Abstract negatives.

I’ve been drawn to abstract paintings since I was a little girl. They really seem like nothing, right? Like you could paint them yourselves? And then you try and you realize yours just looks like it was an accident and there is no real staying power for it. Or, at least, that’s what happens to me. So I marvel at the simple, yet thoughtfully colorful modernist abstracts.

Well, film has the ability to do something very similar, but with a chemical reaction from the emulsion and the light. It is imperfect. It is unpredictable. But, when it happens. It is fascinating and beautiful. Roll film (not all film is on a roll…but that is for a later post) is loaded into the camera and then the shutter is pressed and you advance the film manually and you repeat this a few times to get the film loaded on the reel in the camera. Frequently (almost always…depending on your gear), you will get pieces of the negatives at the beginning and end of a roll that have ‘recorded’ light as it entered the lens, but the camera’s counter has not reached zero, yet. It may be seen as half a frame of an image, or burned-in color or patterns. These are frequently bypassed, cut-out, thrown away. They often mean nothing. It’s a technical element. A ‘glitch’.

(and, yes, I used way too many air quotes or quotations marks or parentheses on all of that. you get it. the terms aggravate me and should definitely be redefined.)

In addition, shooting with expired film lends itself to all sorts of quirky results. With expired color film, you can expect color shifts due to the films degradation of chemical components over time. Along with that, increased grain, decreased sensitivity to light and loss of contrast are typical with both black and white and color film. It is tangible. It is imperfect. It is prone to change as time goes by.

In addition to THAT, shooting with cameras that are 40-100 years old sometimes just don’t keep operating as if they were in mint condition (ahem…I’m only a 45yr old human, but also feeling the reality of this statement.) You may have a shutter opening issue, a film advancement issue, light leaks from the film back, etc. The list goes on. Sometimes these remnants or artifacts or frame advancement issues lead to full compositions in the middle of a roll that just don’t make sense.

that being said

I’ve been sitting on a film project for awhile. Since all film negatives are currently scanned into a digital file (sigh) I have a folder on my desktop containing 23 oddly colored, oddly patterned, negative scans. I think they look like the abstract paintings I was never able to actually recreate as a child. And I love their magic. When turned vertical, some of these mimic paintings similar to the The Color Field paintings of Latvian-American painter, Mark Rothko, and some appear more like an ambiguous modernist abstract painting.

Nonetheless, I think they are a beautifully unique part of film. Something that can never be recreated, never be re-shot, never re-imagined. The are one-of-a-kind. And, I’ve decided to release some of these as a mini-series available for purchase. They are big pieces that make a statement. They are conversation starters. They are the modern flair to any home decor style.

I realize many of us don’t have gallery size walls and wallets. So, there is a budget option in a smaller size printed on light weight fine art paper. However, in my ‘professional’ opinion, I think these look best in the largest size possible. I am also dabbling with a sample on canvas. If I like those, I will add them to the print purchase options.

Check the rest of these out in the online store HERE.

A parade of soapboxes.

Kind of like a continuation of why I shoot film. Or just another reason for analog. Or maybe, simply, something I like about point and shoot and disposable cameras.

I think we’re obsessed with perfection. The digital revolution, specifically dealing with imagery, has brainwashed us into thinking technical merit is of utmost performance. Color accuracy, clarity, sharpness has shot forward in leaps and bounds. The images we see on our devices are sharper than most of us can even see with our actual physical eyes. This has led us on a path that associates these attributes with the words ‘better’ and ‘higher quality’.

I’ve struggled with this myself. Finding that I have spent too many hours researching gear and editing areas in images, just so that ‘the advancements of the world’ will accept me.

But, guess what, I don’t really care. Because I’m finding the emotional, mental and psychological connection to film is far more important. There is something soulful about the imperfections. It is a resonance with our humanity. Our unexpectedness. Our inconsistencies.

Shooting film, specifically with point and shoot and disposable cameras, lends itself to all sorts of interesting things. Chromatic aberrations, light leaks, halos, half images from first or last of the roll, abstract frames that look like paintings, soft focus. Imperfections, we call them.

But, such is the connection to life. The unplanned. The unexpected. The temporary. The value we eventually see in the things that don’t go our way.

I appreciate this about film. In fact, I love it. It feels real. And also magical. Yeah, I think those can both exist in the same breath.

Three Palms.

A mini series within a mini series. Basically 3 classic pictures of palm trees that I absolutely love. I know, I know, sunsets, palm tree silhouettes, so cliché and so overdone. But, they still pull at the heartstrings. And, in my defense, there is a little something in each one of these images that rescues it from the mainstream a little. See if you can find them.

