Don’t pay attention the next time I complain about how sucky shooting in Northern New England is in the winter. It’s just a matter of patience. Beautiful morning on Lake Fairlee in Fairlee, Vermont and worth freezing my fingers off.

Every time I question whether or not it’s worth all the challenges of shooting 120 at events I get back a shot like this. Yeah, sure, not the world’s greatest image but the textures and depth, for me, remain singular and what I’m after. And, at least, different. Which is good, because the funny looks, ranging from pity to full-on scorn, I get when standing among the photo pool with a clunky old 67 can make me doubt the wisdom of the entire enterprise. BTW, the flare from the flash on the left side of the frame was just a lucky coincidence. But as Henry said in Barfly, “Dumb luck. Yeah, but that counts too.”

The lull is over, I think. Things seem to be pointing back towards busy. Just home from a quick NYC weekend with Ben F and hanging with James and co. All this on the heels on getting a totally great bit of recognition from the culture luminaries at Selectism. So trying to finish up a couple reasonably successful personal projects before the travel starts in earnest week after next. Unfortunately the travel does not include a trip to Tabor for CX Worlds, but we have enough cold and bluster around here, even if we’re missing the world class CX racers.

Thanks in large part to Jeremy and some last-minute frame salvaging down in the basement, my photo show, HOME AND AWAY, is now hung at Bloc11 in Somerville. It was great to see all the prints all in one place and all framed to look as good as possible. Especially the C-prints and the 4×5 Polaroids, I love the way they look. We’ll be having an opening at some point in the next few weeks I think, but in the meantime it’s worth swinging by and looking at show.

When not shooting ice fishing, making the winter scene in Boston has become how I pass this winter. How excellent: eating greasy spoon food, talking my model into pounding a Stella at lunch (Stella glasses look great), riding the T for hours. And not freezing my fingers off. But speaking of freezing fingers, it’s off to MN next week to finish up a project we started back in November. One of the best projects I’ve ever worked on, stay tuned.

I expected the time on ice fishing to reap some interesting looks, I had a couple in mind when I went there, but little did I anticipate to the the ice fishing money shot. But, boom. The large mouth bass/happy fisherman portrait, still kicking. Forgot to mention I finally killed my original Pentax 67, the first one I bought, back in 2001 I think. It got dropped last week on a shoot and the impact stove in a corner of the body that keeps the shutter lever from advancing. Game over. Luckily the prism is untouched and a “new” 67 is in the offing.

I’ve ridden past this ice fishing spot countless times. But when I went by it today I knew I was coming back. It’s a quiet time shooting-wise and I’d been meaning to do some more Northern New England winter culture stuff. Here was the chance, no excuses. What a good decision. Oh, and yesterday was my first ride since racing the USGPs almost three weeks ago, amazing how quickly you can go from feeling at one with the bike to fighting it every meter of the way. The longest 1.5 hr. ride of the year I hope.

It’s all about rituals and this is one of my favorites. Luckily the ice was only 5 inches thick last night when I went to hack a hole in our pond. Why? Sauna time. One of the most incredible feelings one can have: sitting in a 190 degree wood-fired sauna and then running out and submerging in a frozen pond. The water is thick like syrup and the hole in the ice freezes over after 20 minutes. Saunas, yes. BTW, I’ve been remiss in linking up to Ben and Nathan’s newest project. If you’re looking for some updates that don’t appear on this page, you can find them over there. Plus, the blogroll of contributors they have is an amazing gathering of fascinating movers and shakers from the cycling and creative industry. Worth bookmarking.

I left for the USGP races in PDX last week and it was pretty warm (for December) here in the northeast. The thermals were still in the closet and I had no idea where my ski stuff was. Oh boy, things changed while I was gone. Winter is on and I doubt I’ll see the ground again until April. PDX CX was good shooting but pathetic racing for me. So ended a truly mediocre CX season. I am not sure why the season was so bad, but I never felt like I was really into it - didn’t race frequently enough and when I did I felt like I was just rolling around the course without purpose. What does that mean? Anyway, it’s on to cold-finger weather and everything that brings. Enjoy.

Lars Boom made me coffee this morning in Holland. You just never know what your day is going to be like, do you?