Change only happens when forced

“Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.” – Albert Einstein

My life is pretty great. I am doing what I love for a living, photography and movies, and I’m only 24. I have an amazing family that supports me in everything I do. I’m well liked, am in pretty good shape, practice the “leave the campsite cleaner than you found it” philosophy (essentially leaving people better off for having known you), etc.

And yet I know that there is so much more potential for who I can be. I am constantly having this nagging voice in my head to push myself to become the idealized version of me. The one in my head that doesn’t skip a gym workout, is an avid outdoorsmen, reads constantly, has a thirst for knowledge, treats everyone around him with respect and kindness, volunteers for the less fortunate and above all is mindful about every action I take.

I feel Einstein’s quote pertains really well to my sentiment right now. I know the person I want to become but I keep living my life the same way expecting that I will suddenly be able to become this person. Occasionally I’ll have weeks/months where I change my habits and see myself starting to scratch the surface of the person I want to become but without fail I always go back to my “same way”.

I know the life I’m living right now will not lead to greatness. Is it still insanity if you know what you are doing will not lead you where you want to go and yet you continue to trudge down that path?

“A general rule in creating stories is that characters don’t want to change. They must be forced to change. Nobody wakes up and starts chasing a bad guy or dismantling a bomb unless something forces them to do so. The bad guys just robbed your house and are running off with your last roll of toilet paper, or the bomb is strapped to your favorite cat. It’s that sort of thing that gets a character moving.” – Donald Miller’s “A Million Miles in A Thousand Years”

I need to find that something that will force me to change and head towards that idealized version of me. Need to start dismantling that bomb, haha. The question now becomes what will be that force.

Portland Sunset

After two very hot days clouds made their way into Portland last Tuesday. By around 6pm I knew it was going to be a great sunset so I headed down to the Portland waterfront with my friend Lauren. I love nights like these in Portland.

Travel: Vancouver B.C.

At the beginning of July I went up to Vancouver B.C. to visit my friend Ben.

The photos below are along the route up to Whistler. The photos can be purchased on istockphoto.com

Travel: San Francisco

Last week I headed down to Northern California to shoot a graduation at Humbolt State University. Afterwards I visited my friend Lauren in San Francisco. The weather was dreary most of the week but it managed to be nice a couple days for me to wander around the city.

I love traveling

I returned yesterday from an unexpected and short trip to Phoenix. I had an expiring standby ticket so I headed out to Phoenix and set up a lifestyle photo shoot with some models out there. I love traveling for all the new things I get to see and experience. But I think I love traveling even more for the mindset it puts me in and my renewed appreciation for Portland every time I come back.

Travel: Taglit-Birthright trip to Israel

I suppose it’s a good thing that I haven’t posted to my blog in a while. I’ve been shooting so much that I haven’t had a moment to post my photos.

Back in February I took off for Israel as a part of Taglit-Birthright (an organization that sends Jewish people to Israel for free). Under Birthright there are a bunch of organizations that actually run the trips. The organization I chose was IsraelExperts. I ended up going on the Israel culinary trip, which was the first of its kind of IsraelExperts. I was a little hesitant at first, thinking that the trip was only going to focus on food and that I was going to miss out other aspects of Israel. We did pretty much everything the typical Birthright groups do and then we added the culinary stuff on top of that. While other groups would eat in food courts we had a delicious meals prepared for us from fresh vegetables in a local kibbutz. We went into locals home to eat dinner, ate Shabbat dinner with a Modern Orthodox family, had tea with the Bedouins, prepared our own lunch from fresh vegetables in the Negev desert, and ate strawberries grown in the sky (yes the sky).

I’ll touch on all of this and what I took away from the trip in a future post. For now enjoy the photos and video from the beautiful land of Israel. I had a hard time of selecting what photos to post here. I decided to focus more on the landscapes and environment than the candid photos of people on my trip. To see those photos, as well as more landscape and environment photos, they can be viewed here on my Facebook albums: Album One, Album Two

NYC: start of internship

I haven’t seemed to have be able to find a moment to sit down and share all my photos from the past month in Israel as well as a couple other adventures like going up in a Cessna plane and flying over downtown Portland. I won’t be able to get to them tonight but I do have some photos from my flight to NYC on Sunday. The plane was taking off just as the sun was rising on a beautiful clear day.

I came home for a week after coming back from Israel, to catch up on some work as well as soak up the amazing early spring weather. Then it was back to NYC to start an internship with Nick Onken. At this point I’m planning on staying in NYC till the end of March but if I can find an assistant job or some odd job in the industry I’d be happy to stay longer.

Travels: NYC; Brooklyn Bridge

On Friday I met up with Katie, a friend from Portland who moved to NYC back in the summer, and her friend Ashley. We took a nice walk across the Brooklyn bridge and then headed over to Battery Park to see if we could get out to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. We missed the last ferry so instead we took the ferry to Staten Island.

The night ended with a great dinner/dance party with Katie’s awesome friends and roommates.  The next morning we woke up to snow on the ground so we headed out for a nice walk in Prospect Park.

Tomorrow I take off for Israel. I’m leaving my computer with my brother in Brooklyn so most likely the next update will be when I return to NYC in March.

(Katie’s awesome roommates)

Travel: Start of my trip

And I’m off. Yesterday I started my month-long trip to Israel. I’m going to Israel with a group called Taglit-Birthright. This group gives the gift of a free trip to Israel if you’re of Jewish heritage. The trip lasts ten days. After the trip I’ll be exploring Israel on my own for a little while. Haven’t decided how long yet.

First stop NYC.  In typical fashion I didn’t pack till the last-minute so the night before my flight consisted of only an hour of sleep. This ended up being a good thing though as I slept pretty much the entire plane right. And yet somehow I managed to wake up just as the sun was rising.

It is nice to finally be back in NYC after attempting to make it here 2-3 times since last year only to have various problems stop me at the last minute. Anyways, time for me to go out exploring.

Adventure Day: Ecola Beach

It’s been awhile since Mike and I have gone on an adventure together. In typical adventure day fashion Mike asks me last-minute at 12pm if I want to go to the coast. I had planned on spending the day editing photos but a day at the coast sounded better. We get to the coast and it’s a torrential downpour and very windy. I kind of liked it though (despite my face below which was actually due to all the wind and rain hitting my face, haha). We ended up going on the short hike which takes you down to Ecola Beach. By the time we got down to the beach the storm had broken and clear sky began to peak through . . . just in time for the sunset.

To end our adventure we stopped at Pizza a’ fetta in Canon Beach for some amazing pizza and great conversations with the owner. He gave us a lot of great adventure locations for the future.