i felt more purpose in spending my mental capacity on the thoughts of being a better father, a better friend, even a better reader. rather than focusing on social media and partaking in the endless scrolling. i would be lying if i said i didn’t get derailed by the attention my photography received, by the people i met all around the world through our similar interests. i started to learn how to be relevant on the internet. it made me feel good, temporarily. making sure i posted every other day to stay in the algorithm, using the right hash tags, posting at the peak hours, all that shit. for what? to have my photographs be seen for a fraction of a second by people that i would never meet or even have any real interaction with? all the gratification i received at the end of the day, through instagram, meant nothing to me. it was sort of a false inspiration to keep doing what i was doing but not without also making me feel distracted and starting to take photographs of what i knew other people would want to see. i realized that sharing my photos in person, even though i left no trace of how to contact me, or who i was, felt better. knowing that the people who took the time to look, knew the street names, the architecture, the laundromats and their neon lights, the feel of our city. a place that we all dwell together. thats the gratification i want. that is what i want to take photographs of. i want to make connections and have conversations with the people that connect with me on a deeper level. it’s so easy and cheap to create things for the sake of attracting a “following”. i cannot imagine being one of those people who saw that as a viable source of income, or could feel comfortable selling out for ad revenue or click through revenue. now there’s ads for these fucking people to teach you how to make money off making dumbass youtube videos. i cannot believe this is even real.

we are not here for long, if the whatever medium you use, whatever you’re trying to create is for anything other than representing of the ups and downs of your life to the people in your real life, you’re selling yourself short.

photographs were taken with a bessa r3m + zeiss 35/2 on fuji superia 400/cinestill 50d