But, that’s actually not the point of this post anyway. Just a little background for the specific images.

Why aren’t you selling any black and white images?

Black and white film is my jam. I shoot it more than anything else. I develop it myself. I mentally find a way to ‘see’ every scene or image I have created in black and white. I love everything about it. So, the question is absolutely valid.

Truth be told, I’m working hard to begin sharing my work. To let some things out in the wild. That process means letting go of something that feels very personal and something I have strong opinions on and potentially handing it to the wolves. I haven’t felt ready to do that in so many ways. But, I’m trying. And the beginning of that is color.

The color images have a kitschy, nostalgic feeling. Something that feels good to look at. Maybe (hopefully) something that resonates with others in a way that says, yeah, I love that, I want one of those. They feel light and easy to let go of, easy to talk about, easy to see hanging in peoples houses. They print well from a lab.

Black and white is clinging to me like a web. Yelling at me like an unruly child to give it what it needs. To be blatantly honest, I think we are doing black and white film a disservice by scanning it into a digital form and running it through a printer. The soul and the connection and the magic of actually printing an image from a negative onto light sensitive paper, and developing it by hand, just isn’t there with the digital scan. That is not to say images printing with this process look bad, they don’t. It is just not where I feel my energy photographically at this time. I am currently building the foundations for a home darkroom. When this comes to fruition, there will be more black and white images out in the world with Limited Edition print runs and originals for show.

until then…

this image.

This was shot from a borrowed camera when I was in college and just dabbling in photography. I was mostly interested because I had a little/big crush on a boy who was taking art classes. I used his camera and walked around the neighborhood with it. He told me he needed the roll of film in it so I could only shoot a couple frames. I felt bad. I shot one. It was this one. When he developed the negatives, he cut out the one neg that belonged to me and handed it to me as such. One tiny little jagged square of black and white film. I wasn’t exactly sure what to do with it at the time, so I put it in a white business envelope, folded it in half and stuck it in a desk drawer. I barely looked at it. At that time, 20+ years ago, it didn’t mean that much to me. When I moved out of the dorm, it went into a box of desk stuff, then got dumped out in a bigger box with spiral notebooks and miscellaneous art supplies. It moved around with me from my dorm, to my parents house, to the house I bought with my husband. When I finally started taking photography classes at the community college, I found it and tried to develop it in the darkroom. It was one of my very first darkroom prints ever. And it was awful. The neg is scratched and splattered with a sticky substance that I couldn’t remove. It’s underexposed. It’s printable, but it’s messy. Each scratch and splatter would take an eternity for me to spot out by hand.

Enter the digital age. This is a scan, digitally edited using photoshop to lighten it up and spot out all the damages, mostly in the sky. And thus, after that long drawn out saga and my strong opinions on printing black and white film, I am actually printing this through a photo lab in the same process as the color images and making it available. And, yeah, I love it. Darkroom or not.

And, come full circle, I ended up living in this neighborhood 20+ years after walking around here during college. I wanted to re-photograph this exact cluster of trees and that tiny little roofline of that house. I spent countless hours in the streets of my neighborhood, but could never find these exact trees. Maybe that’s some of the magic of all this photography stuff anyway. You can never truly recreate anything. It holds the magic of the exact moment in time in which it was first seen.

So, here you have them. Three pictures of palm trees. They are pretty. They are for sale.

Check them out in the SoCal Series on this site.

simple.

Too simple.
Nah. A photograph of the iconic Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco should never be called simple. It’s a phenomenal structure. Mind blowing. Architectural brilliance and back-breaking hard work and miracle.

And.

During my first critique of my first workshop in Guatemala, I was told my images could be on the cover of Real Simple magazine. It was far from a compliment. It was meant as motivational critique toward something more interesting. I fully took it as an insult. And have strived, to this day, to make complexity in the midst of visual structure and peace, my end goal.

There is nothing simple about this image but the gear. A no-fuss Canon point and shoot camera from the early 90’s. Put in the film. Point at the subject. Push the button. Et Voila. I mean, yes, you have to make sure there are charged batteries in the battery compartment and (with this particular piece of equipment) that the film back is taped securely shut to avoid light leaks from the broken mechanism. But, other than that. The camera is simple. The shot? Not so much.

I’ve seen better.
Yeah. I’m sure you have. There are much more technically sound images. Sharper. Different angle. Clearer lenses. The “better” list goes on.

But, from the soapbox, when we decide to make comparisons like that we are taking the magic out of art. We are dissecting the experience of the piece and downplaying the power of visceral response and emotional connection…a long sorrowful breath, a quickened heartbeat.

