I caught the photography bug a couple of decades ago. It’s been an integral part of my life and relaying my adventures here on the blog. I share my journey, thoughts, stories, struggles, and triumphs here.
I’m not a big city person by-and-large. There are elements that are fascinating and intriguing about them, but I get overstimulated and overwhelmed pretty damn quickly.
But in thinking about this week’s theme, I wanted to step away from the obvious pretty images like sunsets and flowers. Because the theme got me thinking about cities and the ones I’ve experienced that ooze energy and vibrance. Those are the cities that draw me in.
Don’t confuse that with “busy”, though. Noise, motion, and chaos don’t make a city vibrant.
The foundation of urban vibrancy comes from the architecture, colors, public art, and parks. But the element that cinches the feeling of vibrancy is the people. It’s their energy and attitudes that makes or breaks the vibrant vibe.
And the city that stands out to me as vibrant—alive—is Havana.
There are the obvious physical traits of the city that ticks all the boxes. But the people—friendly, energetic, and spirited, even towards us outsiders—made it city I could embrace and explore in-depth without the overwhelm.
The true test is when you’re off the main drags and outside of the tourist-centric areas. Does the vibrancy still hold?
In Havana, it did.
The reality is that—like a lot of big cities—there is poverty in Havana. There are derelict buildings. There are areas with trash in the street. But even in those areas, the sense of place was still vibrant.
I made this image on a random side street on a quiet afternoon. And for me it’s a vignette of Havana. The colorful buildings, the historic architecture, the juxtaposition of the modern and vintage cars, the man walking, the laundry hanging from the balcony—and yes, even some trash piled in a doorway—encapsulates the complexity and reality of this place. A place filled with beautiful, vibrant people.
And the funny thing is that I went into that trip to Cuba intending to enjoy time with friends and not be “on duty” as a photographer. What the hell was I thinking that I could go to Cuba and not be a photographer? Silly me.
I’m a fan of taking stock of my life on my personal new year—my birthday. A birthday seems an ideal time pause and reflect, lest you wake up one day and wonder where the hell your life went.
But I also love the collective enthusiasm that comes with the calendar* new year. We humans measure our time and experience by the calendar. It’s our framework—as damned contrived as it is—and gives us a common metric to use and communicate with.
The shared experience of renewed hope and optimism is fun to be a part of. It’s contagious. Friends reach out with well-wishes, do year-end reviews, and share their plans for the coming year.
I’m not one for news year resolutions, but I do like the thought of a clean calendar to fill with adventures and achievements, just like everyone else.
Wiped clean
That’s the long way of getting to this week’s image—one of many hundreds I’ve shot at Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. And it reminds me of the new year, in its unspoiled state.
Every day, people trek into the park and walk up and down the dunes, leaving footprints. The volume grows throughout the day into a giant web, blanketing the dunes.
Then overnight, the wind resets the dunes to their smooth, untrodden state. The new year is the existential equivalent.
And it’s lovely to celebrate it together as we look towards putting the past behind and face a new year fresh with hope for what it will offer and what we can achieve.
Cheers, friends! Happy new year.
Bluesky Art Show
This post is inspired by the Bluesky Art Show, a challenge to share artwork surrounding a weekly themeeach Saturday.
*Yes, there are a variety of different calendars in use in the world but the massive majority of the world uses the Gregorian so don’t nit-pick, ok?
As a general rule, I don’t believe in putting things off to a convenient calendar date. Especially January First.
Sure, we’re all excited at what the year ahead has in store. I think the excitement is a two-headed monster. One is looking at twelve months of possibilities and saying to ourselves “Hell yeah, I got this!” The other is looking back at the previous twelve months and saying “Next year has got to be better than this raging shit show.”
So we barrel headlong into a fresh, new year and end up overextending ourselves. In all of our hope and optimism, we get unrealistic. We set ourselves up for failure when what serves us better is slowly building habits—and not tied to arbitrary dates and constraints like the calendar.
However—
Yet, here I am, saying “Hey, join me for a 2026 project!” Call it irony or hypocrisy. Whatever—you pick. Because in this case, I have discontent reaching a head right now that just happens to coincide with the new year. And I need to fix it. Pronto.
The problem? My photography. Or lack thereof.
I don’t exactly know where it went to shit. But I don’t shoot much these days. Not seriously anyway. And when I try, the joy isn’t there. I’m often phoning it in and relying on muscle memory. (Which is deteriorating over time, by the way.)
I do know that doing a bunch of client work became a problem. The contracts, negotiations, educating clients on copyright and “why it costs so much“, etc. It was fuck-all exhausting and took all of the fun out of the craft.
