people of the orange county fair

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I spent a saturday at the orange county fair recently – walking around & people watching. I think fairs are the most quintessentially american experience: a place full of fried foods, sensory overload, sticky sweets, alcohol, over-consumption, price gouging, questionable fashion choices, screaming children, & farm animals.

 
 

all shot on my fujifilm x30.

summer in the desert

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journal:

the heat hung in the air like a weight. when you step out into it a hush surrounds you. the creaking of ancient hills barely registering above the hot breeze brushing through desert shrub & cactus. the roads glisten with warmth & all the creatures slow down to linger in the shade.

the desert is teeming with life, but it is a slow life. a quiet one.

 
 

desert day digicam

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a saturday spent wandering around joshua tree national park & morongo valley california with a 2010 sony bloggie mhs-pm5.

the impossibility of perfection

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journal:

this is the core of the digicam/lofi/camcorder appeal. everything in our world got so polished & perfect & flat; the pressure to look like a glossy magazine life got to be so much that these frankly shitty early devices became irresistible. you literally cannot produce perfect glossed over documentation with a 2004 point & shoot digital camera. it is actually impossible. so the pressure to attempt to do so is lifted entirely. it’s a liberation from the confines of perfection.

february in death valley

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a few half frame film shots from my day in death valley on a paleontology hike with the national park service (they do these once a year and I highly recommend it).

shot on kodak gold 200 with the kodak ektar h35 camera.

hot waters

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after four days hiking the inca trail & a morning spent in the ruins of machu picchu we stopped in machupicchu pueblo (also known as aguas calientes) for lunch. before catching the train back to ollantaytambo to start my return to cusco, I wandered the streets & the bustling market with new found friends & my little point & shoot film camera.

streets of cusco

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walking the bustling & narrow streets of cusco with my fujifilm x30. once the capital of the incan empire, now the main hub for peru’s tourism industry.

on being seen

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12:18 - 53rd street - MoMA

what does it mean to be seen but not SEEN? maybe its the difference between observation & objectification? photographs are about seeing yes, but they’re also a way of erasing the viewer or the maker of the photographer. they’re like windows with one way glass. we can see in but they can’t see out. in fact, they don’t even know we’re looking at them. I guess that’s pure voyeurism.

sometimes they do know I suppose. it’s a different kind of feeling. more about being on display for a purpose. if you can even call it being on display at all.

everything becomes a performance OR it already was one.

to be seen

an eye immobilized
against grey. a
mystery–
that’s solving itself
& never revealing
its answers.

 

florals on film

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a few shots from descanso gardens on kodak gold.

alien planet

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took a roll of lomochrome turquoise film to death valley a couple months ago. the results look like photographs from mars! the turquoise film is super fun even if I do have a hard time deciding when using it will create cool results or just weird ones.

shot on lomochrome turquoise 110 film with the pentax auto 110 camera.

florals for spring

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spent a saturday at descanso gardens admiring the blooms.

oops I did it again

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on sunday I finished my second marathon. while I wasn’t faster than my first race in 2020, I had a much better experience & a lot more fun so I’m counting that as win! plus, I completed the “conquer la” challenge which consists of finishing the santa monica 10k, the rose bowl half marathon, & the la marathon in the same season & gets you an additional medal at the final finish line.

more pictures & a run recap on my running instagram.

death valley winter

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three iphone shots from my time in death valley on a full moon.

the winter light in death valley is like a caress. rose-hued & hugging the mountains – curling between scrub grass & salt flat. driving the long curving roads like a wave craving sand.