The lights suddenly cut off right as Kyle and I flashed our front row tickets and photo passes to the security guards down front. Beach Boys tunes serenaded the screaming fans as the boys of Relient K furtively took the stage as silouettes. Be My Escape was welcomed with lights and loud decibels ringing in the ears of 3,300 fans...this is what we came for. Switchfoot followed in typical rock 'n roll fashion.

I have to thank my friend, Melissa Brock, of Superchic[k] for giving me to hook up at the show to create these images.

To be read while listenting to Your Hand in Mine by Explosions in the Sky

I don't know where to start. But I guess I can begin by revisiting an experience many of us own. The quintesential college experience...experimentation, enlightenment, growth as a person, independance, discovery...all valid milestones of growth we can look back on and marvel at. Those were good experiences, they made me who I am today. I wouldn't take those back. One of the most important principles of life, I learned, while grasping my diploma on that stage in west Texas. I worked hard for 3 and one half years, studying subjects I lacked passion for in order to attain that diploma which would lead to that "job" that would lead to a "secure" promising living.

The truth being this: The joy is in the journey. In fact, the destination is often an allusion, a mirage. The joy in the journey IS the destination...it's all there ever was. The Greeks didn't write obituaries about all the destinations a man reached in his lifetime. They only asked one question after a man died: "Did he have passion?".

I want passion for what I do, and I do not want any business model/system or mentality to restrict that fluidity that passion requires. I do not see my photography as a business but as an art...and art is entirely more equipped to pursue passion on a whim than business is. I'm looking forward to what the next 12 months has in store for me and my photography. In the meantime, here's a photograph that I'm passionate about.

"Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it."

* * * * *

Alright Girls and Boys, for the past month I've been surrounded by the little voices and talents of these four women while immersed in A Fine Frenzy of photography, designing albums and some travel mixed in. I have to thank my friends for sharing this music with me (you know who you are) and thus, I'm sharing with you...because frankly good music should be shared. I wouldn't Havnevik any other way (maybe that was too far of a stretch). Get their albums on iTunes Plus or Amazon MP3. Both sell DRM free music, which is the only way to buy digital music.

Dallas, Texas

Check out this feature on Don't Box Me In's blog. Mark Eric asked me to do this months ago and I finally got my act together...fun interview!