That certainly contributed to my photographic fatigue so I stopped doing the soul-sucking client work. I realized I need to be shooting on my terms. To see, create, and craft on my own, without expectations of “deliverables”. *shudder*
Another contributing factor is not having been to a photography workshop in many years. Being around other photographers creates contagious energy and inspiration. I can’t fix that anytime soon with shit going on in my life right now, though.
The cherry on the photographic rut pie is that being so off my game, when people praise my work, I feel like a fraud. Sure I’ve created some lovelies in the past. But my body of work is faltering and imposter syndrome is sneaking in. It feels like something I used to be good at, not something I’m currently good at.
So how to get moving forward again? The answer—or inspiration for it—came from photographer Anne McKinnell. She wrote what I needed to read exactly when I needed to read it.
She outlined some photographic exercises to help work through creative stuck-ness. And they actually sounded like fun. A little flame of photographic excitement found its way into my creative ennui.
But I knew that in my fairly epic rut I’d need to create a framework—a personal curriculum of sorts—to work through. Something I could be methodical about in my otherwise chaotic life.
Using her suggestions as a catalyst, I built a list of weekly assignments to focus on this year. The goal is to re-create my photography habit.
I used to shoot all the time. My camera was an ever-present extension of my right arm. Now I often forget to capture moments even with my phone, much less take the time to carefully craft images. How far I’ve fallen, huh?
The plot thickens
Far be it from me to keep all the fun for myself. I figured, why not open it up and see who else is interested in reinvigorating their photographic creativity?
And this is where my projects collide. In a good way. So I’m tying this effort to one of my other ambitious projects that I haven’t talked about here much yet—Southwest Art Towns, our new online community.
If you subscribe to my Val in Real Life newsletter, you’ve heard a lot about it. If you don’t, this may be new info to you. (And if you don’t subscribe—um, why the hell not? Here’s the link.)
I’ll be using Southwest Art Towns to manage this study group. It’s a place we can share our images, bounce questions and ideas off one another, and get constructive feedback—that sort of thing. It’s pretty loose—it’s supposed to be fun after all.
Also note I’m not calling this a “challenge”. I dislike challenges—they’re often as arbitrary as the fucking calendar. And in this case, the notion of a challenge is too aggressive.
But I struggled with what else to call it. Looking in the thesaurus, the vast majority of synonyms were negative. So that was a hella confirmation I needed to reframe it.
That’s why it’s a study group. Let’s grow together. Show up when you can. But don’t make it a “thing” that just creates stress and leaves you in the new year failure bucket. Hopefully it simply becomes so much fun that participating comes naturally.
Here at Val in Real Life HQ, our winter holidays are low-key. We like to celebrate the season in our own simple way, outside of the hype.
What that looks like varies a bit from year-to-year. Especially since going on the road and riding the roller coaster that eventually landed us in New Mexico. Before that chaos though, one of my favorite holiday memories is the first time I harvested a wild tree in Nevada.
It’s fairly straight-forward to get a permit from the Bureau of Land Management and head into the desert to pick a tree to bring home. But the process of going into the wild to find, cut, and bring the tree home was more purposeful and thoughtful than my previous experiences of heading to a tree lot. It felt richer.
On this day, the desert was still and quiet after the soft overnight snow. Calm. Peaceful. We took our time selecting a handsome tree and enjoyed the rugged beauty of winter in the desert. It was magical.
These days we’re chronically over-extended with work. So I often neglect to capture these moments I want to remember forever and not trust only to memory. You’d probably think it comes as second nature to me. Not so much these days.
This little trip down memory lane is my reminder heading into the new year to take more time for capturing these moments.
Happy New Year, friends! Let’s see what 2026 has to offer.
Bluesky Art Show
This post is inspired by the Bluesky Art Show, a challenge to share artwork surrounding a weekly themeeach Saturday.
The Bluesky Art Show is celebrating its first birthday. I didn’t join the party until April but I’ve fully embraced the weekly prompts. It’s given me a manageable challenge to re-bond with photography and writing here on Val in Real Life.
I’m riffing on the open-ended, celebratory theme this week with thoughts about our crazy-ass journey on the way to landing in Silver City. Because in 2019, we were on a path to build a house near Carson City, Nevada.
We knew we’d stay in the west but beyond that we had some difficult decisions to make. When you can go anywhere, the choices can be fucking overwhelming.
So my dear man created a complex spreadsheet of decision factors. It included things like cost of living, climate, political sensibilities, distance to an airport, crime activity, and medical resources.
