Figures 1 &2: "The Shack" (Winter 2006)
This was titled well before William Young's book, "The Shack," and I'm not going to rename it now. One of the earliest photographs I took, this was for a high school art class. As I carried the photo into school to turn it in, two snowflakes fell on the print, ruining it. Instead of getting a new one printed, I decided to go with it. I beat up the edges, smeared some more water on it for a flood-damaged look, and mounted it on some matting I stained with tea to make it look antique. Here's the final product:
Figure 3: "Mongolian Sunset" (Summer 2008)
The hills of Inner Mongolia (basically, it's Mongolia but part of northern China) are one of the most beautiful landscapes I've ever seen. Hill after hill covered in grassland and crystal clear, smog-less air. Awesome.
Figure 4: "Facebook Addiction" (Fall 2007)
Sadly, this is one of the only photos I have saved from my days as an Iowa State Daily photojournalist. It's a photo illustration for a story about how easy it was for many students to become "addicted" to Facebook, spending 4-8 hours a day on the site. My roommate, Grant Kellogg, agreed to "shoot up" on some Facebook (which was really Dial body wash I found in the dorm shower that morning). We took the photo in a tiny, dark room in the Theilen Student Health Center, because they wouldn't let me leave the premises with the syringe (I have no idea why Theilen had a syringe intended for use in medicating horses, by the way).
