The River She Loves

Mrs. Ritter’s Daughter

Captain Erika Ritter remembers the Ocklawaha River before the destruction, when the springs ran clear and the stripers spawned in the swift, cool waters.

She was only a child when it started to change—6 years old when President Lyndon B. Johnson stood in Palatka at the Cross Florida Barge Canal groundbreaking and suggested the canal would “create a value where none existed before,” and 10 years old when the Rodman Dam was completed and the river flooded.

“I have a vague visual of it as a child,” said Ritter, now 67. “My interpretation was that they were taking my river away. By the time I was 12, I was two years into this thing being destroyed.”

Despite her youth, those early years of fishing the river with a cane pole and tramping along the muddy banks would shape the woman she became: a link to the river that was, and a champion for the river to come.

It was twilight when I met Ritter at the Eureka West boat ramp on a Saturday morning. She and her late ex-husband started the first pontoon charter on the river in 1983. Today, Ritter continues that legacy, offering private tours aboard her 1990 Harris FloteBote, the Anhinga Spirit.

After a brief introduction, we boarded her pontoon boat and headed north, following the river downstream through a stretch Ritter calls her childhood backyard.

Ritter is a sixth-generation Floridian; her ancestors moved to the area in the late 1800s following the Civil War. Her grandparents eventually built a log cabin on the Ocklawaha River in the small town of Eureka, where Ritter lives today.

Ritter was born in between—between two sisters, between two parents with opposing views on the barge canal, between two rivers, one running wild and free, the other with a dam across its throat.

As we meandered around the cypress-lined bends, Ritter told stories of her childhood: the time in fourth grade when her mom, Gwen Ritter, tested her eyesight by handing her a rifle and pointing to a squirrel in the trees—it turned out she needed glasses—and when her mom rerouted an approaching construction crane, subtly reshaping a small corner of the barge canal.

It was said the Cross Florida Barge Canal, a project intended to connect the Atlantic and Gulf coasts of Florida, would bring jobs and economic growth to rural towns like Eureka. But Ritter said the majority of locals were against the project.

Her father, Tex, was one of the few exceptions. After contracting malaria in the Philippines during World War II, he hoped construction would help kill the mosquitoes.

“I had to hear about my mom crying because the river was being destroyed, and my dad saying, ‘It’ll get rid of the mosquitoes,’” Ritter said.

Her mom never stopped fighting. Gwen Ritter remained a vocal defender of the river until her death in 2013. Even now, people call Erika “Mrs. Ritter’s daughter”—a title she wears proudly.

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Not If, But When

The 24-foot Anhinga Spirit rounded a bend and slowed to a stop. A school of longnose gar was spawning in the shallows, and we waited in dead silence for the female to leap from the water in a strange, primordial dance.

There’s a general perception surrounding the Ocklawaha River controversy that those who support keeping the dam are fishermen, while those in favor of restoring the river are simply “environmentalists.” But my journey with Ritter revealed a more complex narrative.

Near the back of her boat, tucked inside a beige and red tote bag, were three family photo albums. I had asked earlier if she might share any family photos. These are what she brought.

Inside the old yellowed pages lay a legacy of fishing on the Ocklawaha: men, women and children—her family and friends—proudly holding their catches. Monster largemouth bass, striped bass, channel catfish the size of your thigh, stringers of river bream. Many of the photos were taken between the 1930s and 1960s, before construction of the dam.

In one photo, Ritter holds a striped bass, or “striper,” beaming at the camera after a late-night trip to Salt Springs. A group of men fishing nearby had offered to help, but then they realized how capable she was.

By that time, stripers were rare on the Ocklawaha River, a side effect of the dam. Striped bass live in saltwater but require a long and swift channel of freshwater in which to reproduce. The historic connection between the Atlantic Ocean, St. Johns River, Ocklawaha River and Silver River had made this the only viable spawning route for stripers on Florida’s Atlantic coast. When the dam went up, the fish were shut out.

Ritter believes it will be the manatees who ultimately save the Ocklawaha—people tend to be more sympathetic to them than to fish. But she said it’s the fish who are suffering the most. Manatees can still migrate through Buckman Lock between the St. Johns and Ocklawaha rivers. The fish cannot.

Striped bass, American shad and other migratory species once common in the Ocklawaha have vanished upstream.

“There’s a generation or two or three that has no idea what the fish looked like,” Ritter said.

Some anglers claim breaching the dam would destroy the prized largemouth bass fishery in the Rodman Reservoir. But Ritter’s photos suggest that trophy-sized bass were pulled from the river long before the reservoir existed. It’s just a matter of fishing a river instead of a lake.

The Ocklawaha River is also home to 20 freshwater springs, currently submerged beneath the flooded waters. Ritter took me to Cannon Springs, a third-magnitude spring and one of the largest of the 20. Accessible to the public only by water, it appeared beautiful even through the dark river. But Ritter said it looks entirely different during drawdowns, when water levels drop and the approach from the river runs crystal clear.

Over the years, she’s hosted all kinds of passengers on her boat, from artists and photographers seeking out Cannon Springs, to scientists, journalists and even prospective residents of the reservoir. Like the steamboat captains of the late 19th century, Ritter offers access to a world unknown by many Floridians.

“I don’t think people know what wilderness looks like anymore,” she said. “People need to get out here and see it.”

As we passed Indian Bluff and entered Cypress Bayou, a section of the river where the cypress trees are dying beneath elevated water levels, Ritter pointed to the passing houses and said, “I’ve taken most of these people out on my boat, and they understand.” She believes many residents who live along the reservoir quietly support restoration but don’t speak up for fear of clashing with neighbors.

After decades of advocacy, resistance and bureaucratic delays, Ritter admits the fight has worn on her. “I did all these things, and it just gets frustrating,” she said. “I just want my river back.”

Still, she remains confident restoration of the river is inevitable.

“It’s not if,” she said. “It’s when.”

The Florida Senate recently approved its budget for the 2025-26 fiscal year, which includes more than $6 million for Ocklawaha River restoration, a major win for Ritter and others who support removing the dam. The plan requires the Florida Department of Environmental Protection to develop a restoration strategy by July 2026 and implement it by 2035. However, the budget is currently stalled in the House, where negotiations are ongoing between the Senate, the House and Gov. Ron DeSantis.

Ritter, who turns 68 in June, said she’s been telling people she really needs to take care of herself now so she can live long enough to see it.

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Girl at the Bridge

When we returned to the boat ramp, we spent more time flipping through the photo albums.

There was one photo tucked inside those yellowed pages that has stayed with me. It doesn’t show a trophy-sized largemouth bass, or a striper, or a catfish the size of your thigh. It’s a simple photo, one that might be overlooked.

In it, a 10-year-old Erika Ritter sits near the construction site of the Eureka Bridge, one of the high-profile bridges built for the Cross Florida Barge Canal. Behind her, men are working. She’s turned from the camera, looking back over her shoulder—not smiling, but glaring.

It’s a powerful photo, in part because I’ve always loved that bridge. To see it under construction, to know that it, too, had a beginning, and that its beginning was part of a larger plan to turn the river into a “carrier of commerce,” feels oddly dissonant. But more than that, the photo says something about Ritter.

She told me she was never good at smiling in pictures. Maybe it was just bad timing. Or maybe she didn’t want to be photographed. But I can’t help but see something deeper in her expression: a quiet revolt. A young girl staring down the lens, already discontent with the idea that a river’s value must be proven, quantified, reshaped.

Even then, she seemed to understand that the river didn’t need to be improved. It was already valuable.

To me, that photo doesn’t just show a child at a construction site. It foreshadows the woman she would become—

Someone who has spent a lifetime fighting for the river she loves.

Captain Erika Ritter looks at old family photo albums aboard her pontoon boat, the Anhinga Spirit. In this photo, a 10-year-old Ritter sits next to the construction site of the Eureka Bridge.

Ritter points to a section of the Ocklawaha River on her map prior to our trip on Saturday, April 26, 2025.

Ritter discusses the construction of the Cross Florida Barge Canal and how her mother, Gwen Ritter, contributed to reshaping a small corner of it.

The approach from the Ocklawaha River to Cannon Springs

Captain Erika Ritter pilots her 24-foot pontoon boat through a tunnel of trees on the way to Cannon Springs.

Palm trees on the way to Cannon Springs

Cannon Springs, a third-magnitude spring and one of 20 freshwater springs currently submerged beneath the flooded Ocklawaha River

Captain Erika Ritter, with a “Reunite the Rivers” pin on her hat, pilots her pontoon boat down the Ocklawaha River. Ritter has provided tours of the river since the 1980s and advocates for removing the Rodman Dam and reconnecting the St. Johns, Ocklawaha, and Silver rivers.

Captain Erika Ritter launches her 24-foot pontoon boat, a 1990 Harris FloteBote named the Anhinga Spirit, into the Ocklawaha River on Saturday, April 26, 2025.

The Middle

Going Back

The old roads stretched on in the darkness and it seemed they might never end. The dark has a way of doing that—making things feel longer than they are.

I leaned my head toward the windshield and looked up. The boats on the roof shook with each bump, but they were secure.

It had been three years since Jenny and I camped along the river. That was before the river really meant anything to me. Now we were going back, and I was excited to see how my new understanding would affect the experience.

The drive to the Outpost was familiar. I’d traveled these roads countless times before, and it was a welcome change from my previous two months exploring the Upper Ocklawaha. We arrived a half hour before sunrise and Lance shuttled us to Silver Springs.

The Ocklawaha River

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Water Levels

Water levels generally aren’t something you pay attention to—unless, of course, you live on the water.

This was our second time meeting Lance. During the drive to Silver Springs I asked him about the Rodman Dam and the postponed drawdown. He’s only lived on the Ocklawaha River for six years—he and his wife, Theresa, bought the business shortly after moving from Nebraska. But I figured he’d have an opinion to share.

Without choosing sides, he told us he’s the kind of person who prefers to keep nature the way it was intended. I knew what he meant.

Lance didn’t know when the next drawdown would be, but he told us water levels were so high following the 2024 hurricanes that the Outpost sign, which normally hangs four feet above the river, was completely submerged. This seems to support the rationale behind the delayed 2024/2025 drawdown—water levels in the St. Johns River basin were too high.

So far it doesn’t seem like anybody knows when the next drawdown will be. I’m still hoping for later this year.

When we got to Silver Springs we unloaded our boats and gear and I could see the sun catching the rising fog like hovering spirits over the water. I was eager to get on the river. We said goodbye to Lance and set off.

Jenny on the Silver River

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The Middle

Blindfolded and dropped into the Silver River, you might think you were in the Amazon. The experience is worlds apart from the theme parks and white sandy beaches typically associated with Florida.

In my previous post I traced the Upper Ocklawaha from the headwaters at Lake Griffin north to its confluence with the Silver River. This trip picked up where that one left off, starting at Silver Springs and traveling east into the Ocklawaha River before turning north toward Fort McCoy.