We scoured maps, took online quizzes, and did deep internet dives to identify towns to plug into the spreadsheet. Those exercises revealed some acceptable contenders but nothing that truly excited us.
What the process did reveal is that, even though we had the ability to go anywhere, our choices the were actually pretty narrow. Weather alone eliminated snowy northern states. Cost of living dealt another big hit to the possibilities.
The eureka moment
Eventually it became clear our new home state would be New Mexico. But the actual town was still a mystery. We had a small list of places to investigate and began plotting a path to check them out.
Then one day my dear man suddenly pulled out our motorcycling map of New Mexico*. Tucked into the southwest corner of the state, he found a little dot surrounded by twisty roads. That dot, of course, was Silver City—a town neither of us had even heard before, much less visited. It certainly didn’t show up in any of our searching.
As we learned more about the groovy little art town tucked into the bosom of the Gila National Forest, the more intrigued we became. So we high-tailed it to Silver City as soon as we could.
We were on a mission so we left the motorcycles behind in Carson City. Our goal was to travel light and fast. At least as light and fast as possible in our eight fucking tons of rig. It’s all relative, right?
Our intent was to move to this funky little town unless a red flag presented itself. It didn’t. And we began house-hunting two days later.
The rest is history as they say. And it’s a good thing we liked Silver City because we didn’t really have a plan B.
But now we are treated to views like this. I’d say it all worked out.
Bluesky Art Show
This post is inspired by the Bluesky Art Show, a challenge to share artwork surrounding a weekly themeeach Saturday.
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This week’s theme has thrown me into a swirl of indecision. Technically in the Bluesky Art Show, multiple entries are permitted. My personal approach to the challenge is to pick only one, though. It forces me to slow the fuck down and be very deliberate about the choice.
So what to do about this week’s theme? My dear man and I don’t have items we’re overly attached to—nothing we’d be devastated by if we lost them tomorrow. Our favorite things are more conceptual—how we spend time together or tending to our native yard. So this week I struggled with not only choosing a “favorite thing” in that realm but how to represent it.
I finally landed in a completely different place—on an actual physical item. And—believe it or not—it’s not something obvious like my motorcycle.
It’s actually my coffee mug.
I love this mug for its generous size. It’s also unique and handmade. I love that it’s not perfectly round and uniform like its mass-produced counterparts. I smile at the humor of it every day. The green trim is one of my favorite colors. I love that it’s made by a local artist team who are lovable, amazing downtown merchants and all-around nice people.
It also satisfies the tactile-phile in me. (That’s probably not actually a word but I’m going with it.) I’m an extremely tactile person. I revel in the feel, weight, and texture of things. My bumpy, textured, hefty mug gives me the sensory feedback I love.
Of course, I don’t spend a lot of time making images of our household drink ware. So on the fly as I was packing to leave town—and my favorite mug—for a few days, I put my photographic muscle-memory to the test. Could I quickly craft a somewhat artful depiction—a portrait of sorts—of a largely utilitarian item?
So here we go, a little tribute to my humble coffee mug.
Not long after securing my beloved mug, I discovered what I hope is an intentional “easter egg” that makes me love this mug even more.
Let me know if you see it. If you don’t, you can cluck off. [Was that enough of a hint?]
Cheers, friends! Feel free to share your favorite things in the comments.
Bluesky Art Show
This post is inspired by the Bluesky Art Show, a challenge to share artwork surrounding a weekly themeeach Saturday.
I spotted this scene in Theodore Roosevelt National Park (South Unit) and was immediately captivated by its beauty and simplicity. The gentle arc of the hill with the lone tree under a sky filled with puffy clouds was a stirring vignette of the rolling plains of North Dakota.
The kids and I were on one of our jam-packed, mondo road trips but I knew I needed to take the time to photography this postcard-perfect scene. They waited patiently for me while I forced myself to not rush the process even though our exploration wish list for the day was long.
As I was wrapping up, a man in a little convertible raced into the pullout and called out to me. Well, shouted at me really.
“What do you see? Is there a buffalo out there or something?” the jerk asked.
“No, I’m photographing this beautiful scene.” I replied, gesturing condescendingly to the tree and sky that obviously deserved attention.
His faced drooped as his excitement turned to disappointment. “Oh, I thought it was something interesting,” he said in a tone dripping with disdain. He sped off, apparently in a hurry to achieve his quest of finding something meeting his definition of interesting.
I stood under that beautiful North Dakota sky and reminded myself we all enjoy our national parks in different ways. Even assholes.
Bluesky Art Show
This post is inspired by the Bluesky Art Show, a challenge to share artwork surrounding a weekly themeeach Saturday.
