains.

Marcus, IA

A few weeks ago, I made an impromptu trip to Marcus, Iowa, to see the place my great grandparents raised their children. A howling frigid wind and the season’s first snowflakes greeted my arrival. Following some directions out of town, I came over a little hill with my car and saw the place. An old farm house among a group of leafless trees. I wasn’t positive but it felt right. This had to be the place.

The old farm struck me more than I thought it would. The stories my mom, grandmother, and great uncle tell started to make more sense. They emerged from the weird abstract place of stories you hear as a kid and became a reality. In the peeled paint, perseverance through the Great Depression. The looming wind turbines, unstoppable passage of time and change. Out the driveway and onto the gravel road, the kids who would serve in World War II, become parents, writers, nurses, artists, and schoolteachers.

The DLSR is Dead. Long Live it.

I think of myself as a little bit of a recovering photography gear addict. I never had a ton of money to throw at photo equipment, but I traded out cameras a bit more than I would like to admit in the 2010s. I have since settled on a Nikon DSLR and am pretty happy where I’m at. Still, I enjoy using and thinking about gear, and I can’t help but respond to the mirrorless trend. Here goes.

The internet has been forecasting and proclaiming the DLSR’s death for some time now. I guess I get it. Strapping a mirror and prism assembly to a computer does seems a little archaic in 2022. A digital solution that removes a mechanical failure point and allows the photographer to see the actual result before the press of the shutter (if the camera has an actual shutter!) makes sense. However, I also think there’s a bunch of internet FOMO going on. The crops of DSLRs produced over the last 15 years or so didn’t become bad cameras overnight. I think for most photographers, they are still fantastic tools. And maybe, just maybe, they might still be the better tool for a lot of us and our planet.

I look at a computer screen all day at my day job. There’s something refreshing and real about looking through an optical viewfinder on a camera. EVFs are getting pretty good, but there’s no lag or refresh to worry about when you’re looking at the real thing. DSLR battery life is better. Mirrorless might be leading in autofocus, but the last few generations of DSLRs are no slouch. You can go back decades with lens choices without worrying about adapters (1959 with Nikon!). I also think these mirrored bricks are great choice for people who want to learn photography and buy used. Professional tough cameras that used to cost thousands can now be picked up for reasonable prices. The gear junkies and fanboys will measurebate about specs, but at the end of the day, I’m not convinced many clients (or even the photographers) would notice a difference at all in the resulting photos between mirrorless and the last few generations of DSLRs. There isn’t even a gigantic weight savings. Physics doesn’t change, and lens sizes remain the same relative to sensor size.

Don’t get me wrong. I realize mirrorless has a lot going for it, and if my camera ever becomes unrepairable, I’ll take a look at them. But I think the move is also a little overblown. Photographers (and society at large) is pretty susceptible to FOMO via the internet. Most of the gear-centric photo blogs and YouTubers that make their money on clicks have all decided mirrorless is the future and the way to the bank. They make us feel like our current equipment is lacking. I was caught in this shitcycle for awhile in my 20s. If only I had that better piece of gear. As it turns out, my camera upgrades didn’t make me a better photographer. Hell, they didn’t even really improve the quality of my images. I realize today that that time and money are better spent on experiences, photo books, learning, printing equipment, and other costs involved with sharing work (like website hosting fees). And this ol’ earth of ours is already overflowing with electronic waste. Perhaps we all need to slow down a little and use tools we already have.

So yeah. DSLRs are probably dead. Long live them.

August 6, 2022

These black diamond-shaped signs are fast becoming a motif in my Omaha urban sprawl series. Beyond these scarecrow-like figures lie planned but unfinished avenues leading to eventual homes. There is a dualism about them that intrigues me. On one hand, they are harbingers of new opportunity: new homes, new lives, new stories. On the other, they are a momentary self-imposed dead-end to movement that seems to have no limits.

Eight hexagonal black signs covered with circular red reflectors line the dead end of a road with cement barriers. Pipes are stacked in front. A grass-covered hill is behind.
Omaha, NE. August 6, 2022.
A yield and a barrier sign mark the entrance to a roundabout. The roundabout's exits lead to barriers without roads. A lightpole stands along one side of the roundabout. Rolling hills covered in grass are in the background.
Omaha, NE. August 6, 2022.
A blue dumpster enclosed in a three-sided wooden fence on the edge of a field.
Omaha, NE. August 6, 2022.

Tire tracks on bulldozed dirt below a small hillside covered in prairie and blue sky.
Omaha, NE. August 6, 2022.