by John Jacobsen
Portland, Maine
Black Coast
The sea startles and amazes me. Whenever I stand on the beach and look out to the horizon, I imagine what lies beneath the waves and what lies beyond the horizon. Geographically speaking, I suppose the United Kingdom would be the first thing I’d swim to if I set out swimming in a straight line from here. A boat would be better; that water is frigid. Plus there are sharks.
Ogunquit, Maine
Ogunquit Coastline

Mountain Sky
Some native Coloradan friends of ours were married on top of Arapaho Basin. A beautiful noon wedding in summer, we sucked in the cool mountain air while riding the super-quad chairlift up. A bluegrass band played “Wagon Wheel” while I snapped this photo at 12,000 feet. Standing there, I struck up a conversation with “the crew”, freinds of the groom’s father who had grown up there with views like this as their backyard. We shared a bowl as they told stories, looking over to this ridge, pointing out the lighter area on the left, where it looks like a rockslide has taken part of the slope down with it. “That’s what the locals call Shit For Brains”, one of them told me. “We used to ski that all the time.”

Pittsburgh Brass
We nearly moved to this wonderful city, full of history and originality.

Quarry
This small limestone quarry not far from town seemed to me like an isolated, otherworldly planet. Not far from the main highway, yet I found myself eerily alone while exploring these grounds. At one point, swirling high above in the hot summer wind, I witnessed at least 10-15 hawks circling overhead. The only thing on the ground was water, a bunch of stone and me.

Graffitti

Snowy Firepit
This was our backyard for six years. In the spring and summer, it’s so green and lush you’d never know there were houses behind you. In the dead of winter it takes on an entirely different feeling, bringing you closer to your neighbors for a few chilly months. We would still sit out at night sometimes, cold as it was, staring into the orange, fiery glow, watching the shadows and smoke dance on the snow in the northern wind.

Summer Lift
It’s warm enough to swim down at the bottom, but up here you need a jacket to fend off the chill. The blazing sun kisses your cheeks, giving you a warming sensation inside, while the breeze reminds you of the cold to come at nightfall, telling you not to dawdle too long before the sun goes down. Moments like this are remembered forever, probably because the mountains force you to “feel” the physical world around you, the air thinner, your sense of self, smaller.

Lakewood Theatre
Landmark to East Dallas, this marks our current residence.

Castle Town
Bloomfield, Indiana
Bloomfield Cows
Driving out to the country in Indiana doesn’t take long. That’s what makes life in the midwest so rich. Fresh air, farm-to-table dining and sincere concern over what happens locally– that’s what brings people together. One fall day my friend Brian and I drove out on a photo tour, snapping shots of bridges, cornfields, railroad tracks and the brilliant fall foliage. That happened in 2006, and set the tone for my appreciation of my surroundings from then on. I’ll never forget that day.
Paris, France
Parisian Hipster
I love this picture. Every object in the frame works together to create this urban vibe captured on a side street in Paris. To the right is an ultra-hip record shop where presumably, this dude is headed as he struts by, fixing his collar. Each of the bikes out front seem to line up in chorus, like an audience.

Farm Country
This landscape shot was taken behind the high school where my grandfather attended as a young man. Haddam is where he grew up, and is the smallest of small towns. It was then and it still is. Nothing but crops and sky, and ghosts of buffalo, cowboys and indians.

Uptown Mart
This is the storefront where my grandfather worked as a teenager. Soda jerk, I believe. It’s also where he met his high school sweetheart whom he married 50 years later, after my grandmother passed away.

First & Mill
After leaving my granfather’s burial in Haddam, Kansas, our family piled in the car and began to head back to Junction City, where we were staying. My uncle, driving in the car in front of us, pulled us over and told us about Rock City (a glacial field full of giant boulders that have no business being in the middle of farm country), and that maybe we should go and stretch our legs, since we were close. It’s one of those things that not many people get the chance to see, because, why would you? Loved every minute of it.

Haddam High
My grandfather attended high school here in the late 1930’s. As a prank, he and his high school sweetheart (whom he later married), once led a cow all the way up the stairs to the second floor, leaving her there over night to greet the teachers and everyone else in the morning. They realized the plan had backfired when they arrived the next day, only to find cow manure scattered throughout the school. And, getting a cow upstairs is easy, but getting her down was another story.

Mom
As a boy, my grandfather walked along this road—uphill, both ways, in the snow... to get to school. He lived the quintessential rural life on a farm, milking cows and feeding chickens, all before making the long walk to school. Hard work was the only way of life back then, and he did his best to impart a strong work ethic on my mother (pictured above, following his burial), and his grandchildren. He served twenty years and two wars in the U.S. Air Force, and another twenty in the private sector. Through it all, he somehow managed to find time to take us all fishing. God bless you, Gramps. We love you and miss you very, very much.

