Out in the @wsj is an all-too-common story I worked on about the masses underestimating the intensity and unpredictability of the White Mountains, specifically Mount Washington and the Presidential Range. Like nearby Franconia Ridge, many of these mountains are easily accessible for weekend-warriors coming up from Boston, New York City and elsewhere. Around town throughout the year, stories trickle in about hikers being rescued and it comes at little surprise, yet often total amazement just how and where people are found- on the side of an icy cliff in flip-flops, in 4 foot snow drifts with sneakers - the scenarios and state of people being rescued is almost comically unfathomable. And these stories are shared, often with an heir of pretension and a ‘get off my yard’ attitude, playing armchair quarterback to what ends up being an innocent situation, however misguided, that turns into a real life-or-death situation. This day it was 60° at the base and -3° with 75mph winds on the summit.
I’m familiar with making mistakes in the mountains. Hiking up Washington to snowboard down. Solo. Unknowing that my water bottle would freeze. Battling winds above tree line. Taking a route that weeks later killed someone in an avalanche. Survival one time does not guarantee survival the next, but you learn. You learn to turn back and that turning back before reaching a summit is acceptable. You learn that taking chances puts others at risk.
There’s more to say about this and I will when I find the time to gather thoughts. It’s been a dream of mine to spend the night at the Mount Washington Observstory during the winter and thanks to a call from @azambelich the opportunity came around. It was such a challenging shoot because there was so much to photograph, but also nothing really happening. I find myself more and more over the last 5 years working on stories that in all visual sense of the word, don’t exist. How do you visually report what doesn’t exist? It’s a challenge that I’ve been diving into more and more and is defining the work I love to do. Sounds cheesy but I’m truly grateful to be able to work on stories, especially when they’re in my neck of the woods.
In October, New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu announced an increase in law enforcement patrol along the state’s 58-mile border. A few weeks back, I spent a day in the northernmost border town of Pittsburg, N.H. for a story out today in the @nytimes . Republican presidential candidates are calling for more security along not only the southern border, but now the northern border. The landscape outside the town of Pittsburg, N.H., is forest, sparsely populated with both new and abandoned homes, and has historically been an outdoor guiding community focused on hunting, fishing and outdoor recreation. Big thanks to papa @jfurt for sending me out to meet some folks and explore the town.
There’s a road I drive on a route I take just about every day. And just about everyday, there’s something that makes me slow down. I’m always on my way somewhere. So I say, “Next time I’ll leave earlier so I can stop.” Then life happens. I forget to prioritize it, repeat. As far back as I can remember I’ve wanted to do everything, all at once. All the time. Of course I can become an extreme kayaking rock-climbing adventurer skateboarding in the depths of the Amazon where I sit by the fire on a leather chair in a mahogany room researching a photo project after a day hiking into the depths of the unknown to film snowboarding on the beach to spend time with friends and family. What is the problem? I don’t think I could ever just focus on one ‘thing.’ Self sabotage. But so often I wish I could channel these distractions and energy into one ‘thing.’ The closest I’ve got is my project NEVERLAND. It’s unpublished and if it’s the last thing I do, it’ll be a book. Completely inspired by just going and doing. A love letter to this area where I’m so fortunate to call home. Where stubborn transplants meet stubborn locals. Furthest from each other it almost bring them so close they’re family. If we could only see it. Personally speaking, this past year, like every year, has been filled with amazing opportunities and some really trying times. There’s such a pressure to create work and put it out in some sort of a timeline as if some photo made 5 years ago is irrelevant today. Or if it’s not tapping into some relevant event of our time, it’s an example of bogus irrelevance. Ok. Maybe this will be nothing but it’s my heart.
As we continue our conversations in the final week of @reciprocal_ecology , today we are highlighting @jtully work alongside his reflections on the exhibition and what being part of it has meant to him.
What does being part of Reciprocal Ecology mean to you personally?
Communication. Work can begin in the most private or guarded of places, a feeling, a memory, a landscape you’ve carried inside you for years. But breath is important. It’s life. Being able to share work alongside other incredibly talented photographers and artists takes it somewhere outside oneself entirely, outside a singular vision and its limitations. Something new gets made in that exchange. It’s like pairing food in search of new flavors. That’s what excites me. The work stops being just mine and starts belonging to something larger.
How do you feel like this piece relates to it?
