olympus mju i

i want to be better about this blog, so here’s my attempt at starting to get back at it. i found an olympus mju for $0.89 cents and i thought it would be fun to use in new york city while i was visiting my girlfriend. i crossed my fingers that it was in working order as it was the only camera i packed, and 5 rolls later i was nervous that i had made a really bad judgement call by exclusively using this completely untested camera that i found at the bottom of a bin full of cheap sunglasses and old phone cases. well, it works perfectly. my two cents: what a great camera to use for capturing memories. it feels so effortless to use and enjoy, there are no bells and whistles but who cares, it’s a tool meant to be used. here are some of the images i made with it, captured on fuji superia 400 pro.

thanks for looking and reading, or just looking. and please, listen to alicks – mu1 .

locations the images were captured at in no specific order: domino park, mr. taku ramen, toy tokyo, coney island, chinatown, shane’s apartment, marcy ave station, west village

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memorytapes:seven

i wish i had the tools

or the knowledge to know

how to measure

the space you’ve claimed in my chest

a quarry, it seems

it’s a space just for you,

filled with memories

gone

why do

people always say

“it feels like

a lot of time has passed”

but when i look

into a mirror

i never see yesterday

go, go, go.

time just seems to go, go, go.

sometimes it feels easier to run with it,

but i want to stay here for now, with all of you.

there’s helicopters over my head, every night when i go to bed.

and i always tell myself that i should go to sleep (but i never do). it feels like this is the only time i have to sit here, listen to music, and start typing out some words about how i’m feeling. last week i was sitting in a camper van in fucking iceland, and while gabe drove us down the north coast he put this record on. i kept singing this line back to myself in my head, “do you feel ashamed when you hear my name?”

i’m back home now, and i won’t lie. it is just now starting to feel like my home. there was shit packed into drawers and closets that i couldn’t find the courage to deal with until now. it reminded me not of a failed relationship, but of something that felt more like resentment. the carelessness and disregard for all of the lives that had came and went before. going through everything with my mom (thank you for your help, i love you), i couldn’t bring myself to throw away the memories of a family i’m no longer even a part of. the memories that sat in a musty laundry room and outside in a shed, for the last four years. maybe left for me to find and then feel bad for throwing away. but me being me, a me that i’m happy to be. i’ll pack it neatly, and return it. maybe it’ll mean more this time around.

photographs were taken on a fuji klasse w on a mix of kodak portra 160 and fuji superia 400.

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memorytapes:four

the first time i heard ‘isaiah’s unsung love song’ was wandering around patterson park taking these photos, and sitting on that bench. that sample never leaves my head. all of these have been on heavy rotation. memorytapes:four. enjoy.

photographs were taken with a contax g1 + zeiss 45/2 on portra 160.

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dear avery,

first off, looking back at some of these photographs really makes me realize that we go to bodega maybe a little too much. hopefully soon your rice & beans only diet will evolve a little bit. oh well, i’ll still love you either way. i always found it a bit sad that i never had any letters from my dad, to go back and read after he was gone. it took me til you were four years old to feel like this was something i wanted to do. unfortunately, he didn’t get that long with me so i won’t hold it against him. i want nothing more than to live as long as possible so i can continue to be your dad, and watch you continue to grow into the human i know you will. but in the event my time runs out, i want you to have these pictures and these words so you never forget how much i love you.

dear avery,

i hope by the time you read this, that things are much different. right now it seems like no one lives their lives for themselves, but rather to make themselves look like their life is just super-fucking-awesome, like all the time. i hope that by now you know, life isn’t always super-fucking-awesome. it gets tough, tiring, overwhelming. without a doubt, at times you will feel defeated, and that’s okay. surround yourself with people that love you, and they will build you back up. it is the people like this, that make your life awesome. the long term friends who know a side of you that i won’t ever be able to know (that’s also okay). so please take a lot of pictures to remember these people, and to catalog your lives together. don’t take pictures to make other people feel left out, or to try and prove how great your life is. i’ve found that our own happiness is better kept a secret. i hope that you’ll look through the photographs of my life and feel how great of a journey it has been. what an honor it’s been to just exist. from being your dad, to visiting amazing places with my friends, and just simply capturing my every day. this is what photography is for.

love,

dad

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the purpose of this.

some of my favorites from the last three months. a mix of my bessa r3m, contax g1, and olympus xa2. developed + scanned at home. i haven’t even went public with this project yet, besides sending it to a few close friends. i’m not not sure what direction i want to take it in, other than having an outlet to share the photographs i make. it’s not the kind of stuff that people on instagram want to see, but it’s my life and thats why it is so important to me. i ditched that shit because people don’t want to make photos for themselves to remember anymore, it’s more about ‘curating’ a life that seems better than everyone else’s. it’s weird seeing people you fuck with start to act like someone that they aren’t on the internet. what good does it do? to be so unauthentic at trying to convince people that you’re authentic? my life is pretty standard: i’m a single parent, my house is usually a mess (a 4 out of 10, so not too bad), and i work a lot. my free time is spent doing shit that makes me happy. reading, spending time with daughter, maintaining relationships with my friends/family, riding my bike, documenting my life with a camera, and two weeks out of the year i try and travel and see new places. i wanted some place i could share my thoughts + photos and this seems like the best place for that, for now. so if you’re reading, thank you.

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