It doesn’t have to be the best to mean something valuable to us.

Golden Gate Bridge in the fog — (A swoon-worthy mock-up of an SF flat living room with that oh-so-moody Golden Gate standing sentinel above it all.)

This print is FOR SALE. Check out Anything Goes Print Art on Etsy for purchase details.

Moody's, Jazz + a Rolleiflex.

A few weekends ago I got the privilege of shooting some incredibly talented musicians at a bar + bistro in downtown Truckee called Moody’s. I also get the privilege of calling them friends. Which is a major win in my books. Having incredible musician friends who let you shoot them in a dark bar just to burn the rest of a roll of film is my version of heaven.

The only not so incredible issue with the easy-on-the-eyes-easier-on-the-ears friends that are incredible jazz musicians has nothing to do with them, but more to do with the fact that the roll of film I had already loaded and shot with was not prepared to shoot in a dark bar. I had already shot 2 frames metered at an ISO of 200. Which means I got me some major exposure/development issues to solve if I wanna get a whole roll of images. Such is the blessing and curse of shooting film.

That being said, the rest of this blog is for the nerdy-tech type who like to hear all the ins and outs of film and gear and cameras and settings etc. If that isn’t you, you can hopefully just enjoy the pictures.

……….

The Camera.
Rolleiflex 3.5B. This is a post-war camera released in the mid-1950’s. It is a twin lens reflex (TLR) that is held at the waist and peered into through a pop-up square viewfinder that shows the horizontal opposite of the scene. It is pure magic to look through and pure magic to shoot with and the lens is, by far, my favorite lens to work with. The vintage vibe gives extra brownie points, too. This camera shoots in a 6 x 6 square format, leaving you with 12 images per roll of film.

The Film.
Cinestill bwXX. This is movie film that is reformatted for still shooting. Comes in color and b+w and light balanced for daylight and tungsten. Being that this was originally formatted for moving pictures it has a halation in the highlights and renders a warm and cinematic feel. Their b+w rolls are a variable ISO, best shot between 200 and 1600 ISO. I have LOVED shooting with this film and am always shocked by how versatile it is.

The Tech Specs.
The scene was dark. Super dark. With the only true beam of light on one musician, Lucas. Black and white film records light. That’s all it does. So, if you don’t have light, you really don’t have a lot to work with. Black and white film also really hates to be underexposed. Which meant I also really didn’t have a lot to work with. Here’s where this gets good…

3200 ISO (variable roll of film means I can choose what rating I want to give it and expose as such)
f 3.5 (because I’m shooting with a Rollei 3.5…the aperture can’t get any more open than that)
1/30 (they are musicians, they are jamming, they move…shooting at an 8th would give me the proper exposure, but absolutely nothing in focus)
+4 push in development left me with an astronomically long dev time of 27 min, but quite possibly the only way to get any contrast in what was most definitely an underexposed roll of black and white film.

And there you have it. I probably pushed this roll of film to its maximum capability and we were still able to get something out of it. These images are dark and grainy and overly hot in the whites and ever so slightly blurry even in the ‘sharp’ parts. BUT, they have a feel. And the challenges or mental puzzle to get them to this place are outweighed by the sheer beauty of the process and the tangible nature of working with film.

She dreams in blue.

Last week I sat on my deck, leaning, knees tucked to my chest, chin tilted skyward, as the sun crawled sideways across that great expanse, hide and seeking through the trees.

The sun in these mountains and in this season does an unfair form of strip tease, only hinting at warmth and glow and full disclosure.

I was sitting next to paper encased in glass straining for the same view I was. We are no different, I thought. These are my dreams, my emotions, my longings, leaning into the sunlight, begging to be magically formed into something seen + felt + loved.

You may know, you may not know.

These are cyanotypes…one of the earliest (some say the very first) photographic process, discovered and further developed by an English astronomer-chemist-mathematician-scientist type (note, not the artist type) in the mid 1800’s. Before photographic negatives and before other forms of chemical photographic development. Fun fact…the original architectural ‘blueprints’ were cyanotypes. You can find all the info you want and lots more history and fascinating tidbits if you internet search it.

Not the point here.

Quick process description, though…process is multi-step, but also simple…mix some chemicals, paint the paper, let it dry in the dark, place an object on the paper, expose it to UV, rinse with water and…et voila. A cyanotype. These are contact prints, producing the exact size and shape of whatever is placed on the paper. The images seen here are produced with an enlarged digital negative.

