The man, the mystery, the telegraph pole. I got one shot of Blake before my battery died. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it.

Blake Andrews was impressed by my ability to find Sam Bond’s Garage without a GPS and I was impressed by the beer that came in mason jars. It’s a Eugene thing?

Meeting with Blake Andrews – just one and half hours shy of the end of PPOTR – ended up playing out like a debrief.

Like a beer-swilling psychotherapist, Blake asked questions and plumbed the depths of the trip. I saw with fresh eyes the particulars and the peculiars of the trip.

Blake and I looked over images by photographers I’d met along the way. I heard the sound of a jaw hitting the floor behind me; I realized some folk are not familiar with photographs of pregnant female prisoners, shanks, scars, dubious conditions and electrocution victims.

Somewhere in the mix, Blake suggested I was like Kevin Bacon. I had connected with the flesh and bloods behind the pixels and tweets. Six degrees or not, this has less to do with me and most to do with the generosity of others … and maybe a lot of mutual curiosity.

Intrigued by pictures of bloggers in their domestic environments, Blake said I should share them as a fun exercise. In order of appearance:

Michael Shaw

Andy Adams

Kevin Miyazaki (interrogated by Darren Hauck and Carlos Javier Ortiz)

Joerg Colberg

John Edwin Mason

Blake was only disappointed there weren’t more portraits. And, then as I thought of it, so was I.

Yes, photos of my time with Michael, Andy, Kevin, Joerg and John, but what about the blogger photo-ops I missed? Aline Smithson, Miki Johnson, Jakob Schiller, Bryan Formhals and James Pomerantz all avoided the attentions of my Lumix DMC-ZS7.

I was juggling so many activities on the trip that I didn’t think to photograph everyone. Why wasn’t I more aggressive at getting the pictures? I guess I’m not a photographer.

More photo-pholks that I missed my Terry Richardson moment with: Jeff Barnett-Winsby, Michael Mazzeo, Whitney Johnson, Lance Rosenfield, Michael Wichita, Louie Palu, Donald Weber, Max Whitakker, Lara Shipley, Tony Dolezal, Mikael Kennedy, Nancy McCrary, Robert Lyons, Greg Ruffing, Christopher Colville, and Brendan Seibel. All of these peeps are beautiful and talented people; legends now or legends-in-the-making.

In many things I succeeded on PPOTR, but in capturing on digital file the faces of those I met, I failed.

And think, I also met and interviewed 40 photographers.

My ventures got Blake to thinking about a couchsrufrer.org specifically for photo-pholk. Something like it may already exist. Certainly, the Facebook Flak Photo Network reaches a good few thousand immediately, but FPN was not established to support the wanderings and dalliances of photographers.

I reckon Blake needs to create a “Homeless Photographer App” making it easy for you to find that key under the gnome and crash on a couch far, far away.