This wild 25-mile stretch, appropriately called the Middle Ocklawaha, was once a major tourist attraction for visitors riding ferry boats back and forth between Silver Springs and Palatka. Most of the Cross Florida Barge Canal construction ended at the Eureka Lock and Dam just north of here, leaving this stretch undisturbed.

On our journey down the Silver River we saw alligators, migratory wood ducks, and manatees that glided beside our boats as if guiding us. We also saw the famous Silver Springs monkeys, a population of rhesus macaques that were released in the state park in the early 20th century to further increase its appeal as a major tourist attraction.

We stopped for lunch and coffee a couple miles after reaching the Ocklawaha River. Then we jumped back on the river before soon arriving at High Bluffs, our campsite for the night.

River map provided by the Outpost

This manatee swam beside my boat for 10 minutes, staying close to the surface the entire time.

A rhesus macaque monkey naps in a tree along the Silver River.

A male wood duck perches on a downed tree.

Our campsite at High Bluffs

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Muddy River

The name Ocklawaha is derived from the Creek Indian “ak-lowahe,” which means “muddy.” Jenny and I waded in at dusk and, true to its name, felt the slimy bottom ooze beneath our feet.

The river was still, quiet. Peaceful. Only a couple boats passed us that evening. We stripped to our underwear and bathed in the cold water before returning to the tent.

We were clean and dry and closing the zipper to the tent when a dog ran to us and started sniffing around. Then a man appeared.

I stood.

“Sorry,” he shouted. “I didn’t realize anyone was down here.”

I didn’t get his name, but he was friendly and we talked for a few minutes. He told us he lives up the road and walks his dogs near the river in the evenings. He told us the high bluff site where we were camping—now part of the Cross Florida Greenway—was once owned by a rich lawyer in the 1960s who regularly threw parties lasting all night. He said that not far down the river in another high bluff area is a pathway leading to the original corn field of Osceola, an influential leader of the Seminole Tribe.

That night I wondered if the river—if rivers had the capacity to feel such things—found it strange to be in the middle of so much change. From the Seminole Wars and slavery to psychedelic parties, the Cross Florida Barge Canal, and now Jenny and I sleeping along its bank. From all it had seen before and to all it will see after. The river, forever muddied by the weight of human existence.

The Middle Ocklawaha winds north.

Jenny in our tent at dusk

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Surrender

We rose with the sun and Jenny cooked while I made a small fire. After breakfast, we took a dip in the river, then slowly packed our things and moved on. We had only planned for a single night, which meant we’d have to make the remaining 13 miles back to the Outpost by 4:30 that afternoon.

Paddling the Ocklawaha is an exercise in surrender. Every bend in the river is quickly followed by another, an endless twisting rhythm. Paddle too hard and you’ll overshoot, crashing into the cypress knees. Hug the inside too closely and the current whips you into the lily pads. Trees and other debris require proactive attention. And then there is the occasional airboat spitting wind and churning waves in your direction. But get it right—embrace its rhythm, conform to its pace, anticipate its obstacles—and time melts.

Our boats scraped the bottom of the Outpost ramp around 3:30 p.m.

I thought again about what it meant to be in the middle—not just here, on this stretch of water, but in everything. Always between past and future. Always between what was and what will be. The Ocklawaha had carried generations before. Now it carried me, too.

We stepped out and pulled our boats up the ramp. Our journey was over, but the river behind us kept moving. It always would.

Morning dip in the river

Jenny and me

Two Rivers: The Upper Ocklawaha

A section of the historic river channel meanders across Ocklawaha Prairie Restoration Area.

Two Rivers

“There are two Oklawaha Rivers today. There is the twisting, unspoiled black-water stream of the Florida Wilderness. And there is the dammed, straightened, Army Engineered desolation of the unfinished Cross-Florida Barge Canal.”

The words above were published by Audubon Magazine in 1970, two years before President Nixon terminated the controversial Cross Florida Barge Canal project. More than half a century later, they still depict an accurate reality of the Ocklawaha River: two distinct forms—one carved through the earth over thousands of years, the other dug by human hands in just a few decades.

The past two months have led me on a series of trips to the upper section of the 74-mile-long river. From the headwaters at Lake Griffin to the confluence with the Silver River, I explored a section of the Ocklawaha that had previously been unfamiliar to me.

With the obvious exception of the Rodman Dam and Reservoir located in the lower section of the river, what I found is that the Upper Ocklawaha, compared to the other sections, seems to resemble more closely the “straightened, Army Engineered” river in the quote above.

My intention was to distill this section of the river into a single post. But despite its rather plain appearance on Google Earth, I discovered that the Upper Ocklawaha flows through a myriad of towns and restoration areas, each rich with its own history. Limiting it to a single post would be the equivalent of damming the river and attempting to control its depth and complexity.

But there is one particular area of the Upper Ocklawaha where these two distinct river forms collide. And it was here that I found myself waist-deep and on the verge of tears.

A detail of the historic Ocklawaha River channel. Ocklawaha Prairie contains six miles of the historic river.

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Ocklawaha Prairie

I almost cried in the swamp.

There’s a section of the historic Ocklawaha River that was bypassed by a canal in the 1920s. The canal straightened the river, providing easier navigation for boats. Labeled “C-212” by St. Johns River Water Management District, the canal is now considered part of the Ocklawaha River. But the bypassed channel still meanders through the Ocklawaha Prairie.

I’ve been fascinated by this section of the Ocklawaha and how it seems to embody both rivers portrayed in the Audubon quote above.

I was photographing it for the second time when I pushed my drone battery too far and had to make an emergency landing. This had happened before, but I’d always managed to land near a trail and retrieve it using the Find My Drone feature. This time, however, I had to land on a shrub in the middle of the Ocklawaha Prairie, and Find My Drone could only get me so far.

The shrub was 500 yards from the trail. Reaching it meant crossing a 3,000-acre wetland—once the original floodplain of the historic river. Any sane person would have called it a loss and gone home. I stashed my camera bag in a nearby bush and climbed in.

It took no time to realize how difficult the mission would be. The historic river channel, which had seemed so peaceful just moments before, now surrounded me. And I found that upon closer inspection it was more wild and hostile than I had imagined.

Every inch forward was anguish. Walls of briar sliced through my legs like razor wire. Each meticulous step sent my boots bubbling into the soft earth below. I stretched awkwardly from grass clump to grass clump to avoid sinking deeper into the unknown. At one point I found snake remains, and from then on I couldn’t stop picturing the water moccasins lurking beneath my feet.

It took me an hour and a half to make it 300 yards. With great effort I eventually reached the cusp of what I considered even remotely navigable. Sketchy had turned to sketchier, and it was only getting worse. The swamp was turning into river. I was waist-deep in muck.

I debated going farther. The Find My Drone feature indicated I was more than halfway. But the last stretch was undoubtedly the worst, and continuing meant almost certainly having to swim.

As I balanced on that final grass clump, fighting to keep myself from sinking deeper in the stinky swamp, the sky grew dark and rain fell. Despair washed over me. All of a sudden I felt alone. Exhausted. Scared to move forward. Scared to turn back. Devastated to go home empty-handed.

The combination of fatigue and the realization of what I had lost made me want to cry. I didn’t care about the drone—I had already considered upgrading. But losing the media was almost too much to bear.

That morning had been one of those special overcast mornings where there was a 99 percent chance the light would amount to nothing and a one percent chance the sun would come out and ignite something magical. It turned out to be the latter. I had just about given up hope when the clouds cleared and the sun set the sky ablaze in orange. I photographed the Ocklawaha River snaking through the layered fog and low clouds, and I knew I had something special. Now nobody would ever see those images.

The trudge back through the swamp was hell. At least on the way out there existed a small hope of recovering the drone. Now the briar just felt like punishment.

When I finally made it to the parking lot, I was a mess. I felt how the fisherman in The Old Man and the Sea must have felt when, after an excruciating three-day battle with the fish, he returned to land with nothing but its skeleton—sharks had consumed the rest.

On second thought, maybe I felt more like the fish.

I was at the truck rinsing my legs with my water bottle when a red SUV pulled up beside me and a man exited the vehicle. “You look like you lost a battle,” he said.

I looked up and half-smiled. It felt like I had lost the war.

Taken with my phone at the end of my adventure in the swamp.

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Inner Wilderness

There are parallels between the river and the human condition I’ve come to appreciate. The more I explore it, the more I see a haunting reflection of myself.

During the week I stand at a desk—upright, shirt tucked. Optimized. But on the inside the wilderness twists and turns, and I find the days filled with a deeper longing for that next brief moment when I get to tap in and flow freely again.

As I traced the straightened sections of the Upper Ocklawaha, I couldn’t help but wonder how much more of the river would have been destroyed if not for the conservation efforts of Marjorie Harris Carr. She, along with a group of volunteers, fought to stop the Cross Florida Barge Canal and, in doing so, helped preserve what remains of the wild river.

The power of one person to inspire such change gives me hope—hope not only for what can be protected, but hope for what can be restored. Hope for what can still find its way back.

A part of me hopes the river will lead me somewhere, though I cannot yet say where. Perhaps just to a place of understanding. Or perhaps to a place where I, too, can contribute in some meaningful way to the awareness and conservation of this river and state.

The headwaters of the Ocklawaha River: Lake Griffin, the northernmost lake in the Harris Chain of Lakes, spills north into the Ocklawaha River.

Frost clings to a plant on a 30-degree morning at Ocklawaha Prairie Restoration Area.

The historic river channel snakes across Ocklawaha Prairie on a freezing morning. This section of the river was bypassed by a canal in the 1920s.

The upper Ocklawaha River today—straight, engineered, optimized. This section of the river flows around Ocklawaha Prairie (left) and bypasses six miles of the historic river channel.

The confluence of the Silver (light blue) and Ocklawaha (dark blue) Rivers. This is where the Upper Ocklawaha ends and the more wild middle section begins.

Home on the Reservoir

Harvey McGuire pilots his fishing boat across the Rodman Reservoir on Saturday, December 28, 2024.

Supporters of the Dam

The pre-morning sky was cloudy and bleak. On a clear day the horizon would have been a crimson line ready to explode. But on this drive there was no light from atop the bridge.

For the fourth time in a month, I found myself navigating the familiar route over the Eureka bridge to the Ocklawaha River. I had coordinated an opportunity to tour the Rodman Reservoir with a local resident, and though the weather wasn’t what I had hoped, I couldn’t pass it up.

I’ve been curious about the people who support the Rodman Dam. Through my research, I’ve found numerous articles and resources outlining the benefits of removing the dam and restoring the Ocklawaha River to its natural state. But not everybody agrees, and I wanted to learn why.

I arrived at the Ferry Boat Landing boat ramp outside the unincorporated town of Hog Valley 45 minutes before sunrise. I parked my truck and waited in the dark.

My truck parked at the Ferry Boat Landing boat ramp during a recon mission one week before my trip with Harvey. A group of white ibises flies overhead.

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Kiss My Bass

A gray Nissan pickup truck towing a 16-foot fishing boat reversed beside me and then stopped. The driver rolled down the window. He was wearing a brown camouflage shirt and a hat that read, “Kiss My BASS.”

