2020 in the rear view

2020 was a rough one. We hunkered down and stayed home as much as possible, but we also got out as much as was reasonable. In the face of a global pandemic, we were reminded of the importance of self-care, good sleep, mental and physical health. In my last post I shared one of my highlights of the year, which was helping at my local food pantry. I loved knowing I was helping my neighbors put food on their tables on a weekly basis. It felt good to get out of the house and make a contribution, rather than just hoping politicians would save us. We were also reminded of the importance of getting outside for recreation. As an avid cyclist, I just had to modify my riding habits a bit to avoid congested areas. In the spirit of conservation (of my energy, of resources) I chose to ride close to home. My buddy Josh designed a cool urban ride that starts from NE Portland, and finds as much dirt as possible - think lots of levees and railroad track. That ride was on heavy repeat in 2020. 

But this is my photo journal, so let’s talk photography. I kicked off the year with a great Tucson trip for Bicycling magazine to cover Sarah Swallow’s Ruta del Jefe event. There were many reasons I wanted to cover this event. For one, I love Tucson and have been anxious to explore the area south of Tucson. The event’s basecamp was the lovely Appleton-Whittell Research Ranch in Elgin, AZ. The other reason is that Sarah has created an event that is designed to raise awareness about the social and environmental issues of the area - think border walls, immigration, proposed open-pit mines, jaguar habitat. This project was exciting for me since it was the first time I was hired to write and take photos. Read the story and check out a few photos from that trip below:

I wanted to be proactive about shooting some portraits of Portland folks that I have seen work hard to make the Portland cycling scene what it is, so I reached out to some friends and we made it happen. I didn’t have specific plans going in to each shoot. I wanted the project to be improvisational - to simply meet up and make it happen in real time. I reached out to Jonathan Maus from Bike Portland, Ayleen Crotty from Filmed by Bike, Chris San Augustine from Broken and Coastal, and Ira Ryan from Breadwinner Cycles. As much as I love production-heavy commercial shoots, I also love working quickly and collaboratively with friends. These are all folks that put heart and soul into their projects and work hard to celebrate cycling. Below are a few selects from that project.

2020 was my third year being active with the Oregon Timber Trail alliance as the group’s secretary. Despite restrictions, we found safe ways to get together at Summit Lake, where we scouted some trail and rode around Timothy Lake. We sat around campfires and were reminded of spending time outdoors with friends and colleagues. Later in the year, we gathered in Oakridge for our year-end retreat. It’s always a great time to recap, ride some bikes, and remind each other why we volunteer for such a trail organization. Hint: it’s about the legacy we leave - long distance bike trails that all can enjoy. While we had quite a lineup of trail work parties planned, we only managed one. But it was great to gather in the Fremont National Forest and survey wildfire damage, and repair some trail. Here’s a short slideshow of the OTTA in 2020:

Lest ye think it’s all camping and riding bikes, I’d like to share some work projects that happened despite it all. I had the pleasure of working with Shannon Holt to create a campaign of images for Solace. Solace is a brilliant Portland company that is taking the cremation process online! The concept for our shoot was about remembrance and sharing an object from a loved one that passed. We met up with our models in their homes and shot daylight portraits. I was grateful for the kindness and openness of our models for sharing their personal stories and their objects of remembrance. I’m reminded how much I enjoy taking portraits, and especially portraits that tell a story.

In June Portland Made teamed up with Soul District PDX to raise money for programming to support black entrepreneurs and youth in North and Northeast Portland. I teamed up Megan Amberson and Shannon Holt to volunteer our services. Olander Earthworks placed the winning bid on our “Strategy Led Brand Boost Package” It was a pleasure to collaborate with Megan who led strategy, Shannon who coordinated it all and designed their new identity, and Sarah and Andy from Olander Earthworks. I contributed a full day shoot. Head over to their site to see the results. It was so much fun to see how much good design, strategy, and some new photography can give a young company a whole new look and feel and contribute to a great cause in the process. Hats off to Portland Made for making this campaign happen!

