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Last Saturday on assignment for the Bozeman Daily Chronicle, I watched hundreds of my fellow Bozemanites run in the 2014 Bozeman Run to the Pub 10K/Half Marathon Race. The event is popular and runners were decked out in copious amounts of green to keep in step with the St. Patrick’s Day holiday. The best part is the race ends downtown where everyone drinks beer afterwards in the street. Race organizers provided buses to take runners to the starting line which really cut down on the hassles of moving cars. It looked like a lot of fun. Makes me consider running it myself next year. Overall a great way to spend a Saturday. Here are some favorite photographs from the day. Cheers! -M

In my line of work as a photojournalist, I’m fortunate that I get to experience people and places I would not normally come across in my daily life. The challenge then for me is to document and capture the essence of the story I’m trying to tell through my images. Through these experiences and personal connections with the individuals I meet, I learn not just about their story but they help shape my own for the better. A couple weeks back, after many years of debating and being encouraged by close friends, I finally experienced my first Burning Man festival in Black Rock City in western Nevada and found a part of myself I never knew existed. The week long event has been happening in one form or another since the mid 80’s as counter culture, artistic, self expression annual celebration that accumulates as a city of 60,000+ individuals from around the world in the dried up alkali salt lake beds a couple hours northeast of Reno. It’s a surreal environment to live in for a week complete with white out dust storms and intense heat. It’s hard to put into words exactly what makes the event so special. To the outsider, the event could easily be written off as a bunch of hooligans partying out in the middle of the desert. On the Burning Man website, organizers state that “Trying to explain what Burning Man is to someone who has never been to the event is a bit like trying to explain what a particular color looks like to someone who is blind.” I really had no clue what I was getting into. But what I found was more special to me than anything I could ever have imaged. I danced, I laughed, I learned, I experienced, I dreamed, I loved. I would describe it as the most fantastic lucid dream where acceptance and a sense of community rein as king. For much of the week, I refrained from taking any images with the hopes of absorbing all I saw completely unfiltered. Obviously, that didn’t last long. For someone who was trying to take a vacation from creativity, I found myself at ground zero for creative expression and I soon gave myself completely to it gaining an intense gratification for all the wonderfully weird, creative, intelligent and inspiring group of people I encountered along the way. These photos are but a glimpse of the profound people I connected with for a week on the playa who showed me how to truly celebrate life to it’s fullest. It was an experience I won’t soon forget. -M

A couple weeks ago, I decided to spend the afternoon documenting the traditional end of the ski season pond skimming event at Big Sky Ski Resort. You’ll find events like these all over the Rocky Mountain West of skiers and snowboarders going big off a jump into an awaiting pool of water. It’s quite the spectator sport. Here are some of my favorite images from the day.

Never have I been more relieved to put a month behind me. I started 2011 nursing the wounds from a Christmas Day car accident where I was hit by a guy running a red light. Wear your seat belts folks. They saved my life. Despite my Subaru being totaled, a massive concussion, some stitches and some ongoing deep aches and pains, I am lucky to be relatively unscathed. I’ve lost count to how many doctors appointments I’ve been to in January. Because of my accident, I have missed quite a bit of work. But as I rounded out the last days of January, I could honestly say that I am starting to feel a lot better and I am looking forward to a new year of making photos. Here are a couple shots from the past couple of weeks that caught my eye.








I spent the better part of this week covering all of the happenings of the Solano County Fair festivities. Not the busiest fair I’ve attended in my career. I’d imagine that the organizers were frustrated about it too especially when they are competing against a Six Flags roller coaster park across the street. For my money the Ferris wheel just can’t deliver. Still, for the few kids that did attend you could tell they were enjoying themselves. Like most fairs around this country, we had the 4-H livestock competitions. I was never in these events as a kid but watching them now it is pretty fun to watch the kids and their reactions during the events. You can tell that each has put in a lot of work to get here and they all take it quite seriously. Separate from the 4-H events, I stumbled upon a new event of pig racing. They were pure comedy. An uplifting end to what has been a very long and hot week here in California.