“Matt?” he asked. I confirmed, and then he said, “Harvey. Nice to meet you.”

I was given Harvey’s contact information a few weeks prior by local bass guide Sean Rush. Of the multiple people I emailed, Rush was the only to respond. He said I couldn’t accompany him on a fishing trip due to the nature of his private charter business, but that he was happy to answer any questions I had. I asked if he knew anybody who wouldn’t mind taking me onto the reservoir, and he gave me Harvey McGuire’s phone number.

After a brief introduction, Harvey and I boarded his boat. We spent the next two hours touring the reservoir, driving through the original Ocklawaha River channel, the Cross Florida Barge Canal, and some of Harvey’s favorite fishing holes.

Harvey took me past the few houses visible from the reservoir and told me about the residents who live in them – an airboat repairman, a woman who serves on the board of Save the Rodman Reservoir, a retired exterminator.

At one point in the tour Harvey stopped the boat and paused to look around.

“Just look at this,” he said, stretching his arms wide as if to encompass everything around him. “This is just beautiful, isn’t it? … I wanted to be here. And we came. We made it happen.”

Seven years ago Harvey and his wife sold their tree trimming business in Lakeland, Florida, and moved to the Rodman Reservoir in pursuit of a simpler life. Though mostly retired now, Harvey supplements his income through an Airbnb rental called “Camp My Way,” which is located on the reservoir. He also owns a small shiner business, McGuire’s Mobile Bait, where he supplies live shiner to local bait shops for $1.25 apiece. Harvey catches his shiner from the reservoir and says they are the preferred bait choice of serious bass anglers.

In addition to his entrepreneurial endeavors, Harvey serves on the board of Save the Rodman Reservoir, a non-profit organization dedicated to “preventing the destruction of Rodman Reservoir by educating the public in just how great an aquatic wildlife area Rodman is,” according to the website. Each year the organization hosts a bass fishing tournament, and the proceeds are used to pay lawyers who fight to keep the Rodman Reservoir.

Harvey wasn’t shy about his opinions and political views, and I appreciated his openness and candor. He said he thinks the country should be run like a business and not a charity, and that he supports Gov. Ron DeSantis and President-elect Donald Trump. He even has a white bulldog named Trump that he found as a puppy during a campaign rally eight years ago.

When asked about his position on the Rodman Reservoir controversy, Harvey repeated the phrase, “Two wrongs don’t make a right.” Like others in favor of keeping the reservoir, Harvey says that despite the initial destruction caused by the Cross Florida Barge Canal project, nature has since adapted and created a new and thriving ecosystem; and that to ruin the new ecosystem in favor of restoring the Ocklawaha River would only cause further unnecessary damage.

The Rodman Reservoir, famous for its largemouth bass, is considered one of the top areas in the country for producing trophy fish. In 2000, a man from Virginia caught a 17.23 pound largemouth bass, which came just shy of the state record of 17.27 pounds set in 1986. “I’m telling you,” said Harvey, “even the five-pounders will fight you all the way to the boat. They’re healthy in this lake.”

The reservoir is also home to a diverse bird population, and throughout the morning we saw multiple bald eagles perched in drowned cypress trees. Harvey explained that because bald eagles prefer large bodies of water, they wouldn’t exist in such numbers if the reservoir were drained.

As we drove around, I couldn’t deny the beauty surrounding the reservoir. The clouds that had previously covered the morning sky began to break, and something about those enormous bald eagles made me want to return at a later date with my kayak and a long camera lens.

But I also couldn’t forget the fact that the reservoir is a human-made creation — a side effect of a decades-old failed public works project — and that just below its surface surged a wild and ancient river. I wondered how the Ocklawaha River valley would look were nature truly allowed to take it back.

Looking south, the Cross Florida Barge Canal cuts down the center of the Rodman Reservoir. The natural Ocklawaha River channel can be seen in the upper left snaking along the edge of the reservoir.

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Stories of the Ocklawaha

I’m grateful to Harvey for taking me on his boat and sharing his perspective.

As he picked a piece of trash off the ground following our adventure, he told me it saddened him to think of the reservoir being drained. This is where he and his wife made a home. Breaching the dam and draining the reservoir would likely reduce his property value and his ability to earn income through his businesses. He told me that if the reservoir were ever drained, he would remain in his house and accept a longer walk to the water.

Harvey McGuire does not represent the experience of every person living on the Rodman Reservoir, nor does he represent the opinion of every person in favor of the dam. There are many stories to tell, many perspectives to capture. But it was important to me to physically go out and talk to somebody rather than just reading about it or making assumptions.

The truth is, I don’t know where this project is going. My original goal was to stay objective and to tell stories of the Ocklawaha River from every possible angle. But I’m finding that as my own story begins to weave and intertwine with the project, staying objective is more difficult than originally thought. I can empathize with Harvey’s situation — if I bought a home on the reservoir, I too would want to protect my investment. But I also can’t help but question whether an artificial bass sanctuary is worth the price of our continued impact on the Ocklawaha River and surrounding environment.

Like the river, this project is meandering, ever-changing, the current pushing it around a new bend with each story I write.

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If you or somebody you know has a story of the Ocklawaha River, and if you or they are open to sharing that story as part of this project, please contact me here.

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A Hog Valley, Florida, vanity plate is mounted to the front of a pickup truck at the Ferry Boat Landing boat ramp.

Hog Valley, Florida, located in Marion County. I’ve always been curious about this place. The road leading to the Ferry Boat Landing boat ramp can be seen in the bottom left.

An empty Budweiser box sits on the side of a forest road not far from the Rodman Dam.

A fishing boat patrols the Rodman Reservoir on Saturday, December 21, 2024.

Structures

Crossing Over

I roll down the window and stick out my hand. A rush of cold air hits my face. Beside me oak and pine blur into maple and cypress. The east-west line of County Road 316 stretches ahead and then begins to rise, culminating at a peak beyond which I cannot see. I press harder on the gas. My truck climbs faithfully.

Gradually the trees fall away. My hand in the air rises like an airplane wing. Up, up, up I go — like in that dream I had, when I flew over the other side, weightless, and fell toward a sparkling sea. Except this time the road does not end, and suddenly I’m over everything, on top of everything, soaring like a great blue heron over the forests and swamps of the Ocklawaha. I take my foot off the gas. The engine rests. For a moment life is still. Calm. Suspended in the quiet majesty of first light. But only for a moment. Then I descend into the forest.

I wonder if Nikki ever felt this way.

A vehicle crosses the Eureka Bridge at sunrise.

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Under the Bridge

Of the three high-profile bridges completed for the Cross Florida Barge Canal, the Eureka Bridge is my favorite. It’s the one I cross each time I visit the Ocala National Forest, and so it symbolizes a sort of threshold to adventure. On the east side of the bridge there is a street that leads to a small boat ramp and a series of meandering roads below. I take it.

Under the bridge I feel small. To my left, tucked beneath one of the wooden “fenders” originally designed to protect the concrete columns from shipping barge collisions, there is a memorial for Nikki. I searched her name but found nothing. I wonder if she ever crossed the bridge with her hand out the window. I wonder what the river meant to her.

This trip was a failure on paper. My intention was to drive to Ray Wayside Park and photograph the State Road 40 Bridge and the confluence of the Silver and Ocklawaha Rivers. The Eureka Bridge was only meant to be a short stop along the way. But I never made it to Ray Wayside. I became enchanted by the Eureka Bridge, lost in its many kept secrets and stories only available to those who pause and listen.

Scattered throughout North Central Florida are structures — bridges, piles, spillways, locks and dams — all designed and engineered with the singular purpose of constructing a shipping canal from one side of Florida to the other. And while my ultimate goal is to document the Ocklawaha River, I find that these structures, these relics of human ingenuity and destruction, are as much a part of the river’s story as the river itself. Regardless of their original intent, they have become new parts of the landscape, new objects of people’s experiences with the river. And for that they are worth documenting.

Driving east toward Fort McCoy and Eureka

My truck parked beneath the bridge

A memorial for Nikki

County Road 316 looking west toward Eureka and Fort McCoy

A line of fog follows the Ocklawaha River southeast during sunrise.

Waterways

The Cross Florida Barge Canal cuts through the landscape like a scar before entering the Rodman Reservoir in north-central Florida.

Hidden Springs

It started in the bread aisle at Walmart. A serendipitous encounter with Alex while grocery shopping late Friday evening had us driving east to the Ocala National Forest the following morning in search of waterways.

There are springs hidden beneath the surface of the Ocklawaha. They are revealed for just a few months every three to four years when the Kirkpatrick Dam (formerly Rodman Dam) is opened and the reservoir drawn down for maintenance. Jenny and I planned to see them for the first time this winter, but the drawdown was postponed until next year due to high water levels in the St. Johns River basin.

I’ve paddled the Ocklawaha on a few occasions and have grown more curious about the river. Like much of Florida, the Ocklawaha River is a casualty of human ambition and ignorance, currently caught in the middle of a political struggle between people who advocate for removing the dam and returning the river to its natural state and others who fish the reservoir and want to keep the dam.

My plan is to spend the year-long postponement exploring and learning more about the Ocklawaha River prior to next year’s drawdown.

I returned from Walmart at 9 p.m. and put away the groceries. There wasn’t much time to prepare an impromptu morning trip if I wanted to get any sleep, but I managed to pack a bag, charge my camera batteries, and plot three points on a Google Earth map: the Cross Florida Barge Canal at SR-19, the Kirkpatrick Dam, and the CR-316 bridge in Eureka.

The morning came fast. I cooked some eggs and slipped outside into the dark.

Three points I marked on a map the night before: Point 1 - Cross Florida Barge Canal at SR-19; Point 2 - the Kirkpatrick Dam; Point 3 - CR-316 bridge in Eureka.

Sunrise in the Ocala National Forest Saturday morning.

Looking up.

Looking down.

Point 1: Looking east, the Cross Florida Barge Canal passes beneath SR-19 as it flows from the Rodman Reservoir to the St. Johns River. The canal was intended to connect the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico, allowing shipping barges to pass from one side of Florida to the other. The project was eventually halted by President Nixon in 1971 due to environmental concerns and is considered the largest uncompleted public works project in American history.

Alex records deer on his phone during our drive to the Kirkpatrick Dam.

Point 2: Looking west, the Kirkpatrick Dam and the Rodman Reservoir behind it. The dam was built in 1968 by the Army Corps of Engineers as part of the Cross Florida Barge Canal project. During drawdown every three to four years, the original Ocklawaha River channel is exposed, along with many natural springs and a graveyard of old cypress forest that was obliterated as part of the project.

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Bobcat

After photographing the barge canal and dam, we drove south to the Juniper Prairie Wilderness for lunch. We hiked out a small distance and set our chairs beneath a familiar pine canopy.

I don’t know how long it had been following us. I didn’t notice until it was only a few feet away, and when I turned around and saw it I jumped with surprise and yelled some sort of expletive at Alex.