The days are getting shorter and colder. Winter is settling in for the long haul. When we think of warmth at this time of year, it tends to be wrapped in the context of the season.
The quintessential winter images of warmth come to mind first—
A mug filled with a hot drink in your hands.
The radiant heat coming from a fireplace.
But non-seasonal experiences fill in as well—
Fresh clothes straight from the dryer.
Snuggling into your sleeping bag after a day of exploring and adventure.
The searing full-body heat of hot flashes (I’m super happy that shit is behind me now).
The flush of heat filling your body from embarrassment or conflict.
And my personal favorite—snuggling up to my dear man in our cozy flannel sheets.
But right below that is another seasonal favorite of mine—apricity—the warmth of sun in winter.
Aside from it being nice to not be freezing your ass off, it reminds me the world is not binary. Life is complex. What we experience can’t be put in perfectly-organized boxes—as hard as we humans try.
Life is more beautiful than that. Embracing nuances and allowing competing feelings to exist in the same place is a healthy exercise.
Cheers, friends! Wishing you a winter full of apricity.
Bluesky Art Show
This post is inspired by the Bluesky Art Show, a challenge to share artwork surrounding a weekly themeeach Saturday.
This small flower is one of the species I miss from my time living the southeast. The Mountain Bluet (Houstonia serpyllifolia) was always one of my favorites to photograph. I’ve spent a good bit of time face down in the dank soil of the Smokies considering these little beauties.
The clusters they often form give credence to the concept of strength in numbers. These small-but-mighty blossoms damn well refuse to be ignored or overlooked in favor of larger, more flamboyant species. What they lack in size, they make up in prolificness.
I could spend a bunch more time anthropomorphizing these feisty little flowers, but let me get back to extolling the virtues of macro photography instead. Or, if you’re not a photographer, the value of paying attention to the intricate details of our wonderful planet.
The world inside our world is well worth some time spent being curious. And now I’m beginning to sound like Ted Lasso, so let’s move on.
I just need to remind myself to take a break from gardening to bust out the macro lens and give them the same nature-paparazzi time I’ve given bluets over the years.
Cheers, friends! Happy exploring.
Bluesky Art Show
This post is inspired by the Bluesky Art Show, a challenge to share artwork surrounding a weekly themeeach Saturday.
There’s something special about the calm after the storm—when the bright light of the sun reemerges after Mother Nature’s temper tantrum. You’ve survived the thunder, lightning, and downpour.
Then there’s a lull. The raindrops drip off of the plants in a gentle, slow pitter-patter. The birds return to their conversations. Other critters crawl out from their safe places.
For us on this particular day, it was our first serious storm in the trailer as full-timers. Sure we’d been through storms in the trailer in our pre-full-timing days. But it’s different when it’s your home.
It’s a very different reality. There’s nowhere else to retreat to if things go bad in your flimsy-ass house that often seems like it’s made of nothing more than balsa wood and aluminum foil.
We crawled out of our safe(ish) place to take in the post-storm desert sights and smells. The sun shone bright on the cacti that stood strong through it all. It was a natural, magical light show that dazzled the senses.
Cheers, friends! Stay amazed by our wonderful world.
Bluesky Art Show
This post is inspired by the Bluesky Art Show, a challenge to share artwork surrounding a weekly themeeach Saturday.
These days we spend a lot of happy hours enjoying the birds and deer in our familiar backyard while we decompress and process the day. But when we were on the road, the scenery was always changing.
We landed in this boondocking spot after a long transit day filled with unexpected delays. We’d fallen short of our intended destination and this was a last-minute where-the-fuck-are-we-going-to-camp-tonight scramble.
After the whole rigamarole of setting up the trailer and camp (it’s quite an ordeal) we flopped into our camp chairs for happy hour. Sure enough, this gorgeous sunset began to shape up. I figured I best get off my ass and set up the camera gear.
I’m glad I did in spite of really not wanting to after a long day. This digital watercolor I made from that effort has become one of my most popular pieces.
And I’m damn grateful for photographic muscle memory. Because being worn out, I relied on that to be able to compose and shoot it fairly quickly then flop back into my chair. That’s a big contrast to my harder-earned captures.
I’m ok with an “easy” win on this one—which is actually years of hard work paying off. So if you’re looking for a big take away, it’s keep practicing. It pays off in the long run.
Cheers!
Bluesky Art Show
This post is inspired by the Bluesky Art Show, a challenge to share artwork surrounding a weekly themeeach Saturday.
I suppose we can file this image in the Silver Linings Department. It’s one of my favorites from the many times I participated in the Tremont Autumn Brilliance workshop in Great Smoky Mountains National Park.