Stonebreakers
This shot reminds me of Gustave Courbet’s 1849 painting, The Stonebreakers. The painting itself depicts a landscape similar to this, with two laborers in the foreground, breaking stones on the side of a road with crude tools in the summer heat. I recall from my Art History studies, the way the earth rose up and up in the background towards the sky, enveloping the toiling, laboring stonebreakers and binding them to their position in life. Looking out over this giant tract of farmland, I imagined the hardship and difficulty my grandfather endured and enjoyed throughout his early life.

Spirits

Fly
Huatulco, Mexico
Bay of Las Crucesitas
Bloomington, Indiana
Outside the Moose
This is the parking lot for the best little ice cream stand in America: The Chocolate Moose. People usually arrive by foot or bike, and stay a while after ordering. In small town Indiana–that same place John Melloncamp sings about, this is common, novel and refreshing as an outsider looking in. It’s a slice of real life, unfettered, uncluttered and unmanufactured.
Bloomington, Indiana
Lee's Karate
Bloomington, Indiana
KP Radio
Downtown Bloomington is home to the most picturesque courthouse square known to man. Bulbs of white lights extend from the central courthouse dome in concentric vectors towards fastening points surrounding the square. One of those points is the old KP Radio building, made of limestone, glowing red in the sunset while war memorials remind us of days lost by some, found for others.
Huatulco, Mexico
Night Lights
Lights that hang like this make everything feel perfect. They remind me of Manet and his many paintings of societal Paris during the late 1800’s. They bring about a sense of nostalgia for people. Enjoying the light breeze under these lights, under a cloudless, starry sky near the equator, the wedding reception of one of my closest childhood friends became that much more special.
Bloomington, Indiana
Neighbors
We saw a variety of tenants come and go from this house next door. Mostly college kids, some graduate students, and a family on welfare at one point. Funny story about that last family: they actually broke into our house, leaving everything of value but the jar of change full of pennies kept in the back laundry room. The proof was in the snow; tracks led from our back window to their back door. A week later they were gone, taking the foot traffic of back-door meth-heads with them. It makes for a good story, at least.
Bloomington, Indiana
Corn Harvest
Months before, this feild was a lush green taller than a man, for as far as you could see. The huge stalks swayed in the wind, with gold hanging from every opening, soaking up the last bits of summer sunlight. Today, it’s gone. Beautiful in it’s own right, the transformation reminds us of the neverending cycle of life. Once alive and vibrant, the field must be sacrificed to sustain the the living.
Carlsbad, California
Coaster
When venturing beyond California’s major cities, life slows down considerably. Carlsbad is a really cool, old town that you may or may not expect to find out west. Old buildings house trendy restaurants, breweries, and laid back hotels. The beach features good surfing conditions and smaller crowds than those in San Diego, about an hour south. It’s very walkable, and makes for a nice little getaway. This photo was taken near the historic train station, where the Pacific Coaster strolls by to take people into the cities for work. The train ride is gorgeous, lining the coast the entire ride, you can watch surfers and bikers all the way while passing through small towns and chatting with locals. It’s easy to imagine a good life in Carlsbad, especially now that I’ve seen how easy it is to commute to jobs in the area.
Bloomington, Indiana
Railroad in the Sky
These tracks are still active. The trestle extends for about a mile, rising 500 feet above an enormous cornfield. Remember the eighties movie “Stand By Me”? It’s just like that. The railroad ties have a shoe-size gap between them, so if you find yourself near the middle when a train comes, you better think fast.
Napa Valley, California
Grapes

Bricklayer
If ever a photo looked like a painting that belonged in the Musée d’Orsay, this is it. It specifically reminds me of Gustave Courbet’s Stonebreakers, painted in 1849 but destroyed in World War II. There’s very little sign of modernity shown here, if at all. The building materials, pail, and shovel showcase the care and craftsmanship that have gone into repairing Parisian streets for centuries. The worker’s hands and arms show strength and experience, leading me to imagine this line of work as a family trade, passed down from generations. He seems connected to his craft, proud of his work. There’s a reason we’re charmed by this city—it’s details like these that go into everything you see and even walk on.