This work is part of a larger book project and body of work of which is a peripheral glimpse into the White Mountains and the rural communities surrounding them. It’s a search, in many ways, for the collective conscience, and I’ve spent years trying to find the edges of it on back roads, in conversations with friends and strangers, in the beauty of everyday randomness. It’s a love letter and a reckoning at once. Home, memory, a landscape quietly changing under pressures that are easy to miss until suddenly they aren’t. Erratic winters, policy, traditions, transplants, seasons that no longer arrive when expected. The rhythms that once maybe felt dependable have shifted, and with them something harder to name. A slow-moving identity crisis as definable as a mountain river or a changing wind
Been making a lot of work over the years that I’m finally going through. Weird that it was the dismantling of the Forest Service that sparked the motivation. But when threat for something you love, however complicated, is on the horizon. It presents the recognition that I need to organize my thoughts, which have been translated to photographs of the area I call home. Moving to a familiar but new place…a lot of changes. 10 years ago. And in that change, I was trying to take cues from the art world of ‘limited editions, less is more, scarcity,’ etc etc. It made sense coming out of portfolio reviews, photographers I looked up to, and editors saying ‘focus’ and ‘cut cut cut.’ During my 20’s if there was anything I grappled with it was ‘what do you had to say.’ And say less. Because what I was saying was never good enough. Creates a really weird persona and headspace, tbh. Because I, my pictures weren’t good enough. In turn, I wasn’t good enough. I think I write, on here, as some form of trying to just be thoughtful and honest and have some record before the sabotage. It’s crazy how much stock we put in such fleeting ideas, feelings, employers who have so much power one day and gone the next. Ghosted. There’s no rhyme or reason. Everyone’s caught up in it. No hard feelings. It’s just life. And just something to try and survive. But while trying to ‘figure it out,’ I’ve learned that I’m too focused on this idea of scarcity, failure, as if one singular photo or expression of self will cripple me forever. Maybe snowboarding. I make photos all the time. I think about it all the time. And think about how far behind I am compared to my peers. I rarely share. Scared-city. It’s a weird space to be in. It’s a weird space to allow yourself to be in. Knowing and thinking that something or someone so fleeting should could and would have so much sway on your life and how you express it. It and this, is exhausting. I turn older tomorrow and ready to just ignore it all and do my own thing.
Patrick Ciriello, 60, in Vermont on Tuesday, March 31, 2026. Ciriello was affected by repeated economic downturns eroding his footing across multiple career paths. In 2024, he and his family spent four months sleeping in a Toyota Highlander while he sent out hundreds of job applications without an offer. He has since found work training artificial intelligence models, joining a growing number of aging skilled workers who have turned to data annotation after struggling to find employment in their fields.
Thankful to Patrick for sharing part of his life, and good conversation, and for @fletchinator for the chance to contribute to a story still very much defining the times and an evolving unknown. Read the article by @aaron.ai_ published today in The Guardian.
Back in October I did a ride along with Ronald Arsenault, Conservation Officer with the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department, for @nhpublicradio . The story for NHPR’s wonderful Document team was about “Operation Night Cat,” how a hunting investigation turned into one of the state’s largest poaching cases in recent history, and beyond to potential crimes in the state prison system. Arsenault patrols the mid-New Hampshire region where we spent a majority of the day driving the backroads across a thousands-acre property in Gilmanton, inspecting fishing licenses, and hearing stories of his time growing up in the area he now patrols.
JOHN TULLY for NHPR
Making some prints today and remembering back to times of exploration while living on the Outer Banks. Exploration of a place as much as an exploration of self. It was 2012 and I was just laid off from a New Hampshire newspaper which, sadly today, is all but defunct. That’s a bitter timeline I’d rather just keep buried where it died. But what I found as a result of this rude awakening was a new arm of self; a whole area to explore through driving aimlessly and cranking tunes. These past couple years, things seem serious. Hard to navigate, photographically. I turned down an assignment the other day. So reluctant for so many reasons. One reason is the memory of not getting any photographic work for two years. I’ve never been one to market myself. Others can talk a room right into their wallet. No better, no worse. But I do wonder some days. But slowly and lately, it feels like the days of visually exploring uncertainty for no real purpose other than curiosity, are creeping back in. Finding balance is always the challenge and I’m not one for multitasking.
“The simple version of the Hills’ story — if reported U.F.O. sightings can be simple — is that a strange, bright light began to follow them on the dark roads in the White Mountains, eventually hovering above their car, a 1957 Chevrolet Bel Air. By the time they got home to Portsmouth, N.H., they could not account for hours of their journey. Betty’s dress was torn. Their watches no longer worked.” From a recent story I worked on written by Michaela Towfighi and edited by @amandalwebster in @nytimes . October, 2025.
