Between Frames — February & March 2026
A jam packed newsletter from two empty months.
Introduction:
I am beginning to realize that these months after the holidays and before Spring are the hardest for me creatively. The Winter causes us to hunker down quite heavily to let ourselves rest — it’s just human nature that we want to be cozy in the Winter.
Right now, that means staying home, watching Drive to Survive (& Love Is Blind), and hanging out with our close community (thx City Chapel).
Due to the aforementioned winter-hunkering-down (& the fact that I didn’t shoot much in Feb or March), I’m combining the two newsletters.
Paid Subscribers — After soooo many printing & mailing issues (the Grand Rapids postal service returned your prints to me multiple times), your backlog of prints is on the way to you! I apologize for the delay (& included an extra, larger one as compensation).
Old Film:
I sent some rolls of film off to the boys at State Film Lab in early February. I got the scans back last week and I’m quite stoked on how a lot of it came out. It’s always exciting to see film scans come back and I’m really happy with a lot of these frames — for once I don’t feel like crap getting my scans back lol.
Zion National Park:
Mackinac Island:
Michigan in Winter:
The Aurora:
This last frame of the aurora is one of my favorites. I have always wanted to shoot the Northern Lights on film, but I’ve never even seen them before this. Lucky for us, they showed up in Michigan and we were able to go watch them from a local park.
Sadly, I only had Portra 160 on me. This film is a very low ISO, meaning that it doesn’t easily pick up light (something I really need in pitch black).
Somehow, the Lord let my 1.5 minute exposure (thanks to reciprocity) work.
There are quite a few more images that I am stoked for that I got back recently, but I think that it’s best if I just save those for a rainy day.
The Lake:
On Valentine’s Day, Paloma and I had quite a bit of time to kill before our evening plans. We hadn’t been out to Lake Michigan yet this year and Paloma wanted to walk on the shelf ice. We went out to Grand Haven State Park and ventured out on the ice to watch the sunset. It had felt like months without sun, so a nice sunset in a cool location was a real treat.
**Note that the ice was feet thick for most of the bay, with select areas that were sheets/chunks, we didn’t walk out on those parts.
Chicago:
Paloma and I celebrated our anniversary in February. Each year, we try to spend a few days out of town around that day. Unfortunately, our anniversary is in the dead of winter (for the Northern hemisphere lol), so it usually is in a cold location.
This year, we went to Chicago and stayed in the Gold Coast. Once again, we took advantage of the rewards that we get with our Chase Sapphire Reserve card and got reimbursed for $900 worth of things we purchased over the weekend (lodging, meals, & more).1
It was a fun new experience being ~20 floors up over the city. It felt like I was simultaneously the fish in the fishbowl & the person standing outside the bowl tapping on the glass.
The above images are all from a 300 ft. long stretch of the River Walk inside the Chicago Loop. I love Chicago’s architecture (like, ALL of it), but I really love this corner of the river. The Corncob Towers, the Wrigley building, and (unfortunately2) the Trump Tower with the way the sunlight glistens off of it, all fit together so nicely.
Bits & Bobs:
It was hard to want to shoot this month, mainly just due to the weather being bad for most of the month. I stayed in for a lot of the month — which meant more time on the indoor bike trainer. Here are some photos from random spots throughout the month.
Things I’ve Loved in Feb/March:
I’ve been following Rob Stephenson’s The Neighborhoods project for a while. It’s a beautiful visual essay of the neighborhoods that comprise NYC.
This article is titled “No Parties in the Kingdom” and examines politics as it relates to Christianity. If you feel discouraged by how you’re supposed to mesh your faith with politics, read this.
Super niche, but Flint can build webpages in seconds.
If you want an old-school airport board for your house, but don’t want to pay $3500, run this and turn any screen into one. Note: requires a teeny bit of editing for you to use, but just use Claude to fix this!
Conclusion:
I’ve written too much and my brain is officially dead.
Thanks for reading this far!
I wish you all a happy and healthy April!
Peace & blessings!
-C
I’ve made it my goal to take advantage of credit card companies. So far in 2026, we’ve used close to $2k worth of benefits — suck on that Mr. J.P. Morgan.
Genuinely, apologies if this rubs you the wrong way. I prescribe to the Way of Jesus and it’s hard to live in such a hate-filled and politicized environment as a disciple of Jesus. Regardless of which party you align with, currently both are falling short.
Those shots of Zion are gorgeous! You also had really nice winter light in the Grand Haven images 😍