These guys were pros. At the rigorous Brookfield Academy, you shouldn’t expect anything less.

Justin Zhu (left) and Neil Chand (right) have helped their school use a lot less paper. Teachers are putting coursework and materials online, students are submitting papers electronically, and there are recycling bins pretty much everywhere in the college-prep school out in Milwaukee suburb Brookfield.

After each tidbit of direction I gave them, Justin’s face would turn pensive, his eyes would squint, and he’d say, “Let me picture this…” Then, blam, they’d nail it first try.

Not bad for a photo session squeezed into their lunch break. Oh, and see that garbage can Justin’s holding? It’s back where it belongs: Within arm’s reach in my office.

Spent a sunny/windy/chilly spring Sunday morning walking a few lakefront beaches with local artist Ringo White, age 63. The guy makes art from objects that wash up on beaches and collect along streets and alleys.

I was super excited when Milwaukee Mag. art director Anne Baesemann threw this one my way, and not just for the subject matter. I’ve made a point of shooting rigid, strobe-lit portraits over the last year or so, and this was a perfect opportunity to get back to the available-light, free-roaming work style I enjoy so much. While we walked and talked, I fired away.

I wish I could say we found something interesting, but we didn’t. Storms and heavy winds the night before saw to that, Ringo said. How about the artwork itself? Ringo’s sold all of it.

Some of that Cream City brick, broken and smoothed by the waves.

Got to shoot the main portraits for a cool story about the judge who helped launch and then run Milwaukee’s drug treatment court. Judge Joseph Donald is now a juvenile court judge, so he’s switched gears entirely. We shot at the juvenile justice center in Wauwatosa, his current workplace, rather than at the drug court downtown. We scheduled our shoot for the end of a quiet day, but when I arrived it was clear things weren’t unfolding as planned. I could hear yelling from the courtroom. One upset youngster delayed an afternoon’s worth of hearings. So, we got started a few hours later than planned, but when it came time to shoot all went smoothly. Whew.

Had the pleasure of photographing screen printer Jeff Meilander of Redwall Custom Screen Printing a month or two back. When I stepped into the backrooms of his gigantic shop in Bay View, I realized I’d never been inside such a place. This photo, from the tail end of our session, is my favorite. He’s holding a high-power water sprayer and standing next to the basins they use to clean screens. Anyhow, you can read about Jeff in the current issue of Milwaukee Magazine.

A month or two back when Wisconsin was in the national news for the ruckus over Gov. Scott Walker’s budget repair bill and push to eliminate nearly all collective bargaining rights for certain state employees (which ultimately succeeded), Education Week hired me to shoot portraits of three people on various sides of the issues.

Two of the subjects were educators in De Forest, which is just north of Madison, the third was a stay-at-home mom in Watertown.

When Milwaukee Magazine asked me to photograph some exceptional senior citizens, I had visions of athletic old men and women in running gear jumping hurdles, throwing shot put, and so forth. Then came the reality check: Only a couple of these people would be athletes. The rest are notable for the productive lives they’re living into their upper 80s and beyond. Which is wonderful, but my background shooting extreme sports leaves me with a soft spot for people in motion.

So, I introduce to you Frank Ruebl, age 91. The guy runs marathons, lifts weights, plays guitar. He didn’t start running until age 57, and until recently he’d run three marathons a year since age 70. Back in January, when these were shot, Wisconsin got walloped by a giant snowstorm. On the day of our shoot, the streets were finally becoming passable, but running outside — or even cross-country skiing, yet another of his pursuits — just wasn’t possible.

Frank had mentioned in a phone call before the shoot that when snowed in, he runs laps inside his house and lifts weights from a favorite chair. Perfect, I thought. We can capture some moments that are distinctly Frank. He was so eager to shoot, often piping up “Should I start? Should I start?” as I set up for each shot. I still can’t believe he runs in his house. I just love it, and I hope some day I can be that determined.

Britta Kramer has an awesome job. People hire her to come over cook dinner for them.

Over the last few months, my assignments have involved lots of restaurant chefs, so photographing a private chef was a nice departure. We shot at Britta’s cool house over in Bay View.

My favorite part about this photo? The window light streaming onto the lower cabinets and her apron.

See what she has to say in the current issue of Milwaukee Magazine.