Why chalk this up to a silver lining? Because I probably would have missed it if not for being in the midst of battling a pituitary tumor. The medication left me nauseated much of the time. And I was struggling. Well, I was pretty fucking miserable to be honest.
I’d gone into the workshop looking forward to hanging out with my Tremont family, detoxing in the gorgeousness of the Smokies, and stepping out of the whole “tumor thing” for a little while. At least as much as I could.
I spent much of the workshop shooting time crouched over my knees trying not to toss my cookies. After one of those waves, I happened to look up. And there was this spectacular skylight of leaves over me highlighting the dramatic branch structure of this maple tree.
It took a bit but I managed to muster enough composure to capture this shot. So yes, I would definitely file this one under the silver lining of what was a pretty rough workshop for me trying not to puke on my hiking boots the whole time.
Lovely, I know. But, of course, I like to keep it real here.
Happy Autumn, Val-style.
Bluesky Art Show
This post is inspired by the Bluesky Art Show, a challenge to share artwork surrounding a weekly themeeach Saturday.
When it comes to photography, my first love was shooting macro. It is my favorite style by a long shot. (Pun totally intended, by the way.)
I love discovering the worlds inside the smaller world. The deeper you go, the more fascinating details you find. And the exercise of slowing down and flexing that observation muscle is pretty damn valuable in our fast-paced lives. It creates awareness and appreciation for how complex our world is. It’s humbling.
As for this week’s image, I found this katydid hiding inside a Gerbera Daisy flower in a pot on my back porch back when I lived in Georgia. I totally nerded out on the astounding details of it. It was very therapeutic to take a beat and study this katydid in all of its intricate details.
So with that preface, here’s a little request. Sometime today take a few moments to look at something more closely. Anything. It could be something natural but it doesn’t have to be. Pretend you have a tiny, giddy Val on your shoulder whispering “How fucking cool is that?” [Profanity optional.]
Give yourself a hot minute to embrace childlike wonder and curiosity. And let me know what you find.
We stood in the bone-chilling darkness, waiting for a picture perfect sunrise that would never come. It was spring in the Smokies. Sunrise quashing fog is part of the gamble.
There were easily three dozen of us photographers armed with tripods and cameras. We were all set up, hoping to capture the magic of the sun rising over the mountain tops from the vista on Foothills Parkway.
We clutched our coffee mugs, trying to stay warm in the moist, pre-dawn air. Some of the others were having lively conversations but it was too damn early and cold for me stand around being social. And it was clear to me the fog was not going to lift in time for us to get what we came for.
Not being one to waste the Herculean effort of dragging my ass out of bed in the wee hours of the morning, I looked for something else to shoot. After a bit, I found this intrepid ladybug carousing in the grass in the growing light of dawn.
I stalked it like a nature paparazzi as it conducted its business amongst the dew drops. Eventually it wandered into a position I was hoping for as it climbed this vertical stalk.
Then it dropped a deuce. How’s that for conducting its business? And, of course, that tiny bug shit clung to the wet leaf just below it.
I mean, come on! All that time laying on the cold, wet ground trying to get a shot I was happy with and I was rewarded with a turd. But that little ladybug never got into a better position that didn’t include bug shit, so yes, I removed it from the image.
In the end, I came for a sunrise and left with a ladybug. And I was reminded wildlife photography is very unpredictable and that’s why I generally stick with far more cooperative subjects like plants and flowers.
Cheers!
Bluesky Art Show
This post is inspired by the Bluesky Art Show, a challenge to share artwork surrounding a weekly themeeach Saturday.
If you’ve followed along for a while, you know one of my favorite places in the world is Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve in Colorado. In fact, I have an entire tattoo sleeve dedicated to this place.
When you have the opportunity to revisit special places, you get to go deeper and discover nuances. This old tree is one of those nuances I’ve explored in-depth.
From the road, this tree doesn’t capture much attention. The vast majority of folks simply drive by, mesmerized by the dunes in the distance. I’ve always found it captivating, though. The rugged textures and angles in contrast to the soft, flowing dunes in the background is poetic to me.
It took a shit ton of time over multiple trips to finally capture this tree bathed in the soul-stirring glow that happens in San Luis Valley during an epic sunset. And now when I reach into the memory banks and think of my time at Great Sand Dunes, this is my personal iconic memory of this extraordinary landscape.
And yes, this tree is included in my sleeve.
Until next time, friends. May you find the glow in your special places.
Bluesky Art Show
This post is inspired by the Bluesky Art Show, a challenge to share artwork surrounding a weekly themeeach Saturday.