I honestly don’t even know how I stumbled upon creating these. As a photographer I’ve known about this alternative process since before my entrance into photography, but only started creating them a couple years ago. The tangible nature of these resonates with me so much.

Also, not the point.

The image above shows the use of natural sunlight in the short days of winter. It shows the difference in paper structure and exposure time and chemical reaction. An all together organic process that cannot be recreated exactly like it was before. That’s art. That’s us.

All of it. All of us. An experiment of contact and connection and exposure and (fingers crossed) a magical becoming.

scenes from SF.

I took a little trip a few weeks ago and it was beautiful in interestingly unique ways. Full of give and take. Generosity paid forward. Solitude and stillness in the midst of never ending hustle. It was enlightening to learn people, to continue to learn myself, to walk the waterways and streets of a city I’ve seen before, but have never really known.

Yes, we all know cities have their dark corners and shadows. We all know that, no matter where we are, there will be pretty pictures and not so pretty ones. Such is the motion of life. But, this was a good day. A day of warmth and genuineness. Visiting well known icons and neighborhood streets. A day of walking to heal wounds and walking to ground myself and walking aimlessly just for the experience of walking itself.

shot on an old 35mm point and shoot with Kodak gold 200 film

her.

we went on a trip,
just she and I.

holding hands.
singing songs.

adventuring through woods and oceans.
climbing waterfalls. sifting through sand.
chasing wind and wildness.

of all the things we did to make our hearts soar, to stretch our courage and our stamina, to strengthen our understanding of the world and it’s wonders

of all the things

this is the one I want to remember most. this is the one I long for. the one I live for.

to see you climb safely out of bed.

sit down.

eat.

january 9

the current state of my soul

if ever there could be
a visual glimpse
down the rabbit hole

this is it

untitled.

A recent nye trip called me here, yet again.

It’s really no surprise. And, quite honestly, I’m sick of making apologies for it. There are moments that snag a heart, tangle up, free themselves only by lifting a soul along with them.

I am so caught up in this.

This flying. This expanse of sky reaching down. These shining faces reaching up.

44.

44. Midlife. Doesn’t quite come at me like I thought it might when I was 20.

I woke with trepidation on my birthday. Feeling drained. Feeling as if my heart no longer existed inside the protection of my body. I was physically ill with that fact and terrified. What is a heart if it is exposed? What is a heart if it can no longer be warm?

I pulled my sheets over my head. I took a breath. I rolled my body to it’s side, swung my legs over the edge, my feet slowly finding purchase on the wood floor beneath them.

I have a ritual.

5:43 am. I’m naked. Stepping determinedly into the inky blackness of the lake surrounding me. I’m barely knee deep and frozen already. And, quite honestly, I’m terrified. It’s so dark. Something pulls at me. From the lake bed, from the shore across, from the water itself? I have no idea. But, I step hurriedly to keep up with the force and plunge face first into it’s grip. I convulse. The natural physical shock of the temperature taking over. I place my hand on my bare chest.

An act of defiance.

But, it’s already gone. And I know it. Grit and resolve have no power against a frozen heart.

I crawl out. Sit on the rocks as the sky turns from black to gray. Stare at the shadows. Shake uncontrollably.

A single piercing light from directly across the lake startles me out of my stupor. The light is shining point blank on me. Not moving. I stare into the tractor beam like I’m being abducted. Like whomever or whatever is over there can take me if they want to. I’ve got nothing left. I stand up. The light pulses once. Then goes dark. A message. A savior.

I slowly dress. Walk through the trees up to the house. I’m numb all over. I slink back in bed. Curl into a fetal position. Sleep comes unexpectedly fast and deep.

I wake. I cry. I write. A compilation of 5 years of ‘she is’ statements.

They are me, at times. Her at others. Who can tell the difference between the two, I’m not quite sure anymore. They are the remnants of things people have said to me/about me. They are experiences. They are my heart living outside my chest. They are my mirror.

she is long winded conversations
punctuated fragments
silence

she is stoked coals after midnight
bitter swallows
tequila

she is nervous words slurred in margins
drunk on skin and a sideways smile

she is storm clouds
flash floods
blue-sky rainy days

she is lies sunk into lockets
skipped on lakes
swallowed whole

she is secrets in chest pockets
torn pages thrown to the moon

she is hot tea
shots of lemon juice
run on sentences

she is barefoot, muddied
on the brink of an
African rain

she is squeaky swings
grass stains, voted out

she is flecks of fire in an ocean
of blues, tredding whitewash
sucking salt

she is yesterdays denim

she is weighted lines trailing
into muddle monochrome

she is technicolor memories
full length playbacks on
perpetual rewind

she is carousels
gilded horses
ups and downs

she is shivers
standing naked
knowing it’s only in her head

she is shards of glass
shattered bulbs
darkness

she is loose threads
peeled postage stamps

she is angels
dagger eyes
strength behind
the crying child
she also knows
she is

thoughts. written Nov. 3rd.

