Tracking the sun’s movements. Noting its shadows, it’s highlights. Where the snow hasn’t melted even after two days of sun: where there is darkness throughout the day. Listing locations, deciding, based on notes, when to return to them: when the light will be right. Becoming excited leading up to these small windows of time that bustle with excitement.

Then, gathering supplies and venturing out into the cold, on foot, sometimes in a car, but mostly on foot. Bundled, baring temperatures unfamiliar to me. Ripping gloves off, setting up, shooting quickly as to be seen as little as possible by locals, and tearing down, moving onward to the next location.

Racing the unstoppable sliding of the sun. Time for one more, open the shutter a bit longer. Oh, just one more, open the shutter a bit longer.

And then, as if it had come suddenly, as if it hadn’t been slowly creeping behind the swell the west all day, it’s gone.

I return to warmth, hands and nose burning back to feeling again. And I wait for the sun to rise again, just to find those windows between these times of darkness and light that seem just right to open my shutter.

Thoughts on process, recovering in the Epicenter from the cold of the sunset