Morning light on the rocks at Odiorne Point State Park in Rye, New Hampshire. (Jerry Monkman)

Well that sucked. A year of my life given to radiation, chemotherapy, and surgeries that pretty much knocked me out of commission for the end of 2013 and the better part of 2014. The good news is that I am now cancer-free and back to work thanks to the amazing doctors at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston. If you are looking to make a holiday-time donation, I suggest you consider pledging to The Jimmy Fund. I am also extremely grateful to all of you who took the time to write and visit this past year – it made a huge difference in keeping my spirits up!

I pretty much stayed close to home this year, and the above photo is from one of the times I got out to shoot this past summer. Odiorne Point State Park is only a few minutes from our house, and it became an important place for me to visit when I was feeling down from being unable to make my usual trips into the wilds of New England. It is amazing how a little sun and wind on your face and salt air in your lungs can melt away stress and physical pain. I’m lucky to have conserved land like this close to home and I’m sure my recent experiences will inspire me to continue my conservation photography in the future. Everyone needs access to conserved open spaces.

So now it’s back to work for me, and item one on my agenda is to finish my documentary, The Power of Place. Those of you who follow my work know that I funded this project via Kickstarter in May 2013, and had planned to release the film about a year ago. I received my cancer diagnosis just as I was starting post-production and I was soon physically unable to work more than a few hours a week at most. Needless to say, I missed my original release date, but things are back on track now, the film is close to being finished, and I’m planning to release it sometime in early 2015, hopefully around February 15th. The film looks at the people and places that would be affected by the proposed Northern Pass electricity transmission line project in New Hampshire. 2015 is when Northern Pass must secure its permits from the federal and state governments so The Power of Place will actually still be a timely film, despite the delay. You can see the trailer and sign up to be notified of the film’s release on The Power of Place web page. Here are some landscape stills from the film:

Have a happy holiday season everyone – here’s to a healthy and prosperous 2015!

-Jerry