The world is on fire.
And, yes, there is luxury in all of this uninhibited time spent thinking about myself and my own life. Somehow, unfairly, I was born into safety. Not my choice anymore than it is for others to be born into chaos and violence and trauma they’ve never been freed from. And that feels cruel.
And, excavating my depravity and also my heart seems to be a way of dealing with something uncontrollable and heavy. Like a diving into humanity. A communal level of grieving, of loss, of unspeakable pain. We want to embrace each other. We want to weep and thrash about and wail with those who are mourning so deeply there is no reprieve. We want to raise our fists and scream at the unjustness of all of it.
What do we do?
Creating art sometimes feels like the only bridge between any of it. The only way we do what we can to still be here after we’re gone. To try to feel it. To try to see in the midst of it. To try to embrace others in pain. I would say, to try to make sense of it, but we all know none of this makes sense. And we can’t hold onto any of it.
It is a perpetual slipping.

The duplicity I feel is near constant. Feeling like a ghost and a whisper. The layers of internal dialogue passed somewhere between the not-yet-has-already-been versions of myself seen crypted in messy double exposures on old film in an old camera. I’m not able to put words to it completely or coherently and that feels scary to me. But, as I wrote recently, ‘Words are worthless. They flutter and die and blow away with even the slightest mention of a breeze.’

Not always, but that feels true right now.

I keep telling myself it’s temporary, but it doesn’t seem to be going away. So, maybe temporary is new normal which is not normal at all and I need help.

And, I’m getting it.

But, also, maybe, that doesn’t feel like enough.

Fort. Fortress.

A phone scan of my neg strip.

From a walk last week. No one asked. But, this is why.

Because I needed it.
Because I needed to see the mid-morning light splatter through clouds and trees and fall on this earth haphazardly.
Because I needed to weave in and out and be amongst.
Because I needed to feel beauty in disorder.
Because I needed to believe there is a magical place where I can be a pirate or a forest nymph or a heartbroken wanderer and feel safe as all
and all as one.

The trees hold nothing and everything simultaneously.
They breathe your make-believe.

What remains.

Needless to say, this was an exploration on all levels. From camera to photographer to muse to post processing. And it was beautiful. And it resonates with me in ways that maybe only she and I can cherish. And I’m ok with that. The draw to the mystery and meaning of that is an important part of the process.
It is the thing that succeeds when words fail. Where all that remains is a feeling.

We moved.

Some of you know. More of you don’t.

It’s taken me 3 months to even be able to write those words on a page. To have them glare at me, look at me so boldly, mock my pain, sting my eyes.

I realize, for many, moving feels normal. It’s hard and a lot of work, but maybe you’ve become accustomed to it, done it more times than you would have liked, but see it as a part of life.

And it is a part of life. I get that. This move, however, has seemingly ripped me apart. Ripped us apart. With over 16 years of life in San Diego, it has been tough to embrace it. To step into a new space. There has been lots of grieving. Lots of emotional eruptions on all ends and from all humans in this family. Seems we are simply just trying to hold hearts together, much less move our boxes from city to city and show up to school on time. There are shiny moments and moments of gratitude and lots of dock sitting with sips of whiskey (that contribute to those moments of gratitude), but needless to say it has been full of tremors.

And all of that (although there is much, much more) played into this photoshoot with Norah. We’ve been having convos regarding moving and feeling lonely and leaving things we love. We’ve asked ourselves what does it feel like to ‘lose’ those things? How do we carry them with us? What do we leave behind? What remains in those places and relationships we left? How do we keep remembering? What does it feel like to want to be in a place that no longer exists as ‘ours’? What does abandonment feel like/look like? (Yes, there is the flip side of how do we step forward, embrace the new, engage the community and friends around us that love us…and we are doing that too. Writing about it is for another time.)

We’ve verbally and emotionally touched on a lot of things. She also knows that I often create images out of those spaces or try to explore life through photos in a way that helps express my experiences. So, we curated a short series, 10 images where we felt safe enough to explore the ideas. We crafted this together. The ideas for composition, tone, light, etc were ping-ponged back and forth. And, I freaking loved that process with her. So much to learn.

So here we have it. A little glimpse into an experiment and an exploration of our changes and our hearts and feelings.

