Montréal: Metro
Some people spend hours in art galleries capturing people in situ; I think I’d enjoy riding the track back and forth just as much. x x x x x x
Category: Ecstasis
Montréal: Day 1
I just woke up from what feels like the most necessary Sunday siestas that just happened to happen on a Monday, having never fully lost consciousness during our redeye to #Montreal: I just sort of bounced between silent meditation and mindless scrolling on the airplane Wi-Fi. This gave me a lot of time to reflect on air travel, curled up in the blue glow of the pressurized cabin, but I don’t know if I’m awake enough right now to express it properly. All I know is that I was feeling rusty; our suitcase still had the tag on it from our … Continue reading “Montréal: Day 1” →
National Camera Day: Смена-Symbol in Everett
So apparently today is #NationalCameraDay, which makes it a great day to share the (unedited) results of my very first roll using the Soviet-era (1972 to be precise) LOMO Smena Symbol. I’ll have lots to say about the camera itself in the next post, but first, a few words about the content itself; I hate feeling like I’ve wasted film, so I try to take meaningful shots whenever I can. But I also had no idea how this fully manual, viewfinder-style camera would perform, or if I’d botch the whole thing up trying to meter for the first time, so I … Continue reading “National Camera Day: Смена-Symbol in Everett” →
Montréal from Seattle
Christine and I are going to Montréal in a couple of weeks. It’s going to be my first international trip since becoming a U.S. citizen and the first time back on an airplane since getting my green card and landing here. There are a half dozen reasons to be excited about visiting this oddball part of North America, but our primary impetus for wanting to go in the first place was to visit a Mohawk Catholic shrine as part of @christine.bingham.art‘s ongoing book project based on her series of mirror saint paintings. I’ve been reading a lot about the history of … Continue reading “Montréal from Seattle” →
Lite-Touch Photography
I’ve been reflecting on what will soon be a year of toying with the idea of doing photography, and how it has represented a liminal time in which I’ve been gradually transitioning out of understanding what I do as “taking photos” into kinda maybe sort of imagining myself as “being a photographer.” It’s both a subtle distinction and one that’s completely serious (ask any professional how serious it is), and one that I didn’t see myself ever engaging in when I started reading Sontag, Benjamin, and Barthes on photography. I had meaning-making on my mind and wanted to wrap my … Continue reading “Lite-Touch Photography” →
Seattle: City of the Future
Just came back from the phantasmagoric and fairly dystopian « #SEATTLE: CITY OF THE FUTURE » immersive art event at The Teal Building in #CapitolHill, organized by Third Place Technologies and @publicdisplay.art. Occupying the former site of R Place bar and nightclub, the exhibit played with and lampooned the futurist vernaculars of the space-age and cyberpunk eras to make dark commentary on the Seattle of today, in a bewildering array of interactive and augmented gizmos and doodads (I’m pretty sure that’s the technical terminology). I’m usually a little cynical about “activating” “vacant” “spaces,” but this was intelligent, insightful, and fun! x
Nakba Day 2023
Yesterday, a rally and march was held in Seattle’s Capitol Hill neighborhood in commemoration of 75 years of resistance in Palestine. The event was organized by @falastiniyat & @samidounseattle, with support from @ilps.seattle.tacoma, @gabrielaseattle, @anakbayanseattle, @resist.seattle & @jvpseattle. It was an inspiring day with many moving speeches and moments; I can only share a couple here. From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free. x x x
May Day 2023
By chance and circumstance, I ended up marching alongside the PNW People Over Profit / Anti-APEC contingent in last Monday’s May Day demo. They’re a lively and highly organized coalition of young activists affiliated with @ilps.seattle.tacoma, @anakbayanseattle, @gabriela.usa, @resist.seattle, and @internationalwomensalliance, and carried themselves with infectious energy and what felt like a very real ethic of care. I’ve seen BAYAN and ILPS flags in protests before, but I must admit that I wasn’t aware of the breadth of this transpacific movement beyond the little I’d gathered from Bambu’s lyrics. Listening to their speeches and reading their flyers clued me in; this is a whole antipode … Continue reading “May Day 2023” →
Valley Medical
Today, Christine and I went “scouting” for locations again. I was surprised by how friendly and welcoming the staff were here, like it was absolutely normal to be walking around with a chunky camera in a place like this; maybe they already knew how pretty it really is here, when you stopped and actually looked. x x x
Seattle: “It’s a City”
The other day was the second time in a row that I’ve heard a dig made at Seattle by a band on tour, and the first time was pretty direct: “if you’re born and raised in Seattle, that sucks for you.” That time, I laughed and waved my middle fingers in the air as the crowd cheered. This second time, the frontwoman was actually starting to say something nice, recalling how they’d recorded two albums and lived here for a month each time: “Seattle’s nice,” she offered, but voices in the back started to jeer and say “it’s alright…” Everyone … Continue reading “Seattle: “It’s a City”” →