One of my favorite parts of photojournalism is getting a glimpse into people's lives at their most exciting moments. This assignment was no exception. Shooting for the New Jersey Star-Ledger, I spent the day with Nick Culbertson and his family as he graduated from Harvard, the culmination of a long-road started when the paper wrote a story about two children and their grandmother living in a motel in Dunellen, New Jersey. The community came to the family's aid and through the dedication of Nick, his sister, his grandmother, and a handful of people, both children graduated from college. You can read the story here: On graduation day, grandmother's toil pays off. And here you can see how the story appeared in print.

I love it when assignments take me into a world that I've never visited. In this case, a day following Zaarly.com CEO Bo Fishback, I spent about 6 hours photographing going along to meetings necessary to the launch of a multi-million-dollar startup. The story was difficult to photograph, if only because the subject of the photos was people sitting in coffee shops talking. It was a fun challenge and a great chance to meet someone as enthusiastic as Bo. My contribution to the story, which involved 3 photographers in different locations, was used in the print edition of the April 19, 2011, issue of the Wall Street Journal and at the top of the front page of WSJ.com. You can read the story in the Wall Street Journal here: In Silicon Valley, Investors Are Jockeying Like It's 1999.

Here are a few images from a very short shoot at the MIT Media Lab about Dr. Alex "Sandy" Pentland's research modeling human behavior through the ways that people use cell phones. It's fascinating research, but difficult to photograph, since it's all on computers and cell phones. The shoot was rushed, but my picture got great play in the Wall Street Journal. The story is available online: The Really Smart Phone.

This year marked the 115th running of the Boston Marathon. Being one of the, if not the, best-known races in the world, the sidewalks along the racecourse in Boston were crowded. People hoped to catch a glimpse of the winner (who would turn out to be Geoffrey Mutai of Kenya, setting a record for the fastest marathon ever run), cheer on a family member of friend running in the general marathon, or just to take part in the frenzy. I turned my camera toward the crowd for the event. More pictures are available for license and looking at my archive: Spectators at the 2011 Boston Marathon

April 8, 2011, was opening day for the Boston Red Sox at Fenway Park in Boston, Massachusetts. I'd always heard Boston was a baseball town, rabid fans loyal in times good and bad. The night before the game, people were camped out on the sidewalks around the park to guarantee a game-day ticket the next day. Mike, who was about 15th in line, told me he and his father had stayed overnight outside Fenway since before he could remember. This time, it was Mike and his friends--they played whiffle ball in an empty parking lot, they tried to stay warm when huddled down on the sidewalk, they got hassled by police for waiting in the wrong place. "It's tradition," Mike told me, "I'll do this with my son eventually." These pictures and more are available for license at my archive: 2011 Red Sox Opening Day

Earlier this month, hundreds of people gathered in Cambridge Common to celebrate 2011 International Pillow Fight Day by, what else, having a giant pillow fight. The event was organized anonymously, as in the past, by the Boston-area group Banditos Misteriosos. More pictures can be seen in my archive: 2011 Cambridge Pillow Fight.