TECH SPECS

Shot on Cinestill bwXX rated at 400. Originally motion picture film, so it gives it a little glow. Mamiya RZ67, which is huge and amazing and I am still learning what it can do. We, honestly, wanted the scene to be darker and more ominous than it actually was. Time of day and time we had to shoot were factors. So, I shot this normally and underexposed a bit in post. Underexposing black and white film in camera isn’t always the best idea, leaves the negative dense and muddy, but I coulda tried that too. It’s a different technique for me. I’m typically a realist and want my images to look exactly how they looked in the scene. But, the original vision was kinda dramatic and sad, so we darkened them a little bit.

I also frequently shoot with less visual activity, meaning create simpler shots. This abandoned house and all the trees around it gave me a run for my money in terms of what my eyes do with so much visual noise. In addition to that, I rarely (if ever) shoot above f8 (bad practice, maybe). The ones from the outside of the house were shot at f16, which also gave me a run for my money.

Needless to say, this was an exploration on all levels. From camera to photographer to muse, to post processing. And it was beautiful. And it resonates with me in ways that maybe only she and I can cherish. And I’m ok with that. The draw to the mystery and meaning of that is an important part of the process.

It is the thing that succeeds when words fail. Where all that remains is a feeling.

Polaroid+

I made some time for water and sand and soaked up as many pacific ocean ions as I could today. Watched aggressive seagulls tear into people’s picnic lunches while they swam. Watched kids decorate themselves with long trails of slimy seaweed. Watched college girls adjust themselves in their bikinis. Watched men stare.

And, in the midst of that, I breathed (because those ions really actually scientifically do a lot of good things for our bodies, including enhance immunity and increase mood…and the disgusting way in which those men ogled made me hyperventilate).

But, the point of this post is none of that. It was a beautiful and energy filled couple hours. My only agenda? Swim. Dunk under as many waves as I could until I tired of that and slapped my body down in the sand like a little kid, no towel, nothing. I thumbed through a chapter of The Secret Garden. Repeated the whole cycle.

I toted a polaroid with me, which is of no surprise to any of you at this point. Instant film has become somewhat of a cult following for my self. I crave it. It is pure magic. No joke. Everything that happens in instant film is a friggin’ miracle. And I have surprised myself in how much it has won me over…how much I see it as ‘real’ film work, not just playful snapshots I can write in sharpie on and pin to my cork board (80’s/90’s kids, can I get an amen?).

So, I’m at Tower 5, no towel, no bag. Literally, a tattered vintage book, a polaroid camera and me in my bathing suit. And it is gorgeous out. So, I walk; past the jetties and the other 4 lifeguard towers to the pier. (Also walking by the joint smokers and the people selling joints and the people drumming up business for the people selling joints…oh, and the people actually drumming…IYKYK OB). The OB pier has been closed off and on for the past 8 months. The construction of the pier and the angle at which it drops down near the middle, makes it susceptible to damage during winter storm conditions. It was reopened in July after fixing some pump issues for the bathrooms near the cafe. Fun fact, when I was in college, friends and I used to come down to the pier during storm surges, stand at it’s lowest point, hang our heads over the railing, hold our breath and hold on for dear life while we were quite literally inside a wave.

Again, none of this is the point. Instant film is a doozy. It is time sensitive and temperature sensitive and light sensitive. It shoots, then spits out, then needs to be covered and not moved while the chemicals do their thing and the paper transforms from all the connection. (DO NOT shake your Polaroids, friends, it is a widely dispersed lie that has damaged millions upon millions of magical images, not to mention potentially flinging toxic chemicals into others faces or the ozone or whatever.). So, I’m on the pier in a wet bathing suit toting a camera (ditched the book on the staircase to have my hands relatively free) and…where do I hide the images as they spit out? Not in my wet bathing suit, not on the pier railing to blow off with the ocean breeze. It just so happens that the Polaroid camera I was using is a boxy one. The one that basically folds up like a cube. So, as you have already figured out, I shot each image, pulled it out, then placed it under the camera itself. Photographers are MacGyvers, let me tell you. Stacking 8 slippery images on top of each other while also trying to fold up and unfold and compose and shoot proved to be a little more cumbersome than I wanted it to be. Not to mention the fishhook I stepped on barefoot near the fish gutting sink while I was taking that cafe shot.

Not the point. But, here are two shots that just didn’t get completely developed properly. (Because, again, proper film storage, temperature, light, motion, etc are all factors that have to work together to create the magic). Most likely this was an issue with the developer in the developing pod on that edge of the film. Yes, that thick white frame at the bottom of a Polaroid actually does something! It’s not just a convenient way to hold it. Also possible that this area of the image was exposed more when being placed under the camera, leaving the lighter edge open to the sunshine and interacting with that developing pod differently than the part that was covered.

