35mm from Colorado to Missouri (Sorry, Kansas)

A theme from this trip has been a views of the sky and large, open spaces. There are very few pictures of other people, other than my travel buddy. And I skipped Kansas entirely in the photo process, partly because we drove 10 hours straight and didn't stop much. Once we arrived to St Louis, Missouri, we were surrounded by buildings and people.

I had such a great time and really enjoyed visiting states I had not seen before. A lifetime goal would be to see more of the U.S. and attempt to see all the states. This country is HUGE.

Colorado

C is for Conifers, my kind of trees

Small town in the high altitude of Goergetown, CO. I have never been to a swiss mountain town, but this is what I imagine it to look like. There was a lake, mountain goats, friendly people, beautiful mountains and blue skies.

Missouri

St. Louis Missouri has the most brick buildings I have ever seen.

My friend's house with a beautiful, bright red door.

Small gap between brick houses.

35mm from California to Utah

Another reason to love film is: forgetfulness.

Part of the reason why I take so many pictures is to remember things. I have a fear of forgetting. To cope with this fear I photograph and write. A lot. When time interferes with the development of film, I do forget what I have captured in frames and am pleasantly surprised with remembering. My memory is sometimes like an old friend I haven't seen in a while...

Nevada

On the open road, blue skies ahead.

Utah

The Salt Flats drew out an unhealthy obsession from within me. I have an affinity with the desert. 

I could have spent the whole day photographing the flats. I plan to return and do this.

Rich reds and oranges of the mountains in Utah.

An image from the best drive of the trip through fog swept towns and disappearing mountain tops. Eric and I fell in love with a small town by the name of Helper, UT.

The ghost town of Cisco, UT. I had to look up the name of the town in my notebook. At the end of every day I recorded our trip and asked Eric the names of towns and places. Thank you, Eric, for being so patient.

There comes a power with a camera in which you can ask people to do things outside of their comfort zone in the name of art! One such thing may be to ask a friend to stand inside a very, very creepy and possibly haunted building.

Another abandoned house in Cisco, UT. So empty, quiet, and very unsettling. 

hiking through a field of yellow flowers

This is a great picture to represent the end of a an epic summer for me. I can't explain it well; maybe it is because it is dusk and because the subject and dog are walking away from view, the fact that most of the image is out of focus, that the plants are browning, and a mess of personal reasons outside of the frame that you can't see.

Welcome, Fall.

Old Photo from Big Sur

What often happens with my larger format cameras is that I use them... sparingly. Much more sparingly than I would with 35mm. Why? Because of the higher quality and cost to print. So, here is a photo from November of 2012 during a camping trip in Big Sur.

Camping in November was maybe not the best decision (it was really, really cold at night) and I did end up getting sick and had to leave the camping trip early, but look! Look at the pretty picture! Also, it was Fall and beautiful in the mountains. Would I do it again? Yes, yes I would.

Medium Format from the Road Trip

I'll have some more images to share soon from the road trip (still waiting on finishing a roll of 35mm). But for now, I have some 120mm film to share! 

Eric and I traveled from Santa Cruz, CA through Nevada, Utah, Colorado, and Kansas to end our trip in St. Louis, Missouri. I took the most photographs in Utah and Colorado because they were our most pleasant and beautiful drives.

Driving through the Salt Flats of Utah (and very happy to be out of Nevada).

I was very impatient to get out of the car and take photos while traveling across the Salt Flats. There was no where to stop on the highway, so I had to wait as patiently as I could until we crossed. Eric was also patient with me.
Thanks, buddy!

Somewhere in Utah I took a grainy and somewhat blurry photo.

This is a place I am very excited about! Eric and I stopped in a ghost town on our way through Utah. I have much more photos of this town on another roll of film. It was a very eerie and interesting place out in the middle of nowhere.

This is from the very top of a summit in Colorado that over looked the Rocky Mountains. It was 2 miles above sea level. Eric and I had a hard time in the altitude... We were dizzy, nauseous, and amazed by the mountains.

I'll see you soon

I am saying good bye to yet another important person in my life. We're leaving together on a road trip today from California to Missouri. He'll be working in St. Louis for the next year. I'm really excited for this trip, excited to spend a week with my good friend, and take a TON of pictures. I'm bringing 35mm and 120mm film, ready to capture the adventure and beautiful things that we're bound to see.

Leaving my friend behind to fly back to California on the 31st will be so hard, but I'm feeling pretty great over all knowing that my friend is starting his next adventure to go on an do wonderful things. And what a better way to kick things off then with a week long road trip! 

I'm going to miss you.

As for the rest of you friends - you better stay put, damn it. I don't think I could do this again soon with another one of you.

Jackie and Billy Arlew

These photos are from early on last summer... I think? Even I don't know anymore. We went on an adventure in Santa Cruz during an engagement photo session, shooting from the Arlew backyard and the train bridge by the Boardwalk. I used my TLR medium format camera with kodak portra film (which is the best film for portraits!). Such lovely colors and details.

Sometimes I really don't like images I take. Then 6 months later they grow on me. That is what happened with this set.

Today is a difficult day

I'm a sucker for poetry. I like to pretend that my feelings are tangible when I touch words on paper.

"No one’s fated or doomed to love anyone.
The accidents happen, we’re not heroines,
they happen in our lives like car crashes,
books that change us, neighborhoods
we move into and come to love.
Tristan und Isolde is scarcely the story,
women at least should know the difference
between love and death. No poison cup,
no penance. Merely a notion that the tape-recorder
should have caught some ghost of us: that tape-recorder
not merely played but should have listened to us,
and could instruct those after us:
this we were, this is how we tried to love,
and these are the forces they had ranged against us,
and these are the forces we had ranged within us,
within us and against us, against us and within us."

-Excerpt from Twenty-One Love Poems by Adrienne Rich

I'm already missing you.

Camping in Pescadero 2

See part 1 here.

On our second day of camping we hit the beach. It was overcast, but we brightened things up with a kite, frisbee, snacks and good company. I am very much in love with what this expired film does to our of focus images. Everything is so soft looking, like a water color painting.

boys and kite

Skipping rocks on the ocean

eat eat eat

There were a lot of dead crabs at the beach

My friend took this picture. I forgot to explain how to focus.

Camping in Pescadero 1

I went camping with some wonderful friends in late July. It was very lazy, pull your car up, easy camping. It was great to just kick back, grill, play frisbee, and run around in the forest. I brought a couple cameras with me, a brownie and a Nikon. I'm not sure if the brownie works, so getting the film developed will be a surprise. My staple camera is the 35mm Nikon, and I used film that expired in 2007. I just love the colors and the grain of expired film :)

Driving in the mountains

Bubbles, sass, friends, and beer!

Breakfast

There is always, somewhere, a boy in a tree.

Holga #4

I don't bust out the Holga a lot. The film is expensive and I can never be too sure about what is going to happen when I'm shooting with it. Then again, that's part of the fun of using it. Here are some Holga images from the last 8 months...

Triple exposure using red, blue, and yellow flash to create primary color mushrooms

Sort of cultish looking but hard to tell from a distance. I had my friends stand in the forest on one section of available light so that just their heads were lit. Came out pretty eerie looking.

The stuff of nightmares - my friend Eric

Double exposure, maybe even triple. Not sure. Looks like my room and a forest floor, plus a light leak.

This image was nearly destroyed by a light leak but I do like how it turned out.

I just love the colors in this image. So soft and cool, must be winter. I'm pretty sure we were on a foraging adventure.

In Love with Film III

Love the grain.

In Love with Film II