christopher lamb

krispayne:

steampoweredmedia:

rachaelosborn:

jdel:

And it got me thinking about every airport I’ve ever flown through/to. What’s your list look like?

<snip>

• tul - tulsa, ok
• okc - oklahoma city, ok
• bdl - hartford, ct
• hpn - white plains, ny
• jfk - john f kennedy
• lga - la guardia
• ewr - newark
• sfo - san francisco
• lax - los angeles
• mia - miami
• prg -prague, cz
• sju - san juan, pr
• aus - austin, tx
• anc - anchorage, ak
• sea - seattle, wa
• pdx - portland, or
• den - denver, co
• ord - chicago o’hare
• mdw - chicago midway
• atl - atlanta
• dfw - dallas/ft worth
• lgw - london gatwick
• msp - minneapolis
• dtw - detroit
• alb - albany, ny
• muc - munich, de
• mco - orlando, fl
• eze - buenos aires, ar
• lex - lexington, ky
• kef - keflavik, iceland

that’s all I can think of off the top of my head

I was just in ALB today. Baltimore [BWI] has a nice airport. You should go sometime.

I’ll be in Boston in February with a few days off. I’m going to try to go up to Acadia in Maine. You should come.

krispayne:

I posted a map a while ago.  It’s a map that I plan to take in a few months.  It’s sort of a one way map, there’s not really a return route.  The return happens once I get to the end and figure some things out.  Currently the stopping point is a small village in Alaska.  It’s pretty far ahead in the future as of now but I know that by that time I’ll be needing to take some time off and really focus on something incredibly important: me.  For the last four years I’ve been working with other people achieving their goals and helping them make amazing pictures.  Don’t get me wrong, I work for some awesome people.  I love these people and what they do is truly some good work, however; I need to focus on me.  I feel like my work has grown in the last few years since dropping out of college and moving to a small village in Massachusetts.  Now, I’m dropping out of what I like to call my “grad school” phase and moving to another village to gain some more perspective.

A problem that I’ve been noticing in my work over the last few years has been a certain lack of reason, or, a determined focus.  It’s really hard to maintain that focus when you work for people who have completely different goals work-wise.  Most people I work for are incredibly environmentally conscious and strive to make their operations as earth friendly as possible, and I’m super happy that I can work with these people.  I am eternally grateful for the work and experiences I’ve gained over the last few years here in New York, but I feel like I need to branch out.  Fashion does not equal landscape and environmental photography.

When I was younger, my parents had an extremely strong focus on travel.  With three kids in tow, we packed whatever car it was at the time each summer (most notably a blue Chevy Caprice Classic) and drove it as far as we could without killing each other.  Even before I understood what was going on, the travel seed had been sewn.  I’ve been to most states with my parents and continue to travel with them every few years even though I haven’t lived with them in quite a long time.  Before I entered high school, I had seen the Grand Canyon, the Gulf of Mexico, the majestic Ozark Mountains, the White Sands of New Mexico, The Rocky Mountains, Cape Canaveral, NASA’s Johnson Space Center in Houston, Mt. Rushmore, Yellowstone, and more.  Since I’ve lived in New York, my passport has grabbed a few choice stamps and is getting more each month.  I will not take any of this for granted.

There comes a time (or in my case, quite a few) when you really just need to block out all distractions: friends, work, money, responsibilities, family, rent, etc. and just focus on the one thing that keeps with you until the day you die and are burned and spread across the universe; that thing is you. I am going to be in need of some “me time.”

I plan to drive around for a bit.  See what’s out there.  There’s actually some places in the States that I haven’t had a good chance to explore as an adult.  The trip takes me across the entire width of the U.S. and then up the entire West coast and into British Columbia and right on up to Alaska where most of this self discovery started earlier this year.  The plan includes spending a few weeks photographing a single subject. I want to be able to obtain the best photograph of it I possibly can, using whatever it is that I end up taking on the trip. Of course, the idea of spending a month or two to get to that destination to shoot that singular subject, will yield results that I couldn’t hope to obtain in New York.

The thing that is most frightening about the whole endeavor is what I’m going to do without New York.  Work has been relatively easy to come by out here and I have made a reputation that garners me some significant jobs. Moving out of the blanket of the easy city will be challenging to say the least.  It will be nice to get back to basics and not have to worry about locking my storage closet apartment up and hoping that all my things will be there when I get back because I won’t have either of them. The things inside will get sold or donated and the important bits will be taken to my parents house in the country about halfway through the trip. The rest, which is essentially some camping gear, a cooler, a few spare tires, a couple of cameras and a decent stereo, will keep me company for a few months until I reset and figure out whatever it is that I’m thinking I need to figure out.

Post Script:

I feel like I am in need of an extreme vacation.  I’ve been fortunate enough to travel a lot, obviously, and there may need to be a little explaining to do.  Traveling for work is not a vacation. You land at some ungodly hour, get into a van after loading some thousands of pounds of gear into another van, desperately hoping that neither of the vans will crash on crazy foreign highways and then you unload at a studio and then 8-10 hours later get in another van and go to a hotel, “sight see” out of your hotel window and then turn on BBC world news and go to bed. Then you do it again for a few more days.

I’ve been going about 100 mph since my junior year of high school, when I went to two high schools, dropped 60 lbs from stress and no time, and then immediately went to college and worked 40 hours a week and school 12 credit hours a semester. Then going on to Massachusetts where I had no time for a job because school was 60-70 hours a week, then moving to NYC on a whim before graduating and then working solid since then.

All this to say, I’m not depressed as a close friend asked when I told him all this a few days ago, I’m just exhausted.