Point made. Yes, finally. There are countless unexpected things that can happen when shooting with this film stock. And, yes, that is part of the magic. The unexpected, the beautiful accidents. The interaction with the environment at the time of shooting that gives that one exact image more character. It can never be repeated, duplicated or reprinted. An instant film image is one that records one tiny moment in all the moments of the experiences and exploration of this world we find ourselves in. And it can never be done exactly the same way again.

(And, this series of one pack of film, 8 shots, is in my top 40 at the moment.)

Fall Equinox 2023

This is a raw journal entry, born out of what feels to be a dramatically long internal struggle. It is me, sitting on my deck in the mountains, staring at pines and aspens, in the midst of racing thoughts and deep depression. It is my realization that nature is my only ally, my regulator. It is almost fall. The autumnal equinox pulling me to face outward as well as inward, begging the past and future to merge in the present. A moment in the year where there are equal parts light and dark. Oscar Wilde said, “…and all at once, summer collapsed into fall.” And I see them as lovers, and I see the exhaustion…and the collapse is the comfort of knowing there is something/someone there to catch you.

At some point this will all be made more clear; the life circumstances, the mental health challenges. At some point, I will be willing and able to open it all up, to face things I’m afraid of, to step into a new life and new way of being and to (hopefully) talk coherently about the challenges in a way that will usher in understanding and a vision for moving forward with less of a sigh. Until then, we have broken thoughts, resonance, emotions, heartfelt renderings and words strung together to attempt to represent it all.

September 22nd, 2023…

And life passes me by like the wind. No changes made, no marks left but scars.

Feeling so unimportant. Not sure what to step into. It’s no one’s fault but my own; no one’s doing but my undoing. I’ve let the trolls get to me. The voices that manipulate me into long dark corridors of self doubt. A catacombs, basically. I’m still face down in the weeds. Whether I was pushed or laid down willingly, is of no consequence. I’m still here.

Some days are awful. So full of wallowing, of tip toeing around on creaky floor boards, of wearing my wool coat in the heatwaves of August.

The leaves rustle a ‘hello’, an ‘i see you there, hi’. A ‘welcome’. A ‘come and play’. They offer a secret handshake, an entrance into a world where heavy burdens are dropped at the door. But, I shush them and shun them and turn my back. I am in no mood for their dance. At times, I envy their playfulness, their contentment. But, today, I am sullen. Then angry. Then numb.

Displaced in a way that is selfish, conceited, that doesn’t make sense. That feels spoiled and pouty to others, even to myself. Who are we to compare? But, we do. Have you ever not?

If I’m fully honest, there are those days when something close to happiness comes like a premature contraction. So quick I’m not sure anything happened at all. Maybe just gas or anxiety. It’s fleeting. Fake. Most days are spent in silent deliberation. Conversations with versions of myself whom are either more happy or more sad or more melancholy or more pragmatic or more impulsive.

None of us are ever sure which one should take the lead at any given moment.

And, all of us are afraid.

Idleness becomes us and we revert to the childhood immaturity of best friend one day, enemy the next. Playing the silent game with dirty looks and long hard stares.

Some envy the opportunity to be idle; the chance to sit down, to stare at the trees and not be bothered by verbal inquiries and not have to rush off to something and not have to work their knuckles to the bone day after day after bloody day. I, for one, am sick of this charade, this prison amongst myself.

So, I go out to the forest, the floor thick and spongy with pine needles; with the things that have been let go. It’s an aimless walking at first. A sigh. A mutter. A shortness of breath, then a heaving. Branches reach down. Leaves whisper.

I fight them. The comforting. The beckoning.

‘They are malicious,’ I tell myself. ‘They are here only for themselves.’

But, they ceaselessly continue their lullaby, their presence. The endless brushing upon eachother, their connectedness.

‘I won’t let you heal me,’ I say. ‘I’m only using you for a moment of respite; for a sense of escape.’

I wield my stubbornness like a sword. Threatening with near spastic thrashing. Meeting nothing but air. Roots rise up from the earth, trip me, take me out, roll me over. I’m staring skyward, dirt spattered on slimy cheeks, lips caked with blood and spit.

The indomitable display of sunlight cast on whispers, reigning down, covering me, scooping me up and taking me home.

How many things...

How many things can cause a heart to break, to feel it’s own emptiness, to startle

awake

before the sun

before the dog, before the slumbering-beauty-child tip toes up the

cold stairs.