Next, I worked with Jocelyn at GoBox to create a series of images that illustrates their washing process. Obviously, restaurants were hit especially hard this year, but many remained open, offering exclusively take-out service. The concept behind GoBox is that folks sign up with the service, get reusable containers at their favorite food carts, eat your meal and then leave the dirty dishes to be washed and reused. Hopefully, the images will show that GoBox takes its sanitization process very seriously. Photos help businesses tell their story. What new aspect of your business needs to be shared with the world? I always say content creation should be an ongoing process, both for your website and your social media account. Build in some budget for photography, writing, and video and keep that content flowing throughout the year.

Bicycling magazine approached us about creating a series of instructional videos. My partner Tori is an expert teacher of all things bike. For years she has run Gracie’s Wrench, and dedicated her business to teaching folks the ins and outs of bike maintenance and repair. For this series of film, she wrote scripts and I filmed and aa assembled a rough edit, and the videos should roll out soon. The folks at Breadwinner bikes were kind enought to let us use their space to film. Thank you guys! I’m personally thrilled to be doing more video. Here is a still from that production. I’ll share links to the videos as soon as they’re ready. They’ll live on Bicycling magazine’s YouTube channel. As you know, folks love learning online, so we’re happy to throw our hat in the ring and develop some educational pieces for all to enjoy.

Finally, I wanted to share with you some of my favorite music of the year. There’s no question these troubling times have created an atmosphere that’s produced some amazing music. Music definitely helped me get through the year and kept me inspired. Here’s a Spotify playlist:

If you don’t already know Kiko Dinucci, his Rastilho album has been on heavy rotation around our house. It’s my favorite of the year. It’s so so good! Think heavy tropicalia influence with brilliant punk acoustic guitar. It sounds like the energy I want to cultivate going into 2021. Let’s Gooo!

Be well, everyone. I can’t wait to help you tell your stories in 2021.

Please get in touch. I’d love to catch up with you. Let me know how I can help.

Fall Forward!

Hey all! It’s been too long since my last post. I want this post to be a bit of a catch up with Daniel Sharp Photography, and perhaps a bit of inspiration. That’s always been my goal, to create images that have a bit of joy…a bit of wind in your sails. It’s been a challenging year to say the least. It’s been hard to see where this is all going, but the things that have kept me positive and moving forward have been when I’ve been able to get outside myself and help others.

I started volunteering at my local food pantry, where we serve up to 200 families every Tuesday and Saturday. Folks wait in their cars, lined up around the block, where they take boxes that we prepare - usually a mix of (soon-to-be) expired food from Whole Foods and Trader Joes in addition to prepared dairy boxes from Oregon Food Bank or another source depending on the month and if a federal program is in place. We take care to hand pick a selection of food that will hopefully keep folks eating well for the week…basics like potatoes, onions, apples, bread, cheese, yogurt, etc. It’s an intense four hours of my day, but one that fills me up, knowing I helped many families eat this week. If you’re in need of food, they start serving Tuesdays and Saturdays from noon to one pm and they’re located at: 6120 NE 57th Ave., Portland, OR 97218

I had a couple back-to-back shoots last weekend. On Friday we shot new images for Olander Earthworks. Rather than shoot in models’ homes, they rented the Good Mod for the morning, which gave us the opportunity to play with their stock of vintage furniture and make sets in their warehouse. It was a small crew, so it was all hands on deck. We made the most of our time there and came up with some great images as part of their “Strategy-Led Brand boost” collaboration. Shannon Holt headed up the design and art direction and Megan Amberson led with strategy. The whole package was a new way of working for me and I really enjoyed working with this motivated young company. If you don’t already know Oldander Earthworks, they are a small business based in Portland that designs and crafts these amazing sand spheres that create intricate patterns in fine sand. The experience with the spheres is at once calming and meditative - a great way to take a break from our digital lives. I really enjoyed being a part of small start-up team that came together to give this smart small company a brand makeover. Both Shannon and Megan are brilliant at design and strategy, so it was amazing to put our heads together and riff off of Sarah and Andy’s product. They’ll be launching their new site with all the new creative, shortly, but I’ll share two images right now to give you a taste…The top image is a rare BTS (behind-the-scenes) shot of me shooting at the Good Mod. (Thank you Keana!) The other is the shot I was taking. It’s fun to see two looks at the same scene.

