I happened to have some Ilford XP2 film in my camera when my family and I went to LA a couple of months ago. Just got the roll developed and I like how different these images are from the colorful ones I took on my previous LA trip (to which I would link if Flickr hadn’t apparently eaten the entire album).
Hope your weekend is sunny.
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All photos: Feb. 2012, Los Angeles/Venice/Malibu.
Natasha Sierakowski of Maryland Wedding Makeup did a lovely job on Bijal’s wedding day…
And was kind enough to feature my photos of Julie and Bijal’s wedding on her blog recently. In the DMV? Check her out if you need any cosmetic magic.
In ninth grade I took Mr. Fear’s intro to photography class, where we all spent months staring at photographs in books, watching slide shows during lectures, and wondering when we’d finally get into the mysterious darkroom the juniors and seniors loved so much. Finally we got to enter the chemical-smelling cave and learn the fundamentals – but not on the Nikons we’d come to love months later. First we experimented with pinhole cameras.
My pinhole camera was was a round tin that previously held “rainforest cookies” with a piece of wood acting as a sort of tripod on the bottom. We each drilled a tiny hole into the bottom of our tins, went into the darkroom to place photo paper inside the lid, covered the whole thing in duct and electrical tape, and created a little “shutter” over the hole. Then we went out into the sunlight. When we lifted the shutter to allow light in, the outside world was projected upside down onto the photo paper. We experimented with exposure times and returned to the darkroom to remove and develop our images one at a time.
The gusts are supposed to reach 60 miles per hour tomorrow in NYC. I searched my photos for “wind” and found this picture from a year ago this week. Happy anniversary, Crystal and Eric!
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Photo: Near Dangerously Delicious Pies, Washington, DC, Feb. 2011.
An adventurous person I know left for Antarctica a little over a month ago. She works long hours as a Dining Assistant and spends the rest of her time hiking around sea ice and getting to know the McMurdo subculture. Her blog is fascinating, and for her one-month anniversary there, she wrote a post about “wonderment” that I highly recommend.
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Photos: Wonder Wheel, Coney Island (summer 2010).
Six days in, how’s 2012 treating you? It’s been topsyturvy here, but I’m grateful for the calendar change. A lot of bizarre and big things happened last year.
But as the wise people of The Stone House pointed out, 2011 was not without good news. And purging my phone of old photos is a reminder that my everydays were full of bright spots. Here are a dozen.
To be fair to 2011, there were many more.
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Winter
Spring
Summer
Fall
I hope you get some nice reflection time in this weekend, especially if you didn’t have a chance last week.
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All photos taken with my phone in Brooklyn, except 3 (Boston Common), 4 (“The Language of Color” exhibit at Harvard Museum of Natural History), 5 (not too far from Toscanini’s, Boston), and 10 (Madison Square, Manhattan).
Final little taste of the wedding we photographed in Maryland last month:
Thanks again to Bijal and Julie for having such stellar senses of humor – and such a fun and photogenic community. And HUGE thanks again to Val and Annie for being such a dream team.
Bijal and Julie got married at Indique Heights on November 12, 2011.
I went with six memory cards, three cameras, and two friends: Valentina Xavier, my high school biology deskmate-turned-photography partner in crime, and Annie L., who graciously served as wedding coordinator.
Julie arrived first and Valentina waited with her…
While I met up with Bijal and we plotted our approach.
We had a little bit of quiet time together before we took family portraits and got the party started.
About that party…more photos soon. In the meantime, big thanks to Bijal and Julie for bringing us along for the ride!
Last week I finally got finished editing my album of photos from my retreat in North Carolina this summer. (Remember this?)
Two of my friends went on Soul Sanctuary retreats at stone circles at The Stone House earlier this year and came back glowing, so I applied for the one in late August – the first ever Soul Sanctuary for Artists.
The application felt just right: not too taxing, but an opportunity for reflection and intention-setting. I remember writing things about photography and writing and organizing. I also remember mentioning that the retreat fell just before my birthday. Wouldn’t it be special, I mused, to spend part of that week in Mebane, North Carolina, looking back on 27 and cooking up some good plans for 28? Yes: I played the birthday card.
The retreats are free and travel scholarships are available. Members of the Stone House community will even help you get from the airport to the land. I felt so good just waiting in the airport for Emily, the hospitality manager. We chit-chatted our way through the 45 minute drive and before we even reached the fig tree-flanked driveway, I found myself asking casually, “So, I can tell that it’s a huge privilege to be able to experience this. Do you try to always make sure that you’re bringing in newcomers, rather than having people come more than once?” (Read: “This is so dream-like that I can only come here once in my life, right?” I got greedy.)
“Oh, no,” she said. “My understanding is that once you’re in the family, you’re in the family. We encourage people to come back.”
Yessss.
The rest of the team—land steward Tahz, chef Noah, and associate director Jennifer—were equally welcoming all week. They kept our bellies filled with hearty curries, just-dug sweet potatoes, and the best granola I’ve ever had. They helped us pick vegetables from the garden, encouraged us to spend our mornings in silence and then egged us on as we laughed loudly over dinner, and made themselves available for all sorts of formal and informal check-ins. They invited us to hang out at their event for The Highlander Center (celebrating 75 years of working for justice!) and they helped me and another New Yorker extend our trip when Hurricane Irene swept up the coast on what was supposed to be our last day in town.
And I met eight of the coolest artists, activists, and artist-activists I’ve ever met. (Realizing how little time I spend around practicing artists, and cultivating relationships with mentors, was in itself an important birthday gift.)
Ellen O’Grady was our facilitator. If you care about Palestine or Israel or family or stories, take a look at her beautiful book.
I cried as Kim sang to us. Gail read my first-ever tarot spread. I watched Marjorie dance and laughed as Teresa clucked at the chickens and saw the filmmaking fire in Lenore‘s eyes. Joy Marie made me a birthday cake of marshmallows, Saltines, and peanut butter (and everyone clucked over the fact that I was turning 28 – I’ve never heard the words “Saturn returns” so many times in my life).
And as summer turned to fall, we’ve all followed followed Kayhan to Kabul.
Tonight when I sat down to keep up my little November writing streak, I did not intend to take such a long walk through the memory pasture. But since yesterday’s time change, I’ve felt my energy “falling back.” And staring at the sunshine and hammocks, thinking about all the projects into which these people are pouring themselves, I remember all the things I promised myself I’d remember.
In case it’s not obvious, I’m very grateful to have had this opportunity and I would encourage anyone reading this to check out the stone circles website and apply. Whenever you go will be exactly the right time.
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All photos taken at The Stone House, Mebane, NC (August 2011).
November blog post count: 4 of 30.