A bobcat. Male. Probably a juvenile — not really a kitten, but not yet a mature adult. He was cautious but curious, and he approached us similar to how a house cat would approach a new visitor.

It seemed likely that he’d had previous encounters with people. Looking back on it, I think the proper response would have been to scare him away — instill a little fear of humans in him. But Alex and I were caught up in the moment and excited. We instinctually proceeded to photograph him.

Encounters like this are rare. I’ve made more than 60 trips to the Juniper Prairie Wilderness over the past seven to eight years, and this is the first bobcat I’ve seen. The only experience that comes close is the time a black bear stumbled into our campsite before immediately running off.

We finished our lunch and returned to the truck. The bobcat followed us most of the way, but he stopped shy of Forest Road 33. When I started the engine he was gone.

Looking southwest over the 14,000-acre Juniper Prairie Wilderness, with Forest Road 46 (right) leading off to the west and Highway 19 (left) leading south.

A bobcat camouflages in the undergrowth of the Juniper Prairie Wilderness area in the Ocala National Forest.

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Eureka

The third and final point on our map was the Eureka bridge. There were people at the boat ramp, so we parked the truck before the turn and took pictures as a storm rolled in.

It’s funny — I often joke that the only good thing to come out of my UF journalism degree is Jenny. But I realized this trip that journalism is exactly what I enjoy doing. Exploring, learning, making photographs, writing, telling stories. Being curious about the world. Fitting that this realization came in Eureka.

This post is the first in what I hope becomes a larger series dedicated to the Ocklawaha River and its controversial existence.

Point 3: The Ocklawaha River passes beneath the CR-316 bridge in Eureka, Florida, as a storm rolls in Saturday afternoon.

Alex sits in the truck bed while I photograph the Eureka bridge, which was constructed in 1969 as part of the Cross Florida Barge Canal project. Had the project continued, barges would have passed beneath this section of bridge.

Alligator remains float in a swamp near the Ocklawaha River.

Silver River

Jenny in her kayak shortly after entering the river at Silver Springs State Park.

Best of the World 2025

On Friday Jenny and I took the kids to school, loaded up the kayaks, and drove to Silver Springs, a state park located within the Ocala National Forest and Florida’s first official tourist attraction, according to Wikipedia. I’d only kayaked the Silver River once before, and I was sick at the time. I’ve been itching to get back ever since.

The Ocala National Forest was recently listed on National Geographic’s Best of the World 2025, a list compiling the 25 best places in the world to visit. The list includes exotic locations like Thailand, Indonesia, Greenland, New Zealand, Malaysia, South Africa, and Sweden, among others, and it surprised me to learn Ocala made the lineup. I guess when something is in your own backyard, it’s easy to take it for granted.

The timing of the Top-25 list and our Silver River paddle was a coincidence, but it gave me an opportunity to look a little closer and to be grateful for what we have here in Florida. I’ve felt rusty. I’m ready to get back into a rhythm of camping, kayaking, and exploring our backyard.

Below are some images from the trip. Queue the Jurassic Park theme song.

Jenny’s Forester all loaded up.

A female anhinga dries her wings atop a log.

Jenny explores the cypress swamps along the edges of the river.

An alligator collects some sun. We saw about six or seven gators of varying sizes, from babies on up to 10-footers. It’s fascinating watching them swim across the clear water.

A roseate spoonbill perches in a tree along the Silver River, a rare sight for this area.

A manatee surfaces for a breath. I followed this manatee for about 20 minutes up river, repeatedly losing and then relocating it. I regretted not bringing a circular polarizer for my lens.

Golden Summer

Buying Gold

I spent the summer trying to like it.

I know that sentiment probably sounds strange to many. It almost certainly would have been lost on my 10-year-old self who used to lay awake in bed worrying about the inevitable end to summer and the dreaded start to a new school year.

Summers as a kid were magical. I remember running barefoot around the neighborhood until the sun went down, and entire afternoons dedicated to Goldeneye on Nintendo 64 while blasting Smash Mouth’s All Star on loop. The long days, evening light, baseball games in the cul-de-sac, homemade snow cones from crushed ice and Mountain Dew. And then there was the annual neighborhood Fourth of July firework show, where people who hardly knew each other united over hotdogs and some obscure sense of patriotism. Splashes of pink coloring their faces as fireworks explode in the sky.

I’m not sure when my perspective changed. Probably somewhere between puberty and adulthood. But the older I get, the less I enjoy summer. And it’s safe to say it has become my least favorite season of the year. But this year I was determined to change that.

The inspiration for this project came during a camping trip in May. I brought my Hasselblad and a roll of Kodak Gold that had been sitting in the fridge for almost a year. If you don’t know, Kodak Gold 200 is a film stock known for its warm tones — perfect for capturing the summer vibes. I wondered if limiting myself to a single camera and film stock all summer could help inspire a different perspective on my least favorite season. Perhaps framing the summer through those warm golden tones could help recover some of that lost magic.

I went home and ordered more film, and then I spent the rest of the summer shooting exclusively on Kodak Gold 200 and my Hasselblad 500cm.

This summer was going to be different. This summer was going to be golden.

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Inflatable Plastic

Limiting myself to a single camera and film stock for the whole summer was — well, limiting. But it freed me to focus my energy elsewhere.

I bought a small inflatable pool from Walmart that lived on our back deck most weekends and picked up a river float for Zion. Poe Springs became a favorite destination, and we spent many consecutive weekends swimming, splashing, and swinging from a rope into the Santa Fe River. One Saturday we saw a large church congregation baptizing people in the spring. I still regret not taking those pictures.

We searched for shark teeth in the Hogtown Creek, ran naked in the rain (only Zion did this), and ate watermelon on the front porch. We drove to Orlando for the Fourth of July to see the annual firework show. Zion made a friend, a girl a few years older who was good at climbing trees, and chased her around the cul-de-sac, everything coming full circle.

There is something to the magic of summer that’s impossible to restore — the innocence of childhood is a key ingredient you can’t recover. But living that part vicariously through my children seemed to help.

Prince Edward Island

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Jenny and I celebrated our tenth anniversary on July 19 and took a delayed trip to Prince Edward Island the first week of September. I had decided months earlier that this trip was going to be the culmination of my Golden Summer project, and so I lugged my Hasselblad all the way to Canada.

Prince Edward Island is the smallest Canadian province. It was the home of L. M. Montgomery, a Canadian author who wrote Anne of Green Gables, a story about a redheaded orphan girl growing up on the island. While Prince Edward Island has its own charm and beauty independent of the story, Anne of Green Gables is, without a doubt, the island’s claim to fame. About a year ago Jenny bought a graphic novel of the story, and we have been reading it to Zion on an almost daily basis.

There were too many moments, too many beaches, too many Tim Hortons donut holes (called “Timbits”) to recall here. But one of the people I found most inspiring was Ben, a resident of Victoria by the Sea, a small town on the southern side of the island. Ben looked after the town’s lighthouse and crafted candles that he sold from his quaint blue shop across the street. We talked to him for a couple hours, and he shared stories from his teenage years on the island. He spoke about all the projects he had planned for the coming winter, and I related to him in that way. The endless backlog. I thought about how nice it must be to have a real winter, one that naturally forces you to slow down.

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A world with Octobers

One of my favorite pages in the Anne of Green Gables graphic novel depicts Anne standing among trees of blazing orange as leaves fall down around her and she says, “I’m so glad I live in a world where there are Octobers!”

Kodak Gold 200 was the wrong film and the Hasselblad was the wrong camera for many occasions. The camera is slow and clunky. Shooting indoors was almost impossible. But it was an interesting challenge.

Summer was still hot and humid and, at times, miserable. And I don’t know if I’ll ever fully appreciate it in the moment. But in a strange way, photography allows me to enjoy the moment after the fact, once the heat and humidity are distant frustrations and the memory has had time to mature.

I think that’s one of life’s paradoxes — not only do you not know what you have until it’s gone, but sometimes you can’t know. Sometimes it takes time for the moment to go through the refining process, filtered of all the impurities and ripe and beautiful for the taking. Pure gold.

I’m glad I made the best of summer. I’ll look back on these images often, and I’m certain the memories will become more beautiful with age. But I’m also glad we’re turning the corner on summer. I’m glad I live in a world where there are Octobers.

Red Dot

My Leica M6 sits in the seat next to me on a flight to Nashville in 2019.

Nothing gold can stay

I sold my Leica. As I write this sentence, Jenny is home from work with minor contractions – she is pregnant with our second child – and my beloved Leica M6 is traveling to its new home in Pennsylvania.

Hello, goodbye.

I don’t often get sentimental over objects. But I’ve spent the past couple nights thinking about that Leica and why I sold it. And I don’t really have an answer.

I remind myself about the continuing rise of film prices, and the impracticality of shooting film, and how the money gained from the sale (double what I paid in 2016) could be better put to use. I remind myself about the last roll of film I shot and developed and how I didn’t enjoy it much. But I think the real answer – the honest answer – is change.

All things change. Sometimes fast, sometimes slow. Sometimes you don’t realize how far from the shore you’ve come until you turn back and look.

I’ve been a photographer for more than half my life, and the only constant in that time has been change. I’m currently focused on documenting my kids growing up.

More than a year ago I bought a Fujifilm X100V. It’s not the biggest or the best, it doesn’t shoot film and it lacks that iconic red dot. But it’s the tool I need for the work I’m trying to make.

I miss the Leica – more as an object than as a tool. But nothing is safe. Nothing is forever. And change in one direction is impossible without letting go in the other.

Nature’s first green is gold,
Her hardest hue to hold.
Her early leaf’s a flower;
But only so an hour.
Then leaf subsides to leaf.
So Eden sank to grief,
So dawn goes down to day.
Nothing gold can stay.
-Robert Frost

Changing Tide

Here is a video I made about a recent Everglades trip and my new camera, the Fuji X100V.

The Everglades

“Don’t touch Tiffany.”

The words were scribed on a yellow legal page and taped to the front of a female mannequin. A broken index finger on her right hand revealed a possible history of trauma.

Tiffany lived in Everglades City, Florida, in a yellow and pink building called Island Cafe. It was the kind of place local fishermen visited for an egg and sausage breakfast burrito, or for a hamburger and coke after a long day on the water. It was also the kind of place where three tourists carrying an armful of cameras could expect to receive a few amused glances.

Alex, Jenny and I arrived in Everglades City that morning and had just picked up our permit to camp on Tiger Key, a small island eight miles off the gulf coast of Florida. We decided to eat breakfast while waiting for the tide to change.

While researching this trip I learned that it’s better to wait for the outgoing tide, even if that means leaving much later in the day, than it is to paddle against the incoming tide. So we waited, eating our breakfast and speculating about Tiffany.

The walls of Island Cafe were covered with large black and white photographs by Clyde Butcher, and I wondered if the locals knew just how special that was.

Tiger Key, a mangrove island eight miles off the gulf coast of Florida, is part of the Ten Thousand Islands chain and is the northernmost island belonging to Everglades National Park. This is where we camped our first night in the Everglades.