From Friday’s Olander Earthworks shoot, I made the drive down to shoot the Oregon Timber Trail’s only work party of the year. I’ve been on the board of the OTT for the past three years, and most years we try to do four work parties and do as much trail rehab as possible. Due to COVID-19, we were only able to do one, but you could sense how much every volunteer was motivated to do as much as possible. We all met at Campbell Lake Campground in the Fremont National Forest, where everyone was able to set up their own base camp with plenty of space and make their own food. Normally we would all get together to share food. I certainly missed the shared meals, but everyone was still able to huddle around the campfire and enjoy each other’s company. The goal of the work party was to rehab trails after the Watson Fire. We cut out a few large trees blocking the trail, but the main goal Saturday was rerouting the trail in some wet marshy areas. The group broke out into four different crews and each took on a stream crossing, armoring it with large, heavy stones that would allow through riders to cross streams without creating more mud. It was incredible to see massive stones harvested and brought to the worksite with a rock sling. In the afternoon our group cut out a brand new trail and established singletrack in grassy areas where previously the trail was barely visible. Here are a selection of images from Saturday’s work:

Sunday, the group scouted a section of trail that had gotten quite a bit of cattle traffic (this is their neighborhood after all) and we flagged and cut an entirely more fun, serpentine track that could be enjoyed by folks doing weekend downhill rides, and not be destroyed by commuting cattle. It was incredible to see the track take shape quickly and be ridden by lunchtime! A dozen motivated mountain bikers can accomplish quite a bit in very little time. The value in documenting the work for the OTT is sharing with partners what we’ve accomplished in the field and reminding our audience that we’re dedicated to maintaining the trail for all to enjoy. Here are some of my shots from Sunday’s work:

Another project from 2020 I’d like to share is my portrait series where I sought to shine a light on some local figures in the Portland bike scene. I wanted to celebrate some of the folks that have dedicated themselves to cycling and those that have found creative ways to document cycling and further the conversation. I didn’t have a commission with a magazine yet, but I wanted to nominate some folks and get shooting. Without rolling them all out at once, I’ll share with you my first of the series…Jonathan Maus of bikeportland. org. As a former racer, and someone who would occasionally attend cycling advocacy meetings, I’d always run into Jonathan. He was everywhere, always with camera in one hand, note pad in the other…getting the story, complete with all the details so he could share it on his site for others to enjoy from the comfort of their laptop screens. Bike Portland is celebrating its 25th year today, and so I'm taking the opportunity to thank Jonathan for his years of dedication to the Portland cycling community. We’re better because of his work and discussion of all things cycling…from racing to the politics of commuting. Jonathan was there for us. I met Jonathan in Kenton without a fixed plan of what/how to shoot. I quickly spotted a painted wall I wanted to use, and we just rolled with it. I was grateful for how playful Jonathan was and how he was up for creating fun images with me. We chatted in between shots, and rode bikes to a few different locations. It was definitely one of my most enjoyable shoots I can remember. Thank you Jonathan!

I loved the fantasy feeling of the pink sky with stylized clouds, but while riding from one location to another, I spotted traffic backed up on the interstate. I always wanted to show that feeling of freedom, a cyclist moving under his own power while cars sat stuck on the highway. I have always felt this is the future of Portland. Traffic will only get worse, and cycling will become the best way to get across town. Skip the gym and get your blood moving on the way to work! It was a challenge to capture Jonathan on his bike and have the traffic still be prominent in the frame. In the end, I used my 85mm and stood on the railing on the South side of the overpass to get the framing I wanted. I was happy with the composition with the car in the foreground as well.

