Analog Summer

sunset cloud sequence

Isaac, sunset silhouette

Kiwi, sunset by the river

decapitated self portrait

candid at sunset by Isaac

apricot / roasted peanuts

35mm film / expired film / Summer 2011

These images were developed and scanned ages ago, but I never bothered to share them until now. My summer vacation has begun; I've been achingly anxious for the spontaneous and enticing unknown of summer living.

Two Forests

 

 

July 2011 / photos by Isaac from www.straightfromtheshutter.tumblr.com

These are portraits of me by Isaac as we wandered through the urban forest of San Diego and the forests in the mountains around Orange County. It's curiously thrilling and a learning experience to be photographed by someone else for a change. Now I understand how only certain people can truly get a portrait right. It just takes soul and connection.

When photographers get to know people, it's not through small talk or deep verbal exchanges. The conversation is quiet: the subject consents to being vulnerable and honest. Only the shuttering sounds of the camera and occasional posing advice from the photographer is heard. The subject gives permission and trusts the photographer to photograph them truthfully. Portraiture is a partnership between photographer and subject, and a dynamic relationship that relies on faith, honesty, and responsibility in order to function. Being on the other side of the lens gave me the experience of what my subjects feel when I photograph them, and now I'm so much more empathetic with my subjects and conscious of my role while making portraits. 

Sometimes I feel as if these images are not of me, but they are pictures of someone else's idea of me. These images are representative of beautiful and dreamy times. I love that quality about pictures, how my life always becomes more beautiful the more I memorialize my life in pictures. When I see a print coming to life in a darkroom, it's the closest thing I can get to reliving my memories. 

Lately | Spring 2012

home / April 2012

Downtown in the Spring

Los Angeles / April 2011

"My favorite thing to do is to go where I've never been."

- Diane Arbus

I love how I can visit the same people or the same places and the photographs I make of them never look the same. The streets of LA can swallow me whole; there's dirt, decadence, and decay everywhere. I can revisit the same places in this city and still feel as though I've never been there. Overcast, chilly, and windy days of spring weather are perfect for going to places that I've never been to before. I feel as though I'm in a  Jean Pierre Jeunet film when I'm standing on a rooftop watching the wind push the cloud shadows over buildings; it's surreal and cinematic.

Winter by the River

35mm / December 2011 - January 2012 / Santa Ana, California

Memories often mimic the nostalgic haze of expired analog mediums: drops of out of focus sunlight that were so tangibly beautiful I swear I could catch them on camera and keep them in my pocket forever. Shadows on the shed in the evening orange and violet light, leaves in brilliantly ferocious shades of autumn, and the vast land of the Santa Ana river trails. There is beauty in this suburban decadence. 

Winters are full of thrilling sensations: blue mornings, white skies at noon, and warm colors towards the evening until a purple night emerges with splashes of metallic orange from the street lights. Winters are like sherbet ice creams: full of lively color but cold, cold, cold. The colors are so vivid I could taste them in my mouth, hitting my senses like a knockout punch that leaves me breathlessly entranced.

But winter is bidding adieu as the days grow longer and skirts get shorter, and I'm already fantasizing about next the next season's sensations.