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A New Camera

Some kids sleep with teddy bears. Others, with dolls. I slept with a camera.

It was a silver film camera my dad gave me, and though I don’t remember the exact model, I’ll never forget those five letters etched in glossy black across the front: N-I-K-O-N.

It’s worth noting that the camera didn’t work. I never took a single image with it. I just liked it, and it lives on as a symbol of the beginning of my long and complicated relationship with photography.

A lot has changed in the past decade, and while I still dream of traveling the world as a photojournalist and becoming the next Steve McCurry, I know the realities of my current season do not support that dream. But the passion to make pictures and tell stories still burns in me.

I recently bought a new camera, the Fujifilm X100V. It is small, light, fun to use and perfect for chasing around and documenting the sporadic life of a two-and-a-half-year-old. It’s the perfect camera for this season of my life, and it has quickly become one of the favorite cameras I’ve ever owned. (And I’ve owned more cameras than I feel comfortable admitting here in this post.). Jenny, if you’re reading this, and I know you are, thank you for putting up with and even supporting all my camera purchases.

Over the past few years, I’ve also desired to create more videos and take my YouTube account more seriously. But excuses, doubts, fears and a general anxiety about being in front of the camera have prevented any action. When we planned this Everglades trip, I committed to bringing the X100V, taking pictures and making a video.

It’s not perfect. Me talking to the camera is, to be honest, a little cringe-worthy at times. But I did it. And I’m proud of that.

Alex floats under the fading light after arriving to Tiger Key. This is one of my favorite images from the trip. (Fuji X100V)

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Changing Tide

The tide changed around 12:30 p.m., and Alex, Jenny and I set off on our adventure. You can watch the video here.

As I sit here writing, I can’t help but think about the changing tide principle and how that applies to so many other areas of my life.

Where am I paddling against the tide? Where am I paddling with it? Where do I need to stop and wait for the tide to change before proceeding? And where do I just need to turn around altogether and paddle in the opposite direction?

Kayak Camping on the Ocklawaha River

A short video of our kayak camping adventure on the Ocklawaha River

To paddle down the river

The thermometer read 99 degrees. Then 101, 99, 102, 100. Two things were certain: We needed a new thermometer, and I was sick.

It was 4:30 a.m. on the day of our big trip. Jenny and I, along with our friend Alex, had spent the previous two months planning a 25-mile, three-day kayak camping adventure down the Ocklawaha River. But now we were debating whether we should still go.

It’s a passage as old as time, to paddle down the river. It’s a journey of self-reflection, of discovery, of freedom. To paddle down the river is to test oneself. To front the elements, to wrestle with existence, to come out with some sort of understanding.

The purpose of this trip was, in the words of Thoreau, “to live so sturdily and Spartan-like as to put to rout all that is not life, to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive life into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms...”

I admit that’s a bit dramatic for a kayak trip.

Jenny and I sat in our living room for 45 minutes considering the varying numbers on the thermometer. Then in what felt like an instant, we made a decision.

We stuffed our bags with DayQuil, NyQuil, ibuprofen and Vitamin C, and drove to Alex’s house.

We were going to paddle down the river.

From left to right, Jenny, myself and Alex pose for a picture with our kayaks before leaving our campsite on the Ocklawaha River.

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Silver lining

An hour drive followed by a 20-minute shuttle ride from a man named Lance brought us to Silver Springs, the official start of our journey.

Our plan was to take the Silver River five miles east until it entered the Ocklawaha River, and then take the Ocklawaha north for 20 miles, camping along the way.

I was feeling pretty sick at this point and was apprehensive about our decision to spend two days in a storm on the river. But to our surprise, the thunderstorm forecast had been pushed back until the evening, and we had decent, though mostly overcast, weather throughout the afternoon.

This was our first time kayaking the Silver River, and I was shocked something so pristine still exists in Florida. We took our time, switching between paddling slowly and allowing the current to take us.

By mid-afternoon we made it to Ray’s Wayside Park, located at the end of the Silver River. We stopped and had lunch, and then continued forward.

The water made a hard shift from crystal blue to muddy brown as we transitioned into the Ocklawaha River. We paddled undistracted to our campsite.

A dead Luna Moth I found at our campsite

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The perfect storm

We made it to camp by late afternoon and set up our tents before the rain.

Camp was more business than usual. We cooked freeze dried pasta under a community tarp that we hung between two trees. Then Jenny and I fell asleep thanks to a cocktail of ibuprofen, NyQuil and Vitamin C.

The rest of the night was a wash of sickness and storms.

I awoke around 5 a.m. needing to use the bathroom. I battled the typical army of zippers and broke free to find a giant puddle beneath our tent. Rain water had poured from the higher grounds down into the river. Our campsite was soaked.

I’ve only camped in one storm worse than this. But even then the inside of my tent stayed dry. This time we weren’t so lucky. The water soaked through the bottom of the tent, and the only barrier between us and it was our sleeping pads.

Too tired and sick to care, I crawled back into the tent and fell asleep.

Jenny and I were feeling a little better in the morning. I guess 12 hours of sleep will do that. But considering our gear was soaked and storms were forecast for the next several days, we decided to cut the trip short and paddle the remaining 16 miles back to the vehicles.

We embraced the wet, eating breakfast and shoving everything into the kayaks before hitting the river.

My kayak photographed from our campsite before hitting the river.

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Swamp buggies

Not long into our decision to return to the vehicles, we saw a rope swing and stopped.

The rope swing is second only to the siren in its ability to lure man from his voyage.

We secured our boats to some nearby roots and were debating how safe it was to swim in the water when a rumbling came through the trees.

“Someone’s coming,” Jenny said.

A few minutes later, a bright red Honda side-by-side grumbled through the woods and up to where we were standing. Right behind it came a second, a third, a fourth, a fifth, a sixth … it seemed they’d never end.

Before they could finish piling onto a piece of land barely large enough to hold them all, the man in the red Honda removed his shirt, exposing a large barrel shaped belly, and then jumped into the water, floated on his back within inches of some lily pads, which I am certain served as home to at least a dozen hungry gators.

If the red swamp buggy didn’t give it away, this certainly did. This man was the alpha.

It’s a strange thing being approached by an army of self-proclaimed hillbillies. Your mind immediately begins a self-evaluation of your self-defense skills.

But it didn’t take long to realize these people intended no harm. They just wanted to drink beer and have a fun afternoon.

We exchanged small talk, Alex earned the nickname “Gainesville,” and Jenny made friends with three young girls, catching them as they took turns jumping into the water. Then we moved on.

As we paddled away, the three girls yelled a final goodbye to Jenny. “We hope to see you again!”

She was accepted.

Three bass hang from the tailgate of Sloan’s blue pickup truck at Gore’s Landing.

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A man like Sloan

We eventually made it to Gore’s Landing, an established campground eight miles from the end of our adventure.

We were sitting on the shore of the boat ramp cooking Raman noodles in the rain when two men in an aluminum canoe docked behind us. I turned around to see three bass dangling from the tailgate of their blue pickup.

I walked over and asked if I could take a picture, and a man with knotty arms and a silver handlebar mustache spoke up.

“Yeah, sure,” he said. “But you should have seen the size of the one that got away. The picture alone weighs four pounds.”

I couldn’t tell whether he was being serious or if this was just a joke he told often. I took a few pictures and asked him his name.

“Sloan,” he said.

Sloan. It seemed so obvious, I wondered why I had even bothered asking the question.

He was a friendly man, eager to share advice on fishing and marriage. I’d trust his advice on fishing.

He offered us a beer. Alex and I declined. Jenny accepted, and then in a wisdom beyond her years said, “When a man like Sloan offers you a beer, you take it.”

Note to self: Embrace Jenny’s wisdom more often.

Our conversation with Sloan wasn’t long, but it felt meaningful. He handed us his business card and offered to show us some good fishing locations next time we were passing through. I told him we might just take him up on the offer.

“It’s your own fault if you don’t,” he said, and then he got in his truck and drove away.

From left to right, Alex’s boat, my boat and Jenny’s boat sit at the Gore’s Landing boat ramp.

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Everyone but the frogs

The sun descended quickly and quietly and a hazy blue settled over the water. Rain fell softly as we paddled.

We kept our eyes open for a campsite, but our hearts were set on going home. We arrived at the Ocklawaha Outpost shortly after dark.

If we’d have arrived before 5 p.m., Lance would have shuttled our boats and gear to the parking lot. But the Outpost was closed and they weren’t expecting us back until the following day.

Hauling the boats and gear in the dark was long and brutal and something this paragraph could never fully explain. But we eventually made it to the parking lot and loaded everything onto the truck.

We changed our clothes in the shadows of some trees, and then drove home.

Our timing was perfect. A massive thunderstorm pummeled us minutes after leaving the Outpost, and hundreds of frogs - more than I have ever seen - spilled onto the road. I made a vain attempt at avoiding them, but there were too many.

As large rain drops beat down on the windshield, I pictured us out there in our tent. I was happy we decided to go home. We were all safe. Everyone but the frogs.

Breathe

A short video I made featuring the Mamiya RB67

Overview

I made a video about being present. It has ironically been a distraction. Alex and I went camping for the first time since 2019, and Zion turned one year old. This post is a collage of recent events connected only by time.

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Video

I’ve had a difficult time being present.

Lately it’s felt like I’m either staring at a map, wondering where to go next, or I’m looking in the rear view mirror, nostalgic for what once was. I’ve struggled to keep my eyes on the road, and the miles keep passing.

Any excuse to go to the woods is a good one, so I packed my truck and headed to Juniper Prairie Wilderness to make a video exploring these thoughts.

There’s an area in Juniper Prairie Wilderness that Alex and I call “the Capitol.” It’s a grouping of dead oak and pine trees protruding from the edge of a large prairie. I created a night time lapse there in 2017 when we discovered it.

I hauled my Mamiya RB67 out there for some photos.

The Capitol is now a scene of change. Large branches have dropped, more trees have died, and adolescent pines have sprung up in their place.

I stood there with my camera while my mind straddled the divide between what this place was and what it was becoming.

I opened the video with the 2017 time lapse. It felt right introducing the Capitol in this way. I think it helps reinforce the theme of time passing, things changing, and trying to remain present in the midst of it all.

Alex and I camp beneath a pine tree named “Medusa” in Juniper Prairie Wilderness. Three headlamps, a campfire and the moon all contribute in lighting this scene. [Canon EOS R, Canon RF 15-35mm f/2.8]

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Camping

My friend Alex and I have spent the past four years documenting Juniper Prairie Wilderness. We’ve made over 40 trips during that time, exploring the connected chains of prairies that mark the landscape.

Last month we camped beneath a pine tree we call “Medusa,” which is just north of the Capitol. It was our first time camping since 2019.

We arrived on a Friday night with plans to camp in a pine forest near the Fire Trail. We changed our minds at the last minute, deciding instead to park on the north end of the Prairie and hike south to Medusa. I enjoyed the spontaneity.