I go out.

Walk.

Peek at the early morning through straw colored strands, tangles, swollen eyes.

Slippered feet soak through to now soggy socks. A remnant of last night’s downpour,

a reminder

of my impulsiveness

And that I’m shivering.

It’s an aimless meander, I suppose, among the trees that have yet to yawn

to stretch

to roll out of the fog’s embrace.

And I am suddenly jealous.

The eternity of their affair

whispered at dusk

bold, heavy, wet, heaving

exhaled sweetly

to a brightening

lonely sky

swearing

never to tell

their

secrets.

If I can't see you, you can't see me.

Did you ever play that game as a kid? Or maybe it was less of a game and more a survival tactic. A way to make ourselves believe that we could disappear. that our consequences just wouldn’t happen if we couldn’t see them coming. That we could remain safe in our little blanket pod, hidden from the outside world.

There are always times we want to escape. Times we want to hide, cover up, go invisible on everyone. There were times growing up where I would fight with my siblings, scribble on the side of the couch with permanent marker, lie to my parents, then run up to my room, sit point blank in the middle of my bed and throw a blanket over my head. Believing the myth whole-heartedly. That if I can’t see you, you definitely cannot see me and will walk by without even noticing I am there, will disregard the error in my ways and forget completely why you came up to my room, stop looking for me and declare me innocent on all counts.

At 6, I was the mastermind of deception. At 43, I’ve continued to carry on the legacy. I have dragged bits of childishness into my adult life. Believing that I can escape the error of my own ways by covering myself up. Believing that I can be invisible at any point in time, because I so choose. It’s a safety net I’ve carried with me.

That self imposed safety is an illusion. And I’m slowly debunking the myth.

It is a chapter of the bigger story. A plot that is beginning to be excavated. Digging into these parts of myself through the only medium I really know how to do it in. This self portrait work is my long form documentary. My visual memoir. Looking at 40+ years of life and figuring out how to embrace it, reframe it, and carry it along with me into the next 40+ years of life.

Cinestill bwXX 120 + Mamiya RZ67 Pro II.

As for the tech talk, I took a risk with this film stock. I’ve read a little about it and believed myself to be incompetent in shooting with it, based on it’s presumed need to be spot on with exposure (which I’m not). I’ve held onto it for two years. Well, my b+w film hoard had dwindled to 1 remaining single roll and I felt I wanted to shoot. I felt that, maybe, just maybe, with a new-to-me camera I know nothing about and a film stock that was pretty much out of my league, it must be the perfect storm. I will say, I am impressed with the versatility of this film. Cinestill bwXX is a variable ISO film stock. These were shot in very low light, film rated at 1600, shot at a 15th of a second and push processed +4. This film handled all of that like a champ. And I will most definitely give it another go.

There's more to this.

Self portrait work is an interesting animal. Rabid, sometimes, feral almost always. But, despite it’s inconsistent and wild nature, and despite what (maybe) the general public views as the oh-so-commonplace selfie, I fully consider self portrait work, WORK. For anyone that’s doing it. There is so much to be learned when seeing ourselves subjectively. There is so much to say when choosing to portray ourselves a certain way. There are so many questions posed in the exploration that may or may not lead to answers, which is probably mostly not the point anyway. I’ve mentioned before that my self portrait work has functioned as therapy for me.

This particular shot was intentional. The way the light was navigated and placed was motivated by the direct bright light that enters my kitchen window every morning. The sink just beneath that I wash dishes in at all times of the day. I knew I couldn’t be in focus handholding this particular camera from only an arms stretch away, which was on purpose as well. It was the shot I was actually hoping for.

However, I wasn’t hoping to see what I actually saw when flipping this over. Because, quite honestly, it made me cry. And then it made me say, yep, that’s what you’re like right now. You are gonna have to face that. That is very real. You are split. A dark chasm of shadow that disconnects part of you from the other part of you. Split relationships, split loyalties, split personas, split psyches, split value systems.

Split. Split. Split.

Been awhile since I've been here.

Been awhile.

And, I don’t expect you to understand or know fully and, quite honestly, I’m not trying to explain it anyway.

But, there are moments that do. That can. That reach down and pull me out of my melancholy, my numbness, my stuckness, my fear. That zing me back into internal movement. A reminder of the human experience with pain with love with mystery with beauty with risk with adventure. That is art. Art is that. It is the thing that succeeds where words fail. Where all that remains is a feeling.

And that may be all I need to move again. If even temporarily.

A single frame on a nondescript roll of expired film.

The gift of a voyeuristic experience into past versions of myself.