Author: jad

by jad

Christine’s Project: Cascade

There’s a sense of many things coming full circle. Cycles coming to completion, stories tied up in a bow… This shoot is part of one Christine’s stories. Saint Triduana of Restalrig was the first piece in her series, based on another painting she’d made and given away to a roommate in Edinburgh. And here we are, taking pictures with it in the apartment she lived in just before she moved to Scotland. It looked very different back then. This project and this place are deeply meaningful to Christine in ways that are only right for her to tell. What I … Continue reading “Christine’s Project: Cascade” →

by jad

Basic Filmmaking

This is the very first project I made in a “Basic Filmmaking” summer intensive I did at NYU back in 2006. It’s shot on Kodak 16mm film using an old Arriflex and was hand spliced and screened silently for a class led by Katherine Lindberg, who seems to be still teaching there. I don’t remember what the project prompt was, but I loved how she intuitively got what I was about. She would later tell me (approvingly) that I “like to poke sticks.” She didn’t let me quit on myself when Israel’s shelling of Beirut started to mess with my … Continue reading “Basic Filmmaking” →

by jad

At the Kraken

It’s been so long since I’ve felt motivated to go to a concert, let alone, do “concert photography” i.e. take a camera with me and hope for the best. This was Friday night at the “new” Kraken (which was the “old” Café Racer), and it was just the right level of low-key for me. The band was Bitch Slap, who are a lot of fun (and the drummer is my type of clown). The crowd was thin and mostly seated in a large crescent, so it felt awkward to stand in the middle and block people’s view. Plus, I haven’t … Continue reading “At the Kraken” →

by jad

Photography is Strange

Photography is a strange and entitled behavior. It’s a compulsion I enjoy and find obnoxious, not unlike much of my personality; two wolves tearing each other to shreds. I’m especially drawn to and horrified by the prospect of photographing people; no particular people, just p-e-o-p-l-e, like all the bigshot shuttermonkeys out here. If you’ve been following for long enough, you might remember how I marked my official shift from “”reading about photography”” to “”doing photography”” by walking up to three people and asking them to use a remote to take three photos of themselves with my phone. Since then, I’ve … Continue reading “Photography is Strange” →

by jad

Keffiyeh Day

Yesterday was Nakba Day, and these were taken on Keffiyeh Day, May 11, in Westlake Park, at a rally marking the 76th year of rallies just like this one. The same chants, the same keffiyehs, the same fury in the face of the same injustice. I took these on expired film because these images could have been taken decades ago. I pray that they won’t be taken decades from now. Free Palestine. The rallies are the same, but the passion this year feels different. We’re at a tipping point of some kind. One of the UW student protestors spoke of … Continue reading “Keffiyeh Day” →

by jad

The Lord Will Provide

I finally made it out to GT Recording, the only place I could find in Seattle that can digitize 16mm film reels. They’re only open by appointment and at odd hours, and when I got there, I expected to find some grumpy Gen Xer behind the counter. I was pleasantly surprised to meet the sweetest old lady named Connie who gently laughed at my offering extra leader in case my reels were a little worn out. She said they deal with even older and moldier stuff than mine. I took these photos about five minutes apart. The light can change … Continue reading “The Lord Will Provide” →

by jad

Empire of Lies

The other morning was like any other one of my mornings these days until I came across a series of garish yellow stickers with two ghoulish words in black: H X M X S R X P E Now, if someone had felt the need to put these up in October, I would have left them alone. If someone had felt the need to put them up in November, I would have left them alone. In December. Probably left them alone. In January. Maybe. I don’t know. But definitely not now. Definitely not after six months of genocidal madness and … Continue reading “Empire of Lies” →

by jad

The Machine is Broken

“This machine is broken.” You can’t read it, but that’s what the piece of paper says in the third and fourth slides. I took these Polaroids earlier today because I’ve been searching for a means to articulate a melancholy that’s become neck deep; a feeling of fundamental disjunction between how I spend my days and my weeks and what this particular time in history is actively asking of you and me. There’s a break between my life’s work and our common purpose that’s become increasingly impossible to ignore. How are we to look back on our actions today?How am I … Continue reading “The Machine is Broken” →

by jad

Carnation, WA

Reading about the history of the “Carnation” brand of evaporated milk lends itself to a tortured metaphor for the Seattle liberal worldview: “contented cows give better milk.” Carnation was apparently originally called “Tolt,” a much less florid and alluring name, which is a pretty common pattern out here: Kent was once “Titusville,” Auburn was once “Slaughter” — and, of course, all of it was once known by very different names and tongues. In fact, “Tolt” was the clunky Anglicization of the Lushootseed word “tultxʷ,” which is what the Snoqualmie people called the river here, and they opposed the first time … Continue reading “Carnation, WA” →