We set up camp, made some dinner, took some pictures and just talked.

It rained the following morning, so we didn’t stay long. Just long enough to poke around and note some recent changes to the area.

If you were to visit this place only once, you would only know a single version of it. But returning throughout the years has given me a deeper understanding. The woods is not a static location holding on to the same form; it’s a dynamic character, always growing and fading, growing, fading.

We stuffed our wet tents into our backpacks and started north toward the car. It was a simple trip and a much needed one.

Mature pine trees are common near the perimeter of prairies, but not many are found thriving near the center. This aerial view of Medusa (bottom right) shows just how unique she is.

A portrait of Alex among the reeds in Juniper Prairie Wilderness.

Alex stands still for a 30 second exposure on his way to gather firewood.

Zion got an opossum cake for her first birthday.

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Zion’s birthday

This isn’t an original observation, but it’s strange how time can simultaneously feel both fast and slow. I seem to always want more of it or less of it, but rarely do I want the amount I’m given.

Zion turned one on February 6, and I’m unsure how to process everything. It’s been a strange year navigating pandemic life and fatherhood. Watching her grow has been one of my greatest joys.

I’ll stop before I get too philosophical, but I thought this was an appropriate place to leave things. Zion is springing up, and it seems the same cycle present in the woods is present in my home, too.

Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind
Cannot bear very much reality.
Time past and time future
What might have been and what has been
Point to one end, which is always present.

-T. S. Eliot, Burnt Norton

Zion plays with her blocks on the back deck.

North Carolina: The Larger Story

A video I made of our trip to North Carolina

The Larger Story

When I was little, my parents took us to North Carolina each fall. A family at our church owned a farmhouse near Asheville, and they let us stay there.

I remember the joy I felt arriving at that house each year. We’d spend the first ten minutes hunting down the door key—usually buried beneath a nearby rock—and the following hour sprinting throughout the house, claiming bedrooms and making sure our favorite things were still in their familiar locations. Then we were outside for what seemed like the remainder of the vacation.

If it's true that a boy needs space to grow, then North Carolina was the perfect place.

I remember chopping firewood with an ax and playing in the barn. I remember BB gun fights in the woods with my brother, and the time he caught a fish in the pond out back using nothing but a string and a shiny bolt. I remember jumping along rocks, sliding down rocks and carrying rocks home in my pocket. I remember cotton candy ice cream, wooden souvenirs and adopting our first dog, a chow-mix we named Autumn after our favorite season. North Carolina is where I felt most alive.

It’s also where my mom died. I don’t talk about her suicide often, but visiting has a way of bringing it up.

I think about her love for those mountains. The stillness, the lulling roads, the antique shops—themselves rather antique—lining the way to towns so small you have to squint to see them on a map. I think about the flowers she pressed in her journal so she’d have a piece of North Carolina even when she wasn’t there.

I think about the morning she left. No letter, no warning. A pillow, some clothes. A bottle of Tylenol. I imagine her tucked in bed that night, quietly slipping away among a sanctuary of farmhouse knickknacks, at peace in a place she loved.

We stopped visiting North Carolina after that. At least for a time. Maybe it was the pain, or the pointlessness of it all. Maybe learning to be a family again was simply more important.

But memories and experiences continue to pile, one growing out of the other until they are no longer separate but equal parts of a new thing. Like stones placed on a wall, the shape of each defines the next, but they lose individual attention in the context of the whole.

Jenny has her own memories visiting North Carolina as a child. When we married, so did our love for those mountains. We spent our honeymoon in Hendersonville, not far from the farmhouse, and have visited the area almost every year since.

This year was special. We got to share it with our daughter.

We climbed rocks, picked apples, hiked our favorite trails and explored some new ones. We spent time in those old mountain towns and marveled at the small shops still standing after all those years. We picnicked along the Blue Ridge, recalling our favorite memories … making new memories.

The stones continue to pile, testaments to time and growth. The old stones aren’t gone, but they have become a smaller part of a larger story. And that story is still being written.

“In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.” -1 Peter 1:6

Zion and me

A Guide to Primitive Camping in Juniper Prairie Wilderness

Overview

Primitive camping, also known as dispersed or backcountry camping, is a method of camping where you sacrifice certain amenities like running water and electricity in favor of a more remote and wild experience. This post discusses primitive camping specifically within the Juniper Prairie Wilderness of the Ocala National Forest.

Here’s a list of the topics I’ll be covering:

1. Introduction

2. Parking & Trailheads

3. Camping Locations

4. Food for Thought

5. Resources

Juniper Prairie Wilderness protects over 14,000 acres of diverse forest and prairie land.

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Introduction

The Juniper Prairie Wilderness is a 14,000-acre scrub land located in the heart of the Ocala National Forest. Because it is a protected wilderness, motorized vehicles, equipment and hunting are all prohibited. The only way to enter is on foot.

I’ve been exploring and camping in Juniper Prairie Wilderness for the past four years and have made more than 30 individual trips over the course of that time. The purpose of this post is to share some of my experience in hope of inspiring others to get out and enjoy this beautiful wilderness area.

This post strictly discusses primitive camping, so I won’t say much about Juniper Springs Recreation Area. But I do think it’s at least worth mentioning here. If you need certain amenities, or if you just prefer a more comfortable camping experience, Juniper Springs Recreation Area, located at the south end of Juniper Prairie Wilderness, provides a beautiful campground with access to showers, flushing toilets and a spring, all for a reasonable fee.

But if you’re after a more wild experience, keep reading.

A National Forest Wilderness sign posted at the South Trail.

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Parking & Trailheads

Juniper Prairie Wilderness is located within a National Forest, so overnight parking is technically allowed all over. But there are five established parking locations and trailheads I discuss here. (Click each title to access its location.)

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1. Pat’s Island

The Pat’s Island Trailhead is located on Forest Road 46*, which is the northern boundary of Juniper Prairie Wilderness. It sits just off the Florida Trail and is the most popular free overnight parking lot for Juniper Prairie Wilderness.

The Florida Trail runs from Pat’s Island in the north down to Juniper Springs in the south and is the primary north/south hiking trail for Juniper Prairie Wilderness.

I recommend parking here if this is your first time visiting. It is the most established parking lot of the bunch, and because the Florida Trail is marked with blazes, getting lost is less likely.

*Google Maps and Google Earth sometimes refer to this road as F.R. 51. Just remember that if you are looking for this road in person, it’s physically marked as F.R. 46.

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2. Fire Trail

The Fire Trail parking lot is located on Forest Road 33, which is the western boundary of Juniper Prairie Wilderness. This is the parking lot I use most often. It is located on Forest Road 33 directly adjacent from Forest Road 38.*

The Fire Trail runs from Forest Road 33 in the west to highway 19 in the east (there is no parking lot on highway 19) and is the primary east/west hiking trail for Juniper Prairie Wilderness. It intersects the Florida Trail near the center of Juniper Prairie Wilderness near Hidden Pond. Please keep in mind that this trail is less established than the Florida Trail. There are no blazes, so a map or GPS is recommended.

*Google Maps and Google Earth have Forest Road 38 labeled as Forest Road 76. I am unsure why some of these roads are labeled differently across different resources.

Update: As of November 2022, this trail is no longer labeled “Fire Trail” on Google Earth. I am unsure why this was removed. Regardless, the trail is very much still there and is frequently used. I highly recommend viewing this trail from Google Earth as some local maps do not recognize it as an official trail.

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3. South Trail

To my knowledge, this parking lot and trail do not have official names. I’m calling it South Trail for the sake of this post.

Like the Fire Trail, the South Trail is also located on Forest Road 33, but is smaller and lesser used. The parking lot can only accommodate two vehicles, and the trail is by far the least developed of the bunch. This trail is not visible on most maps, but it is visible on Google Earth.

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4. Juniper Springs Recreation Area

I never park here myself, but it is an option to park at Juniper Springs Recreation Area and hike north on the Florida Trail into Juniper Prairie Wilderness. This option does cost a daily fee.

The entrance to Juniper Springs Recreation Area is found on highway 40, which is the southern boundary for Juniper Prairie Wilderness.

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5. Yearling Trail

The Yearling Trail parking lot, located on highway 19 (the eastern boundary), is for day use only. Overnight parking is not permitted. If you plan to camp near the Yearling Trail, park at the Pat’s Island Trailhead instead.

Thirty seconds of my favorite tree on the Yearling Trail.

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Camping Locations

There are virtually unlimited camping locations in Juniper Prairie Wilderness. That is, after all, the beauty of primitive camping. But depending on your needs and abilities, some places are more suitable than others.

My goal for this section is to highlight four of the more common camping areas in Juniper Prairie Wilderness. Be sure to download my Juniper Prairie Wilderness Google Earth file for the locations of these areas in addition to others not discussed here.

It’s worth mentioning that the purpose of a wilderness area is to maintain a mostly undisturbed environment. Sticking to the popular camping locations has not been my experience, but I do recommend it, especially if this is your first visit. If your goal is to venture off the beaten path, please be respectful of the environment. Bring a compass, map and/or GPS as relocating the trail can be difficult.

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1. Hidden Pond

Hidden Pond is the most popular primitive camping location in Juniper Prairie Wilderness. I would go so far as to say that very few people camp anywhere other than Hidden Pond or Juniper Springs Recreation Area.

Hidden Pond sits almost dead center in Juniper Prairie Wilderness and is accessible by both the Florida Trail and the Fire Trail. If this is your first visit to the area, I recommend using the Florida Trail to get here. The Fire Trail is more direct, but there are a couple locations where navigation gets tricky.

Overall, Hidden Pond provides a nice waterfront campsite big enough to accommodate a large group. If your goal is to be far away from other people, this is probably NOT the place for you. But if you’re camping with a group or prefer to be near water, there isn’t a more ideal location.

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2. Crooked Sapling Pond

If you desire to camp near water but are not excited about potentially sharing Hidden Pond with a bunch of strangers, then Crooked Sapling Pond might be a good alternative.

Crooked Sapling Pond is a large pond south of Hidden Pond with some beautiful camping locations on the southeast edge. You are still able to hear the voices of Hidden Pond campers carrying over the water, but you’re distant enough to have your privacy.

Crooked Sapling Pond is best accessed from the Fire Trail and South Trail. If you are unfamiliar with the area, park at the Fire Trail lot. You will hike east and then cut south to walk around the western edge of Crooked Sapling Pond.

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3. Pat’s Island/Yearling Trail

Follow the Yearling Trail around Pat’s Island and you will find an abundance of perfect places to pitch your tent. The limiting factor is how far off trail you want to venture.

My favorite campsite in this area is a beautiful oak tree nestled among a forest of long-leaf pines. This location is just off the Yearling Trail and only a 10-minute hike from the Pat’s Island Trailhead.

Something to keep in mind when camping near Pat’s Island is that, contrary to what the name suggests, there are no water sources. It’s called an “island” due to a unique convergence of two ecosystems - longleaf pine and sand pine scrub - not because it sits in the middle of water. However, it is close enough to the parking lot that carrying water isn’t too much of a hassle.

