I'm an accidental photographer. What I mean by that is that the two periods of my life where I've picked up a camera there was never a specific plan or intention. The first was back in the 1990's when I inadvertently became a medical photographer after losing my job working on a loading dock. I ended up taking photographs for doctors both in the operating room and later as a sort of a personal photographer for a Trauma Surgeon in Philadelphia. It was my first exposure to the inner workings of the human body and what happens when things go horribly wrong. I eventually left that job and didn't pick up a camera again for over a decade when I started backpacking. The photos I took on the Long Trail in Vermont were nothing more than a way to document my trip, shot with a cheap point and shoot camera through a rain soaked waterproof case. I used the same camera in California and the
I guess I should start with why I chose the name Anastatica Photography. Anastatica Hierochuntica is the Latin name for the plant commonly known as the Resurrection Plant. When denied nourishment the plant has the ability to shed its leaves, dry out and curl in upon itself, appearing to be dead. When it's again exposed to water it blooms back to life in a matter of hours.This is a fitting metaphor for the life I've led, its effects on me, and what traveling to remote locations does for me.
I currently work in an Emergency Depart in a small city in New England and am exposed to the absolute best and worst moments of peoples lives on a daily basis. It's sometimes shitty work but it's all I know how to do. I've been blesses amid all of this chaos to have bosses who have understood my need to disappear for weeks at a time and I've done my best take advantage of those opportunities.
My first backpacking trip (and my first time backpacking) was a 30 day/300 mile trip through Vermont from the Massachusetts to Canadian borders. It was cold and wet and miserable and if I'd known then what I know now I would've probably quit. It was also sublime and life affirming and it set its hook into me in a way I hope to never escape. My next trip was a 28 day backpacking trip through the Sierra Nevada mountains in California. Trying to describe that trip is pointless. The 26 letters of the alphabet, and all of their nearly endless combinations, are so embarrassingly inadequate in describing what I experienced in those mountains that I no longer even try. My next trip was to Iceland. 15 days of travel, ten days of hiking, 4 days of sideways rain, blistering wind, and thick fog, and 6 days of beautiful blue skies that threatened but never descending storm clouds, and remote camping about 70 miles below the Arctic Circle. My most recent trip was a solo backpacking trip to do a 75 mile section of the Colorado Trail from Silverton to Durango. There was a lot to be learned spending 5 days in the fairly remote San Juan Mountains with...