Businessman
Aside from it’s striking similarity to Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here album cover art, I love the light and composition this photo provides. That’s the famous Sorbonne University, across the street and to the left. We passed through this way from the river, heading towards the monumental Pantheon, maybe two more streets over to the right. In a city like Paris, with so many different neighborhoods, with endless treasures around every corner, this is one of the most “normal” scenes you’ll find. Meaning, I sometimes forget that it’s not all art, cheese and wine all the time, and that Parisians need to work and make a living just like the rest of us.

Castle Door
After climbing up a very steep hill, I paused at the entrance to notice this small castle door. The sun shone directly on the wooden planks, almost inviting me in for a pint, while the archway on the right seemed so foreboding. The various textures of the walls here really helped to take me back in time to the Renaissance, imagining who might have lived there, and how they may have lived. It seems to me we’re not much different than our forefathers, not physically at least. Things change and technology advances the human race, but the differences are relative, and go unnoticed from one generation to the next. In other words, not much has changed. People still have the same basic needs, and the same basic family relationships, and in that respect I can can easily imagine myself living in another time.

Businessman
Aside from it’s striking similarity to Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here album cover art, I love the light and composition this photo provides. That’s the famous Sorbonne University, across the street and to the left. We passed through this way from the river, heading towards the monumental Pantheon, maybe two more streets over to the right. In a city like Paris, with so many different neighborhoods, with endless treasures around every corner, this is one of the most “normal” scenes you’ll find. Meaning, I sometimes forget that it’s not all art, cheese and wine all the time, and that Parisians need to work and make a living just like the rest of us.

Post Office
Free and public restrooms are not easy to come by in Europe. Walking the streets in search of relief, I wandered into this post office and stopped in my tracks when I saw this.

Haag Hipster

Love Locks

This is What We Came For

Platz Cafe

Broken Windows

King Cotton
There’s nothing quite like a west Texas sunset. The air is dry on the Llano Estacado, home to the country’s largest cotton exporters. At dusk the temperature drops like a stone. Blazing summer sun is cooled by high-plains winds, and the view goes on for days, making way for starlit skies that demand a campfire.

Blowout

Busy Randolph
Chicago is one of the most beautiful American cities. The charm exists in its’ food, architecture and people. Chicagoans are a unique breed of people too. They band together through thick and thin: Bulls, Blackhawks and Bears, up and down. Icy, frigid winter. Cool, breathtaking spring. Instant classic summers. Fall that actually coincides with the school calendar.

1119
Home sweet home.

Room for Rent
I always thought that maybe, under different circumstances, I’d live in a room like this. I actually lived a few blocks from here, but in my storied imagination I imagined being a traveler, wandering across America on some crazy adventure, stopping here by chance to rent a room for a night that would later turn out to be the best summer of my life.
Ennis, Texas
Bluebonnets
Amsterdam, Netherlands
Gift from Above

Coal Power
It took me a while to realize that this building on the campus of Indiana University was actually a coal power station. I always imagined the inside as being filled with machinery for woodworking, sculture or metalworking. It just has that Bauhaus feel, with geometric shapes and mammoth proportion. Whenever I passed by it I would say to myself: “If I had gone to college here I would have taken classes in that building.” But there it is, just a coal power station. No more, no less.

Chinatown

Haywain
Perfect bales dot the landscape, signaling the transition from fall to the coming winter. You may be from the city, or live somewhere near the coast where this kind of scene doesn’t appear every day. This is for you. It’s untouched beauty. It’s pure farm, pure life knowing these bales will become food for livestock everywhere, keeping some animals warm through the winter, while fattening others for the benefit of human health.

SKS

Off Greenville II

Vegas 3754

Enough With the Plywood

Last Night
Portland, Maine
Hallowed Ground
Bloomington, Indiana
Bike in Snow
Growing up in Texas, I never experienced winter quite like those in the midwest. When you travel north, winter becomes something you can count on. It’s reliably cold; freezing actually. You’ll never wonder whether or not a sweater or jacket will be “too much”. You could probably even plan on having a white Christmas, where down south you might never experience that mythical, sparkling phenomenon. Walking by this church one snowy afternoon, the concept of life and winter in the midwest sunk in: snow doesn’t mean everything is cancelled. In fact, it’s quite the opposite, even if your primary means of transportation is a bicycle. Arriving at your destination after traveling through soft snows and winter winds makes your effort that much more rewarding.
Frankfurt, Germany
Hauptbahnhof
When traveling in Europe, you spend a lot of time in train stations. It’s only fitting that they be monumentally beautiful. Gigantic proportions are offset by intricate details of ornate stonework. Here, the past is always present. That’s the same clock used to keep trains on time during World War II. Built in 1888, these tracks have carried the history of Europe back and forth, gently rocking their riders through conflict and peace.