Tuesday, February 23rd I headed out to Folsom Lake to meet up with Brady, Erin and Jose to create some slow shutter photos using the Vont Breeze light sets I was sent from Vont. I decided a shirt and shorts would do…. I’ll be honest. It was cold! When we first arrived we got some cool shots using the headlights as a spot light following the subject as well as Jose’s Mavic Air spotlight to look like I was being abducted by aliens.

What we do in the space that we are carving out is undefined and, without speaking for the entire group, there’s a part of me that enjoys the nebulousness of this space. It allows us to function authentically and without the anxiety of being counterfeited. On this particular day it was “all hands on deck”. We rallied as many members and friends within our bubble as we could to play model, photographer or both so that we could tell many different stories that would interweave into one. Emily C., Emily W. and Erin O. were all making their cameos to support our effort.

I didn’t write this as a blog in the first place. Often @photo.pace is asked “What camera should I buy if I’m just starting out?” Or a question virtually undifferentiated from the former. As I tend to take on the responsibility of responding to people who reach out to PP I frequently find myself being reluctant to give an adequate answer. This isn’t because I find it hard to answer the question but more so because Instagram DMs simply don’t allow the space for a thorough response. The other week someone reached out to me on my personal account and asked me this daunting question.

The alarm goes off, shrill, and just out of reach. Somewhere below the lofted ceilings of a high-alpine A-frame, the blue flame of a gas burner flicks to life, setting off a chain reaction of activity as the dark space springs to life. Coffee is poured, bottles filled. Tires pumped, snacks stashed in bar bags and derailleur batteries snapped into place. As the sun creeps over distant evergreens, we assemble on the deck for photos through the haze, cold and colorful.

On the surface, a Photo Pace “City Slickers” ride is exactly as it sounds: Ride bikes through The City and take photos. But to be honest, it’s more of an opportunity for all of us to hangout. Our crew is spread across a large stretch of Northern California. We have Chris Corona down in Santa Cruz, Shawn Remy all the way in Sacramento, and the rest of us scattered in between. When you factor in jobs, and family, and numerous other responsibilities (aka adulting), getting together to do what we love is fairly difficult. Which is why when we do have the opportunity for some of us to connect, ride bikes, and shoot, we usually settle on San Francisco.

For as far back as I can remember, I always wanted to play rough like “the guys.” Running fast, climbing high, zooming down the steepest hills on my bike; it’s as if I was invariably trying to prove my worth. It was a well-known fact that to “play like a girl” was to be weak, as if my gender was the antithesis of power and finesse. I would like to think that in this day and age, women receive opportunities and recognition equitable to that of their male counterparts. Unfortunately, a gender gap still remains, most conspicuously in professional sports.In cycling women are far less recognized, receiving substantially lower financing, support, endorsements and payouts than men. Every year in July, people tune in around the world to watch expert male cyclists race the Tour De France. To date, there is no Tour De France for women. This inequality has sparked a movement amongst many in the cycling community to call for much-needed change. On Sunday, September 6, 2020, Rapha coordinated their annual Women’s 100K race Across the globe, women of different ages, races, colors, creeds and abilities, joined together in solidarity to pedal 100 kilometers. They pedal for themselves, for one another and for the equality they seek in the sport that they love.

Today is the beginning of a new chapter for Photo Pace. Seven months is a relatively short amount of time but saying that 2020 has been a challenge has already become quite an antiquated statement. For more than half the year we have been discussing and planning the launch of this website and finally we are able to share it with our family and friends in hopes to build a community that creates and shares things that we couldn’t have imagined.

For the month of August, we were comissioned by Easton Cycling to help promote a skid contest. The contest was for a few different sets of Easton’s premium wheels. We all got out there with our friends to skid around and just have a good time. Here is a little gallery of photos from our shreds

The alarm goes off at 3:30am…

These days, I don’t care to wake up before 6am, but today is a special occasion! I first planned this ride in 2014, and then once more in 2018. Both rides were unfortunately cancelled, so today, I wanted nothing more than for this ride to happen!

We were five months into a quarantine and at just about summer’s end. Normal this time of year used to be reserved for hot weather, long days, and an opportunity to escape the normal. We knew we had to get out of the weirdness that was 2020 because longingly, normal, became the one thing we missed the most. To us, Sierraville seemed like the right choice.