past holiday greetings | gallery | portfolio | email Jeff Dieffenbach

Happy New Year 2023! As 2022 rolled into 2023, I toyed with what I'd bludgeon entertain you with by way of a new year greeting. My mind kept returning to a single image I shot at the Really Rad Festival of Cyclocross race in Falmouth back in early November. The image fails to do justice to the new lens generously gifted to me by Betsy. Harsh early afternoon sun, backlit, can't see the subject's face. Set those fair critiques aside, though, and bask in the amazing. Give it a look and then read on. Really Rad Festival of Cyclocross | Mashpee MA | Nov 2022 What exactly are we seeing here? For starters, it's a man painting. Well, eating pizza, actually, taking a break from painting. "What's he painting?" I can almost hear you ask (in that get-on-with-it tone). A bike race. He's painting a bike race. Painting a bike race. Painting. Think courtroom artist, except where things happen approximately infinity times faster. WTAF. "What's he painting?" I can now actually hear you ask. Patience, we'll get there. But first some bonus gems. First, there's his cart. Probably some sort of artist cart, I can sense you thinking. Nope. It's a cyclocross cart [credit: Chad G]. For the uninitiated, a cyclocross cart is a specifically-modified garden cart that holds cyclocross stakes when they aren't in use. But you can't spell "cart" without "art." Very on-brand. But wait, in the spirit of Ginzu knives, there's more. Check out our artist friend's footwear. Very artisty. A careful eye will note that our artist friend isn't the only one who's eating. Get a load of that, uh, load going in. "What's he painting!?" I now know you're yelling. He's got a pretty sweet angle down through the finish line to the start line. No race at present (hence the eating), but if there were a race, he might see something like this. "WHAT. IS. HE. PAINTING!?" He's painting the view down the starting line. Without any racers. Because the racers already went past. You know, while he was reaching for his brush. If only there were a technology other than painting that might allow one to capture such a view ... In the immortal words of Ferris Bueller, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it." If you're somehow still interested in more ... Happy New Year!