Driving west towards Bismarck, ND in the early morning. Of course I was running a bit late. Saw the beautiful light on this old farm house. Quick pulled over, ran through a wet ditch and shot this. It's interesting to me how similar – yet how different the images feel with the added elements of the fence in one, the stubble in the other.

On location in Park Rapids. Minnesota at a place where they create hand-made whiskey barrels. At this stage in production, a red-hot iron is jammed into the bung hole (really) to finish the process of creating an interior that is burned – making that smoke flavor. Really enjoy lighting these type of scenes – a strong backlight burning out the smoke and a directional light to the right adding shape to the fellows face.

An image I shot ago while working as a documentary photography for an arctic ski expedition. Shot in a small Finnish village while waiting to get started. James Dean was a huge icon – many Finns at the time dressed like him – many years after his death. I shot this in color also – the fellow on the far right was actually wearing red crushed velvet pants – so it works much better in black and white! I really like the body positions and the facial expressions - especially the two guys looking off camera. I've always felt that the young man on the left really looks like he is thinking of getting away, of growing up and moving on – but is still sort of trapped in the group. I wonder where they all are now?

From a food shoot for a group promoting various beans grown in the upper  Midwest. The recipes were developed to be used in school lunch programs – so not the sexiest of meals! The challenge was to make them look a little fun – not too fun. Fortunately, we did not have to shoot everything in school dishes. Shot all 10 recipes on location – in the home of the food stylist, Shannon Charpentier of Fargo. Very productive day!

I was in Budapest on a shoot for Microsoft in January. I had hired a woman in Paris to arrange talent and things had gone really well – three days of shooting, editing at night. On the last night I ventured out with no agenda other than to jump on a tram or two and see where I end up. This train stopped right out in the middle of the bridge and so did I. Shot this with a Canon 16-35 2.8 and zoomed out while I shot the half second exposure for that added sense of motion and tension.