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4. Western Pines

Western Pines is a large grouping of long-leaf pines located not far from the Fire Trail parking lot. There are loads of great camping locations in this area, and you don’t have to venture too far to find a nice pine canopy with awesome prairie views.

I do recommend bringing either a map or a GPS to help with the hike back. The Fire Trail is notoriously difficult to spot once you’ve wandered off it.

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Food for Thought

1. WATER - You need it to survive, but it’s heavy and can quickly ruin a nice hike. Depending on the duration of your trip, I recommend the addition of a simple water filter. Juniper Prairie Wilderness is full of water sources if you plan accordingly.

2. TARP - Bring one. A small one. There are unsurprisingly very few places to comfortably sit in the wilderness. A cheap plastic tarp goes a long way. Just make sure to carry it out when you leave!

3. BEARS - Yes, they exist. No, they are not out to get you. I have only seen two bears inside Juniper Prairie Wilderness, and they immediately ran away upon noticing me. Play safe. Hanging your food bag is recommended.

4. HUNTING - Hunting is not permitted in Juniper Prairie Wilderness. However, I have come across campers haphazardly firing shotguns into the woods for fun. Be alert to what is happening around you and you’ll be fine. Wear orange if you’re worried about it. Leave your gun at home!

5. BATHROOM - There are no bathrooms in the wilderness. Unfortunately, that won’t stop you from having to go. Bring a trowel. Dig a (deep) cat hole and fill it when finished. Nobody wants to stumble across your used toilet paper.

6. BE RESPECTFUL - You may only be camping for one or two nights, but there are animals who call this place home. Not to mention the state employees and volunteers who work hard to maintain a beautiful and mostly undisturbed wilderness area for us to enjoy. Pack out every single thing you pack in. Be careful with fire. Please do not chop down trees. Practice leave no trace principles.

7. HAVE FUN - There are few things that’ll make you feel more alive than spending a weekend in the wilderness. Your senses are heightened, the whoosh of cars on the highway is replaced with the gentle rush of wind in the trees, and you’ll never appreciate coffee or showers as much as when you get home. Enjoy your time out there :)

Alex takes notes during one of our trips to Juniper Prairie Wilderness.

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Resources

1. Juniper Prairie Wilderness Google Earth KML file - Download my Google Earth Juniper Prairie Wilderness file to help you access all the trails and locations discussed in this post and more.

2. Topographic Maps - Free USDA topographic survey maps.

• Download the Juniper Prairie Wilderness map here.

• Download the Salt Springs Map here. (contains very northern tip of Juniper Prairie Wilderness)

3. Wilderness Connect digital topographic map

4. Juniper Prairie Wilderness Forest Service website

My tent and Alex’s tent sit beneath a cloudy night sky in Juniper Prairie Wilderness.

Day Off - Kayaking the Ocklawaha River

A video I made kayaking the Ocklawaha River on my day off

Crooked as the Ocklawaha River

Street lights dashed by the window as I shot down State Road 20. They ended a few miles later, somewhere between Gainesville and Hawthorne, and I flung into darkness.

The city was sleeping, except for a few construction workers already dressed and stumbling the sidewalks to their respective job sites. I felt bad for them. I was driving east towards Palatka, Florida, with a truck full of camera gear and a boat.

There’s a section of the Ocklawaha River, between the Rodman Reservoir and where the river enters the St. Johns, that I’ve been eager to photograph. It’s a section packed with meandering tributaries, and one that, I imagine, was the inspiration for Penny Baxter’s quote in The Yearling: “My words was straight, but my intention was as crooked as the Ocklawaha River.”

I figured the area would present a cool composition from the sky, and since I recently purchased a drone, that thought had become a possibility.

Option 1 - Rodman Dam kayak launch area

Option 2 - Johnson Field boat launch area

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The Image

The plan was straightforward: paddle my kayak into a predetermined section of river, send up the drone and take the photo. But there were a couple obstacles.

The first obstacle was finding a promising section of river close enough to a boat ramp. I wasn’t comfortable launching the drone from my kayak, so I had to find an area where I could launch from land, paddle out for the shot, and then return to the launch site in order to land the drone safely, all before the battery died. I scouted some locations using Google Earth (screen shots above) and decided to go with the Rodman Dam kayak launch thanks to a suggestion from Alex.

I hadn’t realized while planning the trip just how high my drone would need to be to replicate the field of view captured in the Google Earth screen shots. By the time my drone approached even half the altitude, my kayak was an invisible speck. This meant that if I wanted the kayak to be in the shot (and I did), I wouldn’t be able to capture the bends in the river — at least, not at the location I chose.

Instead of reorganizing the entire trip, I took an image and turned my attention to capturing video. I set a goal to start creating more video content, and this was a good opportunity to do that.

My kayak floats in the middle of the Ocklawaha River. This is where owning an orange kayak really comes in handy!

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The Video

This was my first time back in the wilderness since Zion was born five months ago, so I wanted the video to capture that feeling of reunion. I wanted it to be an experience.

I created a simple storyboard prior to the trip and determined two critical shots. The first was an aerial view of my truck driving down the road, which would then transition into the second shot, an aerial view paddling down river. Because I was by myself, I relied on the Active Track feature of the DJI Mavic Air 2 to film these two shots. This was my first time testing the feature.

There were some close calls while using Active Track, the most notable occurring during the truck scene when the drone flew directly into a low-hanging tree branch (see below). Thankfully it navigated itself through unscathed. Overall, the Active Track feature worked well and allowed me to capture the shots without a second person.

The Mavic Air 2 comes nerve-rackingly close to hitting a tree branch while using the Active Track feature.

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The Drive Home

Thunderstorms were forecasted throughout the afternoon, so I packed my things and started back.

The drive home was filled with a mixture of emotions. One thing you learn as you become a new parent is that you don’t get a day off, at least not very often. So I was thankful to have had a morning all to myself. But I was also sad that Jenny and Zion couldn’t be there with me. They are my adventure, and experiences feel a bit hollow without them.

One day Zion will be old enough to join us on these adventures. And while I’m certain it will bring a new set of obstacles, they are obstacles I happily look forward to.

Rain streaks down the driver side window on my way home.

Making A Photography Zine

A zine I made of our trip to California

Introduction

I’ve grown increasingly discouraged at the pile of memories collecting dust on my hard drive. In the past few years I’ve traveled the country, lived in a van with my wife and dog, bought a house, had a baby, and all the countless adventures in between. Yet, with the exception of the occasional blog or Instagram post, the majority of those memories are nowhere to be seen.

In light of this, and spurred on by a sense of urgency that apparently comes with the territory of being a new dad, I’m setting a goal to print more work. Whether in the form of individual pictures to hang on the wall or zines of personal adventures to put on our book shelf, I want to start giving my images a longer shelf life than merely sticking them on a blog or Instagram post.

This blog post covers a zine I made from a trip Jenny and I took to California last July. I hope it will be the first of many small booklets documenting my family adventures and that having them around the house will inspire us to keep adventuring. And I hope reading this will inspire you to go out and print your own work!

Side note: I’m not sure if a small production of 3-5 booklets that I don’t intend to sell can technically be considered a zine. But for the sake of this post, I’m running with it.

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Shooting

The obvious first step to creating a zine is to choose a subject and then gather or shoot a collection of images that support it. I knew even before our trip to California that I wanted the end result to be a zine. So I intentionally documented the journey on my Mamiya 7ii and 15 rolls of film to provide a consistent look throughout.

The biggest thing to consider when shooting for your zine is the final story you aim to tell. Sometimes the story is determined beforehand, where you have somewhat of a rough script and go out seeking images to fill it. Other times the story is determined after the fact, where you gather the images you’ve taken and then start piecing them together to form a narrative. Many times it’s an ongoing back-and-forth process where the images you take change and shape your story along the way and you have to go out shooting again in order to fill any gaps in your story.

Because my story took place during a single week-long vacation, I had to be intentional about documenting everything during the week since I couldn’t just fly back to California to take more pictures. I had to gather close-up details and wide scene-setters and everything in between, and then piece them together once I got home.

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Editing

The editing stage is more than simply importing your images into Lightroom and making adjustments. Photography editing is a sequencing process where you decide which images will stay, which images will go, and how those images will fit together to help drive the larger narrative. It’s what turns your adventure from a family photo album into a story.

This is the most difficult stage for me. I’m guilty of getting precious with my photos and wanting them all in the final edit. But a strong edit often means losing some of your favorite images and keeping some of your least favorite. It takes discipline, but a leaner, tighter edit will always produce a more compelling result.

I recommend taking a break from your images prior to starting the editing process. Time apart has a way of diminishing your emotional attachment to your photographs. And the less emotionally attached you are, the more objective you become. I let two to three weeks lapse from the time I took the photos to the time I started my first edit.

Editing is also the stage where you begin pairing images to create interesting spreads. Spreads provide new context and meaning beyond the content of each individual image. I find this is easier done with physical prints than on the computer, so I printed small thumbnails of each image, taped them to my wall and spent the next couple weeks moving them around to form new and exciting combinations.

One of my favorite spreads from the zine is the one in the image above. It was the perfect climax to my story, where the exhaustion from city life transitions to an escape back into nature.

When you’re editing, remember that you don’t need to keep everything literal or in chronological order. Finding a theme helps give your project a focus that drives the story forward. I decided to focus my story around the theme of city vs. nature, something Jenny and I experienced heavily during our trip. Rather than simply recalling everything we did in the order we did it, I wanted the zine to be more of a reflection of how we felt.

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Designing

If you’re a designer like me, then you’ve likely already jumped the gun and started setting up your design file. However, it’s generally best to have your story mostly laid out prior to beginning the design process. Otherwise, you waste a lot of time moving things around before you even know what it is you’re trying to say.

This isn’t meant to be a technical tutorial, so I won’t go too much into the design process. I used Adobe InDesign, which is the gold standard for layout design. For something as simple as a photography zine, you don’t need to know a whole lot. Watch a couple YouTube videos about how to set up a document, place images and export your file and you’ll be well on your way. You could also theoretically create your entire zine in Photoshop, but it would be a bit more tedious. Download a 7-day Adobe Creative Cloud trial here.

A couple things to consider when setting up your design file are the final zine size, which is usually determined by your budget and the size/orientation of your images, and the type of binding you want to use. For the sake of budget, I went with a saddle stitched digest size (5.5x8.5) booklet printed on 100 lb. satin paper.

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Printing

There are many options to choose from when printing your zine, including online companies, local companies or even printing yourself. If you plan on outsourcing the job, I strongly recommend finding a local printer, rather than an online company, who can work with you, explain things and provide physical proofs.

I use a local company here in Gainesville to do my printing. They are kind, they work with me and explain things I might not have thought about. They also have paper swatch books I can reference and provide physical proofs so I know what I’m getting prior to delivery. Another huge benefit to using local companies is that you will begin to form a (hopefully good) relationship with them that will only help you when it comes to future projects.

