To cap off the summer and prep for the holiday travel season just a few months away, Bryan Rogala wrote a piece for Outside on how to protect all that expensive gear when flying, and my photo was chosen as the lead.
Anyone who’s looked out the window and watched baggage handlers fling suitcases in and out of the aircraft knows why it’s important to look out for your gear. Bryan puts together some hard-earned advice on how to make sure your trip is a successful one, and doesn’t involve insurance claims.
I was pretty stoked to see my photo of my first Leica – a rugged M8 – in the field in the Boundary Waters in use as the lead photo for this story.
This photo, of an in between moment in a beautiful place, actually marked a bit of a mental shift for me. It doesn’t speak to where it happened, or what transpired before or after the shutter was pressed. In many ways, it could have been taken anywhere, and has little to place the time. It’s a mini gear explosion, things in flux. The bottom plate is off of the camera for a battery change, and everything’s a bit haphazard outside of the Pelican case. What I personally love about this photo was that, in its simplicity, it reminded me when I took it and looking at it now, that capturing the details in those in between moments is sometimes where the magic happens. In the image, things aren’t perfectly arranged, it’s not the golden hour, and the backdrop isn’t more than forest duff.
What you have instead of that grand magic is a moment that many of us have lived — it’s a scene you could easily reach your hand into, grab the camera and keep on going.
You can read the full article here, and license the image here.