He says it with the kickback cadence of a too-cool college kid, speaking at a clip that’s the polar opposite of the standard shutter speed on his $2,500 Canon.

For… sure.

Its easy rhythm resonates with his shaggy hair and baggy clothes. Its mellow message works as his operating philosophy. His editor hears it a lot.

“We’ll get you in here to shoot this band from this angle and this angle.”

For sure.

“You’re gonna dig Point Lobos. Someone called it the best meeting of land and sea anywhere. And they might be right. Take 200 pictures.”

For sure.

“You brought your camera tonight, right?”

For sure.

Calgary native Trevor Kehoe, 23, took his camera a lot of places in the 28 days he spent in Monterey County. Recruited as a photo intern from Southern Alberta Institute of Technology, a 4,000-student technical school with the only post-secondary photojournalism program in western Canada, the college senior had a month of full-time work away from subzero temperatures to gain real-world experience. With the Weekly sending him scampering all over the place – from Big Sur to Salinas to South County – he could say he got that, and then some.

For sure.

– Mark C. Anderson

THE TRIP

I can see what Ansel Adams was on about. Hunter S. Thompson, I am feeling you. OK, Henry Miller, I get it.

The area’s reputation as a beacon for artists helped draw me here. But it didn’t prepare me for this kind of beauty.

Being from a land-locked city and coming to a spot like this is akin to being sent to another planet – and not because people call pop “soda,” agree to be governed by a rabid two party political system (rather than a multi-party parliamentary government), and can buy beer for super cheap.

Mentally, physically and spiritually, there’s a transformation process that happened when I stepped into the county’s boundaries. It was easier to wake up; happiness was as close as the Pacific. Every day represented a random adventure by bike or skateboard. The sequence of imagery demanding capture helped clarify my passion and my purpose.

Monterey County also taught me quite a bit of what it is to be a photographer. I learned to sit, to feel and absorb all of a viewscape, then set about translating that feeling as best I could to the frame. One picture may not offer a large enough canvas to tell a full story, but that has never been enough to stop me from trying.

SOUTH BOUND

Norman Greenbaum’s “Spirit in the Sky” crackles on the radio. The scene in the movie Easy Rider with Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper cruising down the highway springs to mind. The sun moves from behind the clouds at the same slow pace with which the people here move.

In Gonzalez, a mix of blue-collar workers, old timers and farmers hang out in the street and in diners and a sense of community permeates. King City is even quieter. At Pinnacles National Monument, the only national park in the county, a fine mix of hills, trees, cliffs, farmers’ fields (and a few foxes) provide the foreground for what looks like a faraway castle.

At nearby Soledad State Prison, it looks like there is a cloud over the place. I step out of a borrowed muscle car with a pair of aviators, a bandana, and Steppenwolf’s “The Pusher Man” pounding on the radio. I don’t fit in. And I make the mistake of attempting a picture of the prison. Within a few seconds of the first shot, as I’m still looking through the viewfinder, I hear someone yell at me to stop. I prepare to be ushered inside. As a pause ensues, I jump in the car and pull out, but can’t help pausing again to take in the feeling of being so close to the Big House. In that moment, another officer gets out of his car and approaches. I don’t need to stick around. I get the f – - out of there.

HERE AND THERE

Little could prepare me for the combination I saw over the course of one afternoon, all within a few short miles. On assignment to take pictures at L’Aubuerge Restaurant n Carmel, I felt like I had taken a plane to an exclusive European town. The town’s architecture was beautiful, the clothing fabrics fine, the shoppers older and Caucasian, the sidewalks mostly empty – and gold (or seemed they could be). All told, a great place to be if you dig $200 wines and an amazing beach.

An hour later I was in East Salinas, awash in a bustling mix of kids, families and Latinos nonexistent in Carmel. After Salinas reporter Zach Stahl calmly told me the East Market Street/Hebbron Heights neighborhood had seen a fatal shooting recently, its cheerful vibrancy made that hard to believe. Our Salinas sojourn, combined with a visit to Chinatown and Dorothy’s Kitchen – where I found an energy, a danger and a compassion that I had felt nowhere else around here – showed me a facet of the county as fascinating as it was unanticipated. Meanwhile, five delicious $1 tacos from a street truck showed me what Calgary really needs, for roughly the millionth time in my short time here: better Mexican food.