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Conclusion

My favorite part of this project was that it forced me to approach my photography as a whole story rather than individual pictures. It’s easy for me to select two or three of my favorite images from a trip and then sort of neglect the rest. But with a zine, pictures I wouldn’t normally highlight all of the sudden become a valuable piece of the whole, and I like that.

I’m currently in the process of creating a more in-depth zine that I’ve been working on it for the better part of a couple years now. But it was nice to take a break and do something a little less serious. I’ll definitely be making more of these in the future!

Check out the full zine below. Thanks for reading.

New Life

Zion Marie Benson

Life moves fast. It’s difficult keeping up.

Nearly five months have slipped by since my last post. That’s not for a lack of adventure, however. If anything the adventures have simply nudged out the time necessary to document them.

This post will be short, nothing more than a simple update to rebuild old habits and prevent further decay. The truth is, Jenny and I have been busy. Really busy! I can’t list everything, but here’s the highlight reel: In the past month and a half, we bought a house, moved and had our first baby - a little girl.

Did I mention we’ve been busy?

Zion Marie Benson was born 7 pounds 14 ounces at 6:11 p.m. on February 6, 2020. It was the most beautiful display of strength I’ve ever witnessed. It makes me wonder how we ever came to accept the lie that men are stronger than women. I could not have done what Jenny did.

I’m excited to be a dad. I’m excited to share my passions with this new life, to teach her how to draw and to skateboard, to take her camping for the first time. I’m excited to see which traits she gets from me, and which she gets from Jenny. I’m excited for the unique person she will become, for the creativity she will share with the world, for everything she will teach me. I’m excited to document this journey.

The adventures will not end. In fact, I think they’re only just beginning. But they will change, and maintaining everything will be an adjustment. So stay tuned if you’re with me. This is going to be fun :)

Our home

Enter The Nikonos V

The Nikonos V

Filling the Gaps

I’ve spent the last few years working on a photo essay about the Juniper Prairie Wilderness, and last January I set a goal to finish and publish the project in the form of a zine by the end of this year.

With only three months left, I began an editing round of organizing the images and placing them into a rough storyline, a process intended to reveal any potential gaps that I can then focus on filling the next time I’m out shooting.

One major gap that has since surfaced is a lack of water photography. The story of Florida is a story of water; and Juniper Prairie Wilderness, with its springs and rivers and ponds, is no exception. I knew I needed to address this gap, and since I’m photographing the entire project on film, there was only one real solution to the problem.

Enter the Nikonos V.

I’ve come close to buying a Nikonos V on several occasions, but the nightmare of fiddling with o-rings — a horror that’s remained fresh in my dreams since a brief experience with paintball 17 years ago — has prevented me from committing. But with my project deadline fast approaching, I did some research and found a man who specializes in repairing and selling Nikonos V cameras. I reached out, purchased a copy and had it shipped to Jenny, who then wrapped it and gifted it to me a week later for my birthday. O, the joys of adulthood!

This past weekend Jenny and I headed to Hidden Pond, a small but popular pond located just off the Florida Trail, to put the camera to the test.

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A Premature End

Hidden Pond was full and murky, so after an hour we hiked back to the truck and drove south to Juniper Springs Recreation Area where the water was clear and refreshing.

Unfortunately, I started having trouble with the shutter after loading the second roll of film. I contacted the seller and he helped me troubleshoot the camera. He concluded a soldering point had come undone, so I shipped it back for expedited repair. It’s not an ideal situation, but things do happen.

My brief encounter with the Nikonos V whet my appetite for more. I plan on writing an in-depth review after I’ve had more time with it, but for now I’m just looking forward to getting it back!

The Space Between Method and Madness

My kayak floats in the flooded Alachua Lake

All great things are created in the space between method and madness

This past weekend Alex and I kayaked back to the La Chua Trail observation deck to camp and finish what we had started. Storms were forecasted throughout the weekend, but our minds were set. No amount of rain was going to change them. Like soldiers marching to battle, we paddled out.

The impending storm accelerated nightfall, and we soon found ourselves paddling in the dark. Despite having recently kayaked to the observation deck, the ever-changing nature of the landscape combined with the darkness made navigation difficult.

Our intuition (confirmed by a quick Google Maps check) told us to continue northeast, and so we did, all the while discussing our biggest fears, which consisted of various scenarios involving alligators and sinking. We eventually made it to the deck and proceeded to unload our gear and tie up the boats.

We were prepared to get wet, but neither of us anticipated the wind. There were moments throughout the night when every fiber in my tent trembled under such force that I was certain it was going to fly away with me inside.

The observation deck creaked and wiggled, the kayaks smacked around (I was worried they’d be gone by morning), and thoughts of doubt rang through my head. At one point I pulled out my phone to make sure it wasn’t actually a hurricane that was passing through.

My alarm went off at 6:30 a.m., but I was already awake. I packed up my camera gear first, making sure it was safe from the rain; the rest didn’t matter. I put on my wet clothes, climbed outside and began breaking down my tent.

It was an eerily beautiful day—not the type of beauty associated with sunny blue skies, but a real beauty, a raw beauty, a beauty not of the surface but of the very core. The world was alive and wild and mad and it paid us no mind. We appreciated it for a while before loading up and taking off.

Last night while I was watching a series on Netflix called Mindhunter, one of the characters said, “I think all great things are created in the space between method and madness,” and it got me thinking about our recent adventure.

Some would probably argue that paddling out into alligator-infested water at night while navigating without a GPS toward a flooded deck to camp in a storm is well into madness territory. And I agree there is certainly a level of madness involved. But what that person doesn’t see is the method leading up to this point.

Alex and I tested our ability to kayak to the dock a month ago in the day time. We made notes during that trip that prepared us even more for this one. Our repeated adventures into the Ocala National Forest have taught us the limits of ourselves, of our gear, and, almost more importantly, of each other.

I do not advocate recklessness; you have to be smart. But you also have to be a little mad. That’s the space where inspiration lives. That’s the space where great memories are made.

California On Film

San Francisco, California

“I don’t know where this goes, but it sure is calling me.”

Jenny and I went to California for our fifth anniversary. Like generations before, we have become enchanted by the call of the West. But despite all our traveling—including that time we lived in a van with our dog—California has, for the most part, evaded us.

So when it came time to plan our anniversary trip, it wasn’t a matter of where in the country we wanted to go, but, rather, where in California we wanted to go. San Francisco sounded nice; and because such a place can only be appropriately recorded on film, I decided to shoot the entire experience on my Mamiya 7ii. Here’s how it went:

It’s never easy deciding which cameras to bring and which to leave behind. How will the rejected cameras take the news? I decided on the Mamiya 7ii and my iPhone, which I believe was the most lightweight and versatile combination for this trip.

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Trinidad

We left Tampa International Airport at 6 a.m. and straddled time, arriving in San Francisco at 8 a.m. five hours later. Day one didn’t leave much room for dawdling, so we picked up our rental car and scurried another five hours up the coast to Trinidad, California.

It was a long day; but having done most our previous traveling by van, I think we were both impressed at how quickly you can get from one corner of the country to the other when you aren’t cheap about it. Our first evening was spent settling in, eating the best fish and chips I’ve ever had and wandering the Trinidad State Beach shoreline.

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Redwood National Park

You’ve probably never heard of Trinidad, and I don’t blame you. While it’s a beautiful town, it’s also a small town. And if you aren’t careful, you’ll sneeze on your drive up the 101 and never realize you passed it.

What brought us to this peaceful place was a matter of pure happenstance. Jenny and I were on a quest for giants, and not 30 minutes north of Trinidad is Redwood National Park, which, we had heard, is where giants like to live. So when we were searching for Airbnbs in the area, we came across a cute eco-conscious cabin in Trinidad, and the rest is history.

We spent the next three days waking up to fresh mountain air and yellow banana slugs trailing so slowly across the deck that they hardly appeared to be moving at all. We’d drive into the forest, hike among 1,500-year-old redwoods, head back to Trinidad for fish and chips and a west-coast sunset, shower, sleep, and repeat. All seemed right in the world, and we were happy in it.

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San Francisco

After just a few short days it was time say goodbye to our comfy cabin in Trinidad and head south back toward San Francisco. We had an Airbnb waiting for us in Pacifica, and we were looking forward to a little time in the city.

Eager to do touristy things for a day, I naively thought it would be a good idea to walk from Fisherman's Wharf to the Golden Gate Bridge. It was an absurdly long walk that, paired with stopping at parks and shops along the way, took us the entire day.

When we eventually reached the bridge the thick summer fog obscured the view, so we pushed it another mile and a half past the bridge to a beach where I thought we’d have a better view. Tired, sunburned and frustrated, we made it to the entrance of North Baker Beach and started the long decent to the water.

Because the beach entrance was above the fog and we had to walk down through it to get to the beach, we didn’t realize at the time that we were entering the largest urban nude beach in San Francisco. And we normally wouldn’t laugh at such a thing—we’re both pretty open-minded individuals—but the frustrating circumstances leading up to this point made Jenny and I crack up at the sight of naked men wandering the beach. There really could not have been a more perfect end to our trek from Fisherman’s Wharf.

Unfortunately, we still couldn’t see the bridge, so we Ubered back to our car and drove north across the bridge to the Marin Headlands, which brought us to a beautiful vantage point. We spent the evening watching the fog roll through the bay over the bridge, and it was a glorious sight through the Mamiya.

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Point Reyes National Seashore

As it turns out, being in the city is exhausting work, and after only a couple days Jenny and I were ready to retreat back to nature. There’s too much beauty in California to spend too long in the city; and in my opinion souvenirs should be captured on cameras rather than purchased in shops.

We decided to drive up the coast to Point Reyes National Seashore, a place Jenny had long wanted to visit. It was a misty afternoon and the views were nonexistent, but we got to pick wild blackberries on the hike to a beach we had all to ourselves, so we weren’t complaining! It turned out to be one of the more peaceful experiences of the trip, and one we won’t soon forget.

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Pacifica

Although we stayed in Pacifica four nights, most our time was spent outside of the city visiting San Francisco and surrounding areas. So we spent our final evening actually enjoying Pacifica, which, not surprisingly, is also beautiful. We didn’t do much—found a comfortable spot on the beach, fell asleep, woke up, took pictures—but it was a wonderful final evening.

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“It’s nice to go, and it’s nice to go home.”

We seem to be drawn to the extremes, and our trip represented no less: the skyscrapers of the city and giants of the forest; the modern home and the eco-conscious cabin; the east coast and the west; even my cameras, with the intentionality of the Mamiya and the practicality of the iPhone.

As I pondered this in the airport, staring out over the endless coming and going of planes shuttling people to and from who-knows-where, I thought about all the special places in the world and how I’d never get to see them all.

And then I heard a woman behind me say to someone I couldn’t see, “It’s nice to go, and it’s nice to go home,” and I couldn’t help but smile. It was an awesome trip filled with many special places; but Florida is a special place, too, and I was ready to be home.

Click here to see the zine I made from this trip.