If you’ve ever looked out your car window as you’re between where you are and where your going, you’ve seen a place like this. Maybe it didn’t look like this but everyone knows these types of places, always between where your were and where you’re going, but never where you are. I always what kind of stories these places could tell, but I guess I’ll only ever be able to speculate.

More and more often it seems I find myself thinking about the history of the places I visit. Not just wild mountainous landscapes, but the towns, the cities, and the oceans hold so much history, history that well never get to fully see. I find it both wonderful and terrifying to think about how old the world is, how long it took to get here, and how long after I am gone will these places be even recognizable to what I was able to see.

In storytelling, the ideas of light and darkness are often used to portray the mood of a setting, and usually divide a visually interesting area from an uninteresting one. I did my best to heavily use lighting in this photo of an old dried creek bed. The drooping trees parted to let through a small patch of light, where you might imagine some important scene taking place.

For this week’s photo challenge, we took photos that represented new beginnings, with the theme of storytelling and circular patterns. I went on a short hike up by the reservoir where I took this photo of the natural cycle of death and its creation of new life.

This week’s photo blog assignment was taking a picture that represents our home town. Over the winter break I got a chance to see the actual tow I grew up in, where I took this photo of the street next to my old home.

For this week’s photo challenge, we needed to tell a love story through photography. I’m not familiar with many love stories so finding inspiration for this task was difficult until I realized a love story didn’t have to be the typical two people falling in love. A love story could be about so much more. This photo was taken at the Animal Assisted Happiness volunteer farm in Sunnyvale California. Every day there, volunteers work to ensure the safety and comfort of the animals, even going as far to provide birdhouses like this one to the wildlife around. If that isn’t unconditional love then I don’t know what is.

Additionally I should add that I enhanced this photo with the tricks we learned in photoshop recently, it really does help maintain the focus of the picture on the birdhouse.

This week’s photo challenge was to take a photo that told a story of warmth. To accomplish this, I thought back to the summer road trips my family and I used to take in this van. While someone unfamiliar might understandably see this image as strange or even eerie, It reminds me of the late nights of falling asleep while my parents drove us to our next adventure, looking out the windows to see nothing but the night sky and the occasional passing car, with the quiet sound of rain or crickets in the background.