PHOTO:
8/26/2026 // The Telehandler
Digital // Sony A74 // 70mm-200mm
Photo Originally Published in the November 2025 Issue of Slush the Magazine.
Generally, when you get a text, you should know whats going on before agreeing to anything, unless of course you’re responding to an out of the blue text that comes from Tim Zimmerman.
Snow had been stacking up early in PNW, and my buddy and I had just wrapped up our rounds at some trade shows for Bluewood. I was running on minimal sleep and had pretty much been working for the past 2 weeks straight without a proper day off to do laundry, clean the apartment, properly feed myself, or get around to wrath of other things I had let myself put off.
We were on our way back from Portland, about an hour outside Walla as the sun is setting, when out of the blue my phone vibrates and I see a message from Tim Zimmerman. For Context, I hadn’t gotten a text from Zim since wrapping up photo camp, which is where I had met him as a student. “Yo Brochephus, you close to Spokane?” Now, I would not say I am “close” to Spokane, it’s about a three-and-a-half-hour haul to get out there if I’m flooring it. Either way I reply “yeah, it’s a quick jump” cause what am I going to do say no? “Justus Hines & some Dinos are hitting a sick ass spot on Tuesday. You should link”. That’s pretty much all the info I got from Zim except for the encouraging words “Get the shot and then head to Zipp’s for food poisoning”.
We get home around 8:30pm Sunday night and are getting ready for a 5:00am wake up to go back into work tomorrow and report on what went down at these trade shows. I find out later in the day Monday, that the spot is actually near Sandpoint and by the way they want to shoot it Tuesday morning at like 8am. So instead of unpacking when I got home from work, I threw my unpacked duffle from the apartment into my truck and let my roomate know that I was leaving for Sandpoint in the dark.
I get to Justus’s house at about 1am on Monday night and meet him for the first time ever after sending about 6 texts back and forth during work on Monday. We end up chopping it up until about 3 am and then head to bed before a 6am alarm wakes us up and we drive up to the construction zone where apparently there is a spot? Now keep in mind I still don’t really have any idea of what I’m shooting, what the spot looks like, how light is going to look, or really anything about anything. But it was fine and I just rolled with it.
After a coffee and donut side quest on the way we head up to this construction zone, where they are budling mini mansions at the base of Schweitzer. Justus points out the spot and the seemingly random videos he had sent me finally start to make sense. I head back to the truck to grab the strobes and set up, while trying to figure out how exactly I was going to shoot this thing. Meanwhile, the construction company had just rolled up and tells Justus that they are going to need the telehandler earlier than they expected, which was going to kill the whole mission.
After some discussion and some smooth talking from Justus we were good to give it a few goes. But right as I figured out where I was going to be, the Filmer found his spot, and Justus was ready to drop we lose the light that we had woken up at 6am to get. Justus decides to run it anyway. We look at the shot and I know that its missing something, the composition is a little off, it’s not really looking the way I wanted. I’m stressed I’m blowing my first real opportunity, when right as I’m talking through what I was thinking about changing with the strobes and where I might shoot from instead, a gap magically forms in the clouds and Justus starts running for drop in.
I still hadn’t decided on where I was going to shoot this thing from but with this natural light, I knocked down the spot flash, so he wasn’t over exposed and repositioned the fill I placed low on front left corner of the crane before jumping behind a yellow bush on the side of the road. Justus yells drop, the light window is still hanging on and three second later, I’m looking through my view finder at one of my favorite photos to this day, and the first street photo I’d ever shot.
Thanks for the holler Zim, I owe you some Zips.
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