OK, enough about my work. To wrap this up I wanted to share some music that has been keeping me motivated.

First, here is a Spotify mix of some tracks I’ve been listening to. A bit of revolutionary energy as we head into the election: Let’s Go!

Finally, here’s one of my favorite mixes lately from Monika Seta and Luna Vega. It’s gotten me through several trainer workouts. They call it melancholic, psychedlic, industrial, but it feels right to me…

New season, same chaos. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Monika Seta and Luna Vega are inviting you once again to a feast of juicy musical delights. Sizzling debuts, unique projects, new, exciting labels, and some good old classics await your ears in the 3rd Dance in Chaos episode. follow us: www.facebook.com/danceinchaos/ https://soundcloud.com/monika-seta https://soundcloud.com/luna_vega art: https://soundcloud.com/nsnva technical support: https://soundcloud.com/auren1 https://soundcloud.com/syntheria_music https://soundcloud.com/aleksandrl

Trans Cascadia #4

Trans Cascadia is both a grueling 4-day “enduro” race as well as a celebration. Riders endure 8-hour days on the bikes, climbing up to 20,000 feet over the duration of the event. The physical punishment is always met equally with post-ride pleasures, like a bottomless kegs of Pfriem beer and gourmet food, provided as breakfast, lunch and dinner prepared by Oregon’s finest mountain biking chefs. The event – started and run by Alex Garnder, Nick Gibson, and Tommy Magrath, just completed its fourth and most ambitious year yet. This year the event headed north in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest.

I’ve been involved with the event for the past three years in various roles. The first year I jumped in to help out Chris Diminno in the kitchen. Based on that experience, I can tell you that the kitchen crew works harder than anyone – you wake up at 4:30 to make sure coffee is ready at 6am, and you finish close to 11pm after dishes are done, grey water is emptied, and prep is done for tomorrow’s meals. It’s not a thankless job though - riders are grateful to have beautiful meals in the middle of the woods. The following year I was happy to join the photo crew. But for me, the most satisfying part is taking part in both the trail work parties and then seeing the final results at the race - watching racers jaws drop and proclaim these the best trails they’ve ever ridden. Having legendary pros like Greg Minnar, Josh Bryceland, and Steve Peat tell us we have some world class trails in our backyard and the fact that we had a hand in bringing them back to life is deeply satisfying. It’s all about the process.

The Trans Cascadia photo crew is a hard working bunch. For the past two years, it has consisted of Dylan Vanweelden, Leslie Kehmeier, Chris Hornbecker, Mike Thomas, Nate Johnson and Trevor Lyden. This year we were joined by the talented Patrick Means. I should add that everyone knocks themselves out in an entirely volunteer capacity. We’re all doing it for the love of shooting mountain biking and for the camaraderie of shooting as a team, as well as supporting the event itself. We hustle around the course during the day, doing our best to spread out and cover the race from wherever we think is best, and then reconvene in the evening to share stories from the day and edit images, often until 11pm. Pinkbike is the media outlet for the event, so while we’re shooting during the day, Danielle is driving to town to upload our images and her written account of the days racing.

One thing that strikes me about this event is the sheer challenge of the logistics of getting 100 racers to the trailheads, getting water trucks and portable showers/toilets to the campgrounds, the food, the tents. It’s an amazing effort to bring the party to the woods and back out. Personally, I’m glad to be a part of a race that is reopening up miles of trails that were largely overgrown and neglected and bringing them back to life for all to enjoy. For the hardcore backcountry mountain biker, Trans Cascadia just opened up a gold mine of mountain biking not far from Portland.  That’s the part that gets me fired up – the trail work and the getting folks together for a good cause. It’s a physical challenge to get to the race itself. We all pedal ourselves from the trailhead to where we want to shoot. Full confession -  I did have the pleasure of riding an ebike on day three and loved it. But as a photographer, it’s an intense four days purely focused on getting the best images we can and getting ourselves out safely to do it again the next day. I enjoy the full immersion and pure focus. It’s really nice to not have cell service and just be in the woods focused on riding bikes and celebrating the end of summer in style.

