Little Wonders

Do you ever wonder what you are missing in life? Life keeps us busy, and sometimes we can't or don't want to take a break from the rat race to see what is going on outside of our 3 ft bubble. Take a hike (literally), go someplace you've never been before. Or even better, walk the same walk you do day in and day out and force yourself to notice something you haven't seen before. You'll be surprised what you might find.

I love to make ordinary things extraordinary, to see everyday things in a new way. Every morning I walk out of the stairwell, and up a set of crumbling cement stairs. On top of the stairwell is a rusty railing that has see better days, but it is behind the building, so no one has seen a need to replace it. At the base of that railing, I found this.

Do you think I would've seen this if I wasn't intentionally looking?

Check out more photos at http://gallery.me.com/josh.thulin#100090

It's a Small(er) World

When I studied photography in college, my professor gave a piece of advice. The key to good photography is to find a new way to look at everyday things. Here is my everyday life with a persepective you might not expect.

This is where my day starts...in a cold snowy parking lot. Pleasant, huh?

On the road with a point-and-shoot.

I love road trips. I have spent many weeks on the road covering the entire western half of the US. My favorite part of a road trip is the rest stops.

First, rest stops are an avenue of escape from my four-wheeled prison. They also give me a chance to encounter the environment through which I travel. I love to get out of the car and smell the air and stretch my legs.

Rest stops are also unique. Some are just a couple of cinder-block buildings with a toilet that barely flushes and no paper towels (Wyoming, MT, ND). Others have full gift shops with hiking trails, overlooks, and ships reconstructed in the lobby. If you drive through South Dakota you will recognize the pictures below. Each rest stop has a tall, abstract, concrete teepee.

If you ever hit the road with me, especially in the west, I will have a road-trip story for every rest stop we pass.