The Blog of Photographer Jacob Vorpahl.
Last year, I was trying to find an outdoor activity I could use to shape up a little bit. I hate running and there aren’t a lot of organized sports on my side of town, so I was stuck finding something I could do on my own, whenever my time permitted. I didn’t have many paths to go down, so thankfully I found one right away that worked: cycling, or more specifically, riding my bike around town.
I started off doing around 10 miles a day, but it wasn’t long until I was up around 18-20 miles, sometimes even more if I was feeling particularly energetic that day. I was (and am) pretty happy with those numbers considering I’m riding a mountain bike with off-road tires around the city, not some slick, lightweight thin-wheeled road bike.
Nonetheless, as I was riding around, I kept seeing scenes that begged to have a camera in hand. It got to the point that I was lugging around my Nikon D80 with 17-50mm 2.8 Tamron lens inside of my Camelbak/backpack hybrid to try and gets shots. This horrible logistical setup was the primary motivator on me buying another, more portable camera, the Canon G11. It had a smaller footprint, making it easier to lug around, and I even fashioned a small pouch to hold it in so I wouldn’t have to remove my backpack everytime I wanted to stop and take a picture.
My goal was/is to ride all over Jacksonville, taking pictures of anything and everything that is Jacksonville, with a few other artistic shots thrown in for good measure. With that being said, the project is not finished. I still have a lot of riding to do and alot of places to travel, but the weather is getting warmer and riding season will be back before you know it. So I thought I would share with you what I have so far.
This gallery is hosted over at my Zenfolio site. I’ve got to say, I had a little bit of “buyer’s remorse” after I set up my account and paid for it, but they’ve made some nice improvements lately that have really made things a little more slick. I’ll be doing a write up about my experience with them here in the near future, but so far it’s been positive. On a side note, if you decide you want to register with them, my referral code is: ME1-85Y-5RZ, and I’d appreciate the free month or whatever it is.