Now we are left wondering. Where will they go next? Stay tuned…

Tech Skills for Backcountry Trail Maintenance

When I got involved with The Oregon Timber Trail Alliance, one of my goals was to make trail work a bit less intimidating. My partner and I have been getting more and more into doing trail work and we were a bit at a loss to explain exactly we were doing out there. It’s not a knock against any of the folks running trail work parties – it’s just that most work parties are about doing, not learning. We left feeling like we had made a contribution whether working all day to improve drainage, or helping to sketch out new trails, but we wanted to really understand exactly what we were doing out there. We wanted there to be a class that really explained trail work in a deep way – we needed to ask the trail master. Luckily, we have Kevin Rowell in the mix! Kevin is the USFS trail master at the Middle Fork district (Oakridge area) and he also happens to be an avid mountain biker - and all around knowledgeable guy. Basically, he’s the guy you want to learn from.

Personally, I got tired with just “using” trails. I’ve been riding mountain bikes on and off for 30 years.  It was time to give back a little more. Luckily for all of us, the Oregon Timber Trail is 670 miles long and much of it is remote and in certain sections are in disrepair. The Forest Service does its best to maintain the trails that get constant use – but they have much more work than they can do every year and they rely heavily on volunteer labor. Also lucky for the Forest Service, is that mountain bikers are motivated and they’re usually pretty fit and have no problem doing the work – get this, they even see it as a fun challenge.

So, we all gathered at Tired Dog Ranch Friday night. Tired Dog has been an oasis in Oakridge for events like The Cascade Cream Puff and Trans-Cascadia. Sally Harmon is the owner and she very much goes out of her way to make sure her guests are happy. We rented the Cascadian cottage, which turned out to be a perfect place for our group meals. Hannah Carlos, who will be preparing food for upcoming OTT trail work parties kept everyone well fed with delicious dinners.Base Camp, 10 Barrel and Humm Kombucha were kind enough to provide liquid refreshment. Friday night everyone gathered at the cottage, and got to know each other a bit.

Saturday morning we awoke to a beautiful spread of oatmeal, yogurt, fruit, and all the fixings, and of course mugs of Stumptown coffee.  We love our morning coffee! Sandwiches were prepared to go, and we all made our way down the road to Greenwaters Park where we would start the day with a classroom session led by Kevin. I think we were all blown away by sheer depth of what Kevin got into. USFS is always very focused on safety, so Kevin got into details of situational awareness, communication with dispatch (Eugene if you’re working in Oakridge) and how to communicate in an emergency situation. We learned about trail alignment, how to shape climbing turns, and stone pitching among other things. Ultimately we learned about a trail building and maintenance philosophy that is light-handed and creates a backcountry feel.

We learned the three basics, which are: 1. Log-out specs – those bucking logs should consider if there is a need to “corral” the trail, meaning you don’t necessarily cut out a down tree to the maximum width – maybe you want to reduce riding speeds at this point in the trail, so you have the option to leave the trail a bit narrower. The rule of thumb is when you are standing on the ride line with your arms outstretched, whatever you can touch should be cut. We also learned to ride the line in your mind – imagine where you might be leaning your bike and possibly need more room on a log cut to avoid broken knuckles.  Finally, get your rounds at least five feet off the trail. 2. What are the brushing specs? You need to consider the sight lines on corners. Do you want to brush the fill slope or not?

Just when our minds were about to explode and we were no longer to retain any more information, it was time for lunch. After lunch we loaded up and went to one particular trail that had some drainage issues. In one spot, the trail was worn down and rutted, so one group harvested rocks to fill in the low spot, with rocks laid on end, with sand poured in between the rocks to provide the cement. A second group rebuilt a culvert – the man made metal culvert that had been in use was too small and had become clogged, so our group dug it out and built a new, larger culvert from found rocks. We were all amazed watching it come together, digging out, scavenging for suitable stones, and carefully placing for maximum effect. It’s time-intensive work, but it all came together relatively quickly as jackets and Rubbermaid bins were put into use to carry rocks from the streambed and adjacent hill. In the end, we stood back and admired our new-found skills and realized the power we had to reshape and armor certain parts of these well worn trails.

