My mind needs a trip or two to New York each year. The city has art museums, galleries, Broadway shows, street fashion, good restaurants and enough hustle and bustle to make me glad I don’t have to put up with it every day. Now that our younger daughter lives there, we always have a good excuse to visit.

Spring and fall are the best times to be in New York. Christmas is pretty special, too. I always carry a camera, as the human parade through the concrete jungle is fun to photograph. This time, I took a tiny Canon S95, which easily fit in my coat pocket. Like with any point-and-shoot, it is hard to capture moments. Otherwise, though, it is pretty slick.

I am spending this week and next covering the Alltech FEI World Equestrian Games at the Kentucky Horse Park. Read my columns here.

One of the things I love about my job is that I get to go places and see things that most people don’t. Last week, I went up on the balcony at the base of the Kentucky Capitol’s dome to photograph installation of new murals in the pendentive corners atop the rotunda. The murals were created by Evergreene Architectural Arts of New York. They were paid for by Marion Forcht of Corbin, who sat on the steps below watching the installation. The murals are a beautiful addition to Kentucky’s magnificent Capitol, which celebrates its centennial June 4-5. Read my column about the mural project by clicking here.

I returned Sunday from Murray, Ky., where I was a writing coach at the 34th annual Mountain Workshops.

This was the 11th time since 1995 that I have been a coach at the documentary photojournalism seminar sponsored by Western Kentucky University.

Each year, the workshop goes to a different small town in Kentucky or Tennessee and spends nearly five days documenting life there in pictures, video, audio and words. By the time the all-volunteer faculty and staff pack up on Sunday afternoon, an army of student and professional journalists has produced a Web site, a framed gallery show, a book almost ready to publish and several video and multimedia pieces.

The workshop’s product is a fascinating reflection of each town. And the process that creates that product is an annual reminder of why I got into this business: to tell interesting stories of real people and their lives. Other faculty and staff members — who come from some of the nation’s most prestigious newspapers, magazines and multimedia production companies — always say the same thing. We learn more from each other and the students than we teach. We come home exhausted, but professionally recharged.

Check out this year’s workshop experience at: www.mountainworkshops.org.