stickers

The window of Pedone's, my favorite pizza spot in Redondo Beach

summer nights

Using film at night in a poorly lit room isn't always the best idea.

winds to the west

The wind was absolutely crazy the other day at the beach.

new toy

Canon AE-1: First Shots

The first thing I did with the new camera was take some pictures of my dogs. Mine (Bella) is the big one, the smaller one (Teek) is my sister's.

More to come.

is the world ending?

A few weeks ago there was one of the most dramatic sunsets I've seen here in Santa Barbara.  I didn't know what to make of it, but it was awesome!

I only have a few weeks left here, and hopefully there will be more sunsets like this one.  I can't believe that my freshman year of college has gone by this fast.  It really feels like last month was August and I was moving into my dorm and meeting all these amazing people for the first time.  But in less than a month I'll be packing up my room and driving back to LA, not to return until January 2012.  Because in less than 100 days I'll be getting on a plane for Scotland for a month, then an entire semester in Europe and Israel.  I can't wait for summer and Europe, but I at the same time I'm really going to miss my life here at Westmont in John C. Page Hall.

how many gummy bears?

That is the question of the night.

I asked my friend Erica to spring formal using hundreds of gummy bears and we had a few extra...  so naturally we put them in a Jarritos bottle one by one and kept count.

Any guesses?

pond exploring

My friend Natalie Pond and I went exploring around a cool church on the cliffs in PV while I was home last week.

old school feelings

I tried getting creative in my editing of some of the pictures I took of Theo's bus last week. For the interior shots, I decided to go old school and give it an almost antique feel.  I tried four different styles, just playing around with settings and presets in Adobe Lightroom. I'm happy about how they turned out, let me know what you think.

spring break friends

Spring break was partly about seeing as many people that were in town as possible, but also spending some good quality time with a few people that are my closest friends.  This break was by far the most enjoyable time I've spent back at home since I left for college.  I slept in almost everyday, usually until 2pm or later. Everyday I hung out with my core group of guys that are all still seniors (one junior) in high school, plus got to see tons of friends from my high school class that were also on their college spring breaks.

Theo and the VW Bus

It's been a while since my last update, but I've been shooting primarily film for the past two weeks.  When I get those developed this weekend prepare for many posts.  I shot with my digital camera for the first time in a while today.  My friend Theo has been begging me to do a photo shoot with his VW bus he got for his 16th birthday and it finally worked out today.

The bus is the definition of Theo in car form, it fits him perfectly.  We went down and took pictures in the parking lot right next to Torrance Beach.

It was a beautiful Southern California sunset, and Theo said this is "how he always watches the sunset or watches anything these days... on top of the bus!"

I miss this kid, and I was so pumped to hang out with him today.  Hopefully in the next few weeks Theo is going to make the drive up to Santa Barbara in the bus and we can go to the zoo (his favorite place).

I took some shots with both my film cameras too. I'll post those when I get them developed this weekend.

grandpa's car

Some of my very oldest memories involve driving around in my grandpa's Chevy Corvair.

It's a 63' or 64', but if I ask my grandpa the exact year it would be a two hour conversation slash story about who knows what.  Apparently it's been deemed "unsafe at any speed" because with the engine weight in the back it has a tendency to slide out of control around corners.  I need to learn stick better before I can drive it, but I can't wait!

Westmont's best speaker

Sara Reinis won the speech tournament last weekend!  A few hours before the tournament we went and had a mini photoshoot outside Page Hall.

Sara has got some big hair... These were the only two I took with my film camera, but I still need to edit the ones I took with my 60D.

roll 2 (I know... I'm going backwards)

While I was home for 4day the other weekend, I spend the night at my sister Annalise's house (age23) in Playa Del Rey.

Yes, Annalise and I are blood siblings even though we look absolutely nothing alike.  She looks pure Italian and I look pure Scottish, but our middle sister bridges the gap.

Even though I knew only one of Annalise's friends at the party (Sarah above), it was still really fun.  I got to see what life and parties are like after college.  Everyone talked about work most of them time, and since I was the only person there not working for a big advertising agency, I was left in the dark.  I had a blast, but I'll take my time through college.  My sister said that this was basically as fun as it gets after college.  I'm glad I'm only a freshman and I've got 3 1/2 years left until then!

roll 3

I got my third roll of Ilford B&W film developed taken from my Pentax K1000.  Most of the shots are from a trip to the pier Wesley and I took last week.

