I replaced National Geographic photographer and OGI Magazine founder Lowell Georgia in the Northeast in 2013. My first assignment with the late Editor Steve Toon was in Greene County, Southwestern Pennsylvania. I covered natural gas fracking workers in pouring rain, then was sent up by a small helicopter for aerials of two frack pads. Every assignment in the field included a day at a handful of oil and gas "plays," then a second day of local color, which typically meant driving 200 miles of farm roads and highways before catching a flight home. I worked exclusively on the Marcellus Formation, a shale region that stretches from Tennessee to my home town of Schenectady, NY.
I also covered the finance side of the industry in Boston. My second assignment was with executive Kate Jackson Hobbs, daughter of renowned American composer Isaiah Jackson III. I photographed the aftermath of the Boston Marathon Bombings for the same issue. In all, I created spreads for 10 cover stories before Covid shut down location shooting in 2020. Many of the towns I visited had been through all of the energy cycles of the last two centuries -- wood, coal, oil and gas. The coal towns were largely abandoned, and opioid addiction had settled in like the pandemic. Today, solar and wind energy are surging in Appalachia, creating a diverse mix of energy sources.