Sunday was much like the day before. We woke to the smell of fresh coffee, a lovely breakfast spread, prepare trail sandwiches and back to Greenwaters for more classroom learning. My takeaway from the classroom sessions is that there are so many elements to consider with trail construction – from alignment and how the trail is designed to take advantage of the natural contours and features, to manmade structures that may need to be built to enhance our experience and durability of the trail into the future. We don’t just build trails for our own use, we build trails for all user groups to enjoy. What works for a mountain bike isn’t always ideal for an equestrian user.

To drive all of this classroom learning home, after lunch we drove out to Dead Mountain so we could experience firsthand what it takes to design and build new trail. Dead Mountain is getting a reroute. The old trail was too straight and too fast and was perhaps dangerous in that you gained too much speed and had to throw on the brakes for turns. The new trail design will play more with the contours of the land and take a more playful approach and provide more opportunities for play. We walked and flagged, discussing various options and their pros and cons before coming to a group decision on alignment. The group then walked the new trail alignment, where we practiced imagining the ride for flow. Flags were then placed and then the group picked up tools and began actually clearing and cutting trail. In the end we were blown away by how much trail we were able to cut and we understand why the trail went where it did. I’m grateful for instructors like Kevin who have such deep knowledge and are willing to share it. He’ll just smile, shrug and tell you it’s his job. That’s Kevin. We’re grateful too for all the folks that shared their weekend with us to learn the finer points of trail work. I hope this is just the first step and that folks get the bug the way we have. Trail work is addictive – mostly because it feels good to give back to the trails that give us so much enjoyment. As Kevin said at the end of the course – the real way to cement these skills is to come out to one of our work parties and spend a couple days on trail practicing what we learned. Thank you for becoming a steward and learning how to take care of our trails!

Year One - Oregon Timber Trail

Last Saturday, Basecamp Brewing was kind enough to host us for a slideshow and panel discussion about the Oregon Timber Trail. For those that haven't been following along, the OTT is a 670-mile route from Lakeview, OR to Hood River, OR and is suited for mountain bikes! Yes, a through trail, just like hikers have with the PCT. I've been on the board of the OTT and we hosted several events last year, from Sawyer Certifications to Trail work parties. This event challenged me to try to sum up a years worth of volunteer work for a cause that I'm passionate about. I'm pretty comfortable expressing myself with photos and the written word, but to hold a microphone and communicate to a live audience was definitely just outside my comfort zone. But, looking back through the slides I was presenting I realized the whole experience has been just outside my comfort zone, which is perhaps why I'm so enthused about the trail and what it's set out to accomplish. 

Let's start with the Sawyer Certification. For those that don't know the term Sawyer, it means learning how to clear downed trees with a chainsaw. Previous to the course, I had never run a chainsaw. But not to worry, the course takes it step by step, starting with a First Aid and CPR course, which is required for all sawyers. Next, the course is as much safety, planning, and situational awareness as it is running a saw. Fast forward a month and we found ourselves at the first work party in the Fremont National forest. The Fremont is remote and its trails don't see many boots or tires, so there was a maze of blowdown to cut through. Luckily the trees are relatively small in diameter compared to the Doug Firs of the Cascades. But what these trees lacked in girth, they made up for in quantity. I think we might have only cut a mile in one day, but that's what it takes. The work party on Bunchgrass Trail was just as challenging and had its own set of circumstances that make it a tough nut to crack. In the end what was significant for me was the community of like-minded people that came together for a common cause and the way I was challenged in the process - both learning how to run a chainsaw and learning to commuicate my passion for this new trail. My hope is that others will come out and find themselves on this new trail. See you out there!