Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Seattle - Day 1


It took me eight years to finally graduate from college and in all those years, the furthest I got to travel for any class was up to the local ski resort for the day so I could skip class. I wasn't the best student in my early years, I'll just put that out there. My transcripts sadly reflect my lack of attentiveness, but at 18 and 20, telling me college was important was like talking to a brick wall. My poor parents. I got on track toward the end though, and after that it was a breeze. I was surprised to find that attending class was actually fun. (I think it helped that I minored in photography.) So here I am seven years later, embarking on a two-year journey for a master's degree and journey it will be. I get to travel for most of the classes required for my emphasis, and I think I'm going to love this arrangement.

My first class was in Park City here in Utah, about a 40 minute drive from my house. The commute got a little tiring by the last day of class but at least there were no travel expenses other than gas and lunch. My second class, however, was a little further away. I got to go to Seattle! I flew in late one Monday night a couple weeks ago (the same day my kitchen got torn out), spent three and a half days in class, and three evenings and one afternoon wandering the city. I met some really nice girls from class, ate delicious food, put many miles on my Keens, deeply breathed in the sea air, got rained on, rode in a cab, stopped by Glazer's, shot two packs of Polaroid and four rolls in my K1000, slept very little, learned a whole lot, and wished I had a boat.

I've got so many photos to share that I thought it would be best to post them by days, so here is Day 1, my first full day in the city. During lunch, a small group of us walked to the Whole Foods on Westlake, a place I ended up at three of my four days in town. I love me some Whole Foods. On our way back to the hotel conference room, I snapped a few photos, including a few for my Doubles project with my pal Vanessa. (Some of the images below are repeats from my previous post, but the project is so cool (IMHO) that they warrant double posting.) After class, I walked to Pike Place Market with two girls from class, then two of us split off and wandered the stalls together, but we got there a little late and everyone was closing up shop so we hit up the first Starbucks and Beecher's for a grilled cheese, then headed back to the hotel for the night. On our way out, I saw the "Hello my name is _________" sticker and thought it would make a nice Polaroid, my only one all day. Stay tuned for Day 2.





Tuesday, June 14, 2011

Film Swap














After weeks and weeks of giddy shutter-clicking, hordes of e-mails, a handful of Google searches, and excitement we could barely contain, Vanessa and I are so happy to announce our new project, Doubles: An Experiment in Film Swapping. Until we began, I had only ever shot one accidental double exposure in my 10-ish years as a photog. Double exposures were never on my to-do list, nor did I think I liked them that much, until during one night of sleeplessness, I thought it would be interesting to swap rolls with a friend, so I e-mailed Vanessa the next morning and we had fresh rolls of film loaded in our cameras within days. I'm not sure exactly what spurred the idea, but I'm in love with it. I love trying to wrap my mind around composing an image that will be "sharing" a frame with another composition, and one that's completely unknown at that. It's challenging and exciting and weird and fun, all rolled into one.

Close to 80 double exposures are up on our blog right now, with many more to come. We've both got new rolls in the works, so please come back and visit us again!

Sunday, June 12, 2011

(Beauty and) The Beast

the beast

I can't believe the deal Heather got on this beast. She was shopping for her future wedding ring at an antique shop and in walked a guy with this beautiful piece of machinery. The antique dealer didn't want it so Heather offered him $100 and he took it. Lucky girl. When will I be in the right place at the right time?

Tuesday, May 24, 2011

Quarter Past Six


It just dawned on me that I forgot to mention my blog's sixth birthday way back in February. Oops. Happy Birthday (or anniversary?) to my cozy little space in the infinite internet universe.

Wednesday, May 11, 2011

Over the Moon

tree

I'm sure not doing a great job at updating this space weekly like I had intended at the first of the year. I've got a really wonderful excuse though: I'm going back to school. I graduated with a BS in English and photography in 2004 and after six years of "I'm never going to school again!" and one year of "Oh, maybe I will..", I've embraced perhaps the biggest obstacle of my birthday list and decided to say yes to grad school, though I'm switching gears and not going further in English, per se. I've already begun my emphasis and although I'm just two days into it, I'm over the moon. The science nerd in me in coming back out (my major before English was Environmental Geosciences) and I couldn't be more excited. I still need to actually apply for grad school, but I hope to begin the Master of Natural Resources program at Utah State University this fall. I'm extremely excited and now I'll finally have a good reason to hit the Back to School aisle at Target this August.

I think my photography, my blog(s), and my garden are going to take the brunt of my neglect over the next little while, but I'll be sure to check in as often as I can. I don't intend to stop making pictures or using the stash of Polaroid in my fridge, but I'll definitely be slower in getting it online. Stick with me though, I'm sure I'll have plenty of adventures to share!