A Panoramic View of America (and Why It Matters to a Photographer)

One of the perks of my job — aside from keeping spreadsheets from going feral and arguing over data with charming intensity — is that I get to travel. A few times a year, I get to fly the friendly skies, zig-zagging across the U.S., hopping from conference room to coffee shop, from Capitol Hill to coastal breeze.

In just the last few years, I’ve seen more of America than most folks get to in a lifetime:
Washington, D.C. with its marble seriousness.
New Orleans with its jazz and humidity and soul.
Denver’s thin air and slightly smug mountains.
Portland’s coffee and people in beanies who make you feel uncool just by existing.
Reno’s dusty charm.
Grand Rapids. Austin. Anaheim. Tuscon. Savana, Long Beach. Rhode Island. Salt Lake City. Connecticut. St. Louis. Fort Lauderdale.

I’ve flown from no-coast Oklahoma to the West Coast, East Coast, and the Gulf — sometimes in the same month. One particular stretch, I went from Oregon to Rhode Island to the Gulf and Reno in three weeks. My suitcase didn’t know what to pack.

And while it’s technically work, and my laptop never leaves my side, these trips have done something deeper for me as a creative — especially as a photographer.

Seeing America like this gives me a panoramic view — not just of landscapes, but of people, light, color, culture, texture. It fills up the creative tank. The sunsets hit different in Southern California than they do in Rhode Island. The architecture shifts. The faces change. Even the vibe of light — the way it bounces off buildings or filters through trees — evolves from coast to coast.

Every city has its own palette, its own rhythm. And every trip reminds me to look more closely, even when I’m back home. To find the beauty in an alleyway. To chase the light down a sidewalk. To notice the way a face softens in golden hour — whether it’s in Grand Rapids or Guthrie.

Photography is about seeing. And traveling — even for work — sharpens my eyes.

It makes me pay attention.

So yeah, my career has me crunching data and herding cats on occasion, but it also puts me on planes to places I’d never see otherwise. And every gate, every Uber ride, every awkward hotel carpet… it feeds something in me.

It reminds me that the world is bigger than my backyard — and that’s a good thing for a guy with a camera and a creative itch that just won’t quit.

So here’s to coast-to-coast inspiration, to the panoramic view, and to never forgetting that sometimes the best thing for your photography… is just getting out of town.