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Peter Schweitzer

@peterjschweitzer / peterjschweitzer.com

Photographer
Portland, Oregon
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This is one of my favorite photos of late. Just a 500th of a second, stolen from the life of these falls. It feels like time is speeding up these days and even moments that I want to hold on to pass too quickly. But trying to freeze time and capture these fleeting seconds is still a driving force for my photography that I cannot pull away from. I love that each time my shutter clicks I am able once again to push back against the tide of time. → Peter Schweitzer

Whenever I try to sit down and put into words how I feel about our life together or what it's like to be with someone I love as deeply as Cricket, I understand again and again the total inadequacy of the English language. I would need a thousand different words for love just to embody these last 9 years together. We took this Polaroid on our last day in Oslo, a little travel worn and definitely dreading the flight back home but for me it contains every moment that we spent together on our 6 week trip. Every sleepy morning in our cabin, every frigid evening watching the aurora and every step we took across the city.→ Peter Schweitzer

This man has been my father for over ten years now. I can still remember what it was like to walk into Cricket's house and be met by such a kind and supportive person, how it felt to be treated with love and respect by a father for the first time. He has contributed so much to my view of what it means to be a good man and a good father. I would not be the person I am today without him. Happy Father’s Day.

This is my little brother Seth. It's strange to think that to so many of you, he is and always will be a complete stranger. To the the few of you who knew me back then, it's probably nice to see his face again, a photo of an old friend. Ten years ago on this day, my little brother committed suicide. Even after all these years it is still so hard for me to find the right words for my grief. In many ways there is just too much trauma from that day that I don't want to remember. Even ten years later I struggle to remember him without being brought back to this day. So often over the years I have saved myself from images of his death by completely putting him out of my mind. Even though it makes me feel guilty, I would rather not think about him at all most of the time than dwell on the horror of that morning. Lately my only solace has been in trying to revisit the few photos I have of him, which has been helping to fill my mind with better memories. A few weeks ago I found a dusty old box in our attic that was filled with archived cd's. When I loaded them onto my computer I was happy to find photos from an old trip we took together. The best part beyond seeing him again, moving through life in the ways I remember, was finding a set of images that I took on an afternoon we spent together, just the two of us. This is one of those photos. → Peter Schweitzer