This was actually the first time I went to the very end of the pier here since I was a kid.  Unlike the pier in Redondo, this one just end with almost no guard rales.  It makes you feel much more on top of the water.

There was a rowing practice going on, and they're instructor was just a old guy just screaming at them about how they're waisting his time.  I'd like to meet that guy.

The palm trees here remind me of LA.  I love Santa Barbara. 

2007 vs. 1971

My '07 and Brandon's '71 Chevy.

I am increasingly jealous of Brandon's new, actually very old, truck.  It's in amazing condition and sounds like a beast, almost as good as mine.  I can't wait to drive it next time I'm home.

Little Rincon

I tried out a roll of Ektar 100 film in my Olympus this week.

This film works really well with blues and greens.  I got off the freeway this weekend on my way home at this small inn near the surf spot Little Rincon to take some pictures.

I love the way film looks as compared to digital.  I have shot digital for a while and I can get some amazing shots that way, but there's just something very unique about using a film camera. Even editing a digital image to make it look like film doesn't come close to it.

71 Ford

My best friend Brandon bought a 71 Ford Truck last week.

I took some pictures this past weekend when I was home for the four day weekend with my Pentax K1000 camera with some BW Ilford film.  I tried on an earlier picture to do a double exposure and apparently my camera can't do that anymore. It still slid the film when it shouldn't have, and all the subsequent pictures were cut up onto two frames. But I think it actually turned out kinda cool!

film

I've been shooting almost exclusively film the past few weeks.  I've got two roles I will be getting developed tomorrow when I get back up to Santa Barbara.  In the mean time, here are two pictures I shot with my moms old Olympus a few weeks ago.

faith and photography: my scream

I have spent the last hour contemplating my faith and my photography: how they work together, how they work apart, and how to use a gift from God.

I feel weird calling my photography a "gift from God", I know I have a skill and an eye but it's hard to think of myself as a "photographer."  Right now I'm trying to cram for a Studies in Literature exam on the book My Name is Asher Lev and I am far from finishing it.  Basically Asher Lev is an observer of a very strict sect of Judaism, and he is also an artist (drawings/paintings).  Being an artist is not what a good little Jewish boy should be doing, so he is struggling.  There is a quote from a book Asher reads that says:

"...every great artist is a man who has freed himself from his family, his nation, his race.  Every man who has shown the world they way to beauty, to true culture, has been a rebel, a "universal" without patriotism, without home, who has found his people everywhere."

I'm not sure why, but this has stayed with me and prevented me from really focusing on my studying.  Somehow it got me thinking about how I can use my photography.  I am a Political Science: Pre-Law major, not an Art major, but I have this 'gift' of photography that I love and want to use.  In class the other day we were talking about the great people of our time, our/humanity's heros (mine were Nelson Mandela, Ronald Reagan, MLK, Eisenhower, Gandhi...) and my professor said something like "greatness comes from a scream that needs to come out.  Most of us don't have a scream, most of us are not fundamentally going to change history like these people did" (referring to the great people of our time).

I have a scream.  I have a scream that I want to shout to the world in any way I can, maybe through politics or maybe through photography... or maybe through both.  The trouble is, I don't know how to articulate my scream.  I can feel it in my bones and in my soul, something important, something profound.  I just can't put it into words.  Maybe that's why I love photography so much, because it doesn't involve words but rather emotion, feelings, and interpretation.  Books have been written on single images.  Could photography be my tool for letting out my scream?  The only words I can educe for my scream is "justice" (hence my decision to be Pre-Law) and "humanity".  I want to change the world, I want to further the Kingdom of God, but do I want to be 'great'?  Ronald Reagan wisely said "there is no limit to what you can accomplish if you don't care who gets the credit." I have tried to live by this quote since I heard it many years ago.  Maybe I am meant to change the world, but I am not supposed to be a "great".

It's unclear to me where to go from here, but I know the ending of My Name is Asher Lev and I know where he ends up.