Once in a blue moon.

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I duck out of the frozen night air of Seoul into the warmth of a jazz club, softly lit, not too crowded - the perfect place to be in that particular moment in time. I take my seat by the front of the stage, order the tastiest scotch that a broke-ass college student can afford, and wait as the singer and her trio takes the stage. She sings - and oh, can she sing! A bit of Alicia Keys, a touch of Diana Krall, and life's good. The night moves along wonderfully. Her voice slowly warms my soul.

Or is that just the scotch?

Generations

Two people, sharing a subway bench, living in completely different worlds.

Weird.

Getting back into the flow

Digital negative, Van Dyke Brown printing

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With the final try-outs for the U.S. team coming up, I'm finding myself falling back into my old training habits. Training in the morning, practically dreaming of fighting someone in a match, tying everything in my life back to martial arts. Every movement that I make is in a fighting context. How I grip things, how I stand - I look at it all with a critical eye. It's a place that I was comfortable being in during high school - a part of my identity that I'd let slip away as I went to college.

But then I had a particularly good training session, where everything just felt right. Putting on my armor, flying full-force at someone with my weapon in hand... all of the madness puts me in a surprising state of calm. And now I slowly reclaim an aspect of my existence that I'm not quite complete without.

A Second Skin - Between three and four months in.

Jeans - Rogue Territory Stantons, Turtleneck - Uniqlo, Boots - Lands End Canvas

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I've been wearing these jeans particularly hard these past few weeks. As I'm coming up on four months, a date that I've arbitrarily set as some sort of landmark, I felt the need to get these jeans to really start showing some wear. So I dragged them through hell and I think they've come out the better from it.

It's still a bit funny for me to have these as my visual anchor through this crazy thing that we call college. Everything around me, as well as myself, is changing so rapidly. And yet, every morning I go through the same motions of putting on my jeans, shoving my notebook in my back pocket and my cellphone in the front, and going about my day. The world around me shifts and moves, and my morning routine stays the same. These Stantons are sort of helping to keep my feet on the ground as my mind slowly wanders away to... somewhere or other.

Existential crisis aside, these are still a damn well-made pair of jeans. The material and stitching are holding up well, the indigo is fading through beautiful shades of blue rather than going straight to brown/white like APCs tend to do.

Although, I'm pretty sure the whole "no washing" thing is starting to make people uncomfortable. Heh.

Pinholes and Political Meaning

My professor told me that I need to try to put more meaning into my work. So there you have it. How's that for a message?

And more pinhole fun, because I much prefer to whimsically take pictures for the hell of it.

Something or other

Locks, Seoul Subway Stations

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Nothing particularly interesting here. I was just drawn to the variety of details surrounding the padlocks in the Seoul subway stations.

Playing around.

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Having some fun with the pinhole camera that I just made for my Light Explorations class. My photos aren't coming out nearly as sharp as I want, probably due to my messing up with the camera's construction, but I'm slowly becoming a fan of the dreamy, vintage feel of it all.

Also, it's wonderful to be back in the darkroom after all this time.

A Second Skin - Three months in.

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It's surprising how well the rough rocks of Joshua Tree help to break in a pair of jeans. Rock climbing, scrambling over boulders, squeezing through narrow canyons, and overall just running around and getting injured makes for a great formula to fade raw denim.

I now have access to the photo studio at school (yay art classes) so I can finally take some pictures that aren't completely horrible. These are probably the most color-correct shots that I've taken so far. I'm quite happy with the increase in quality, in any case.

About the jeans themselves - I've worn through the edges of the back pockets, have increased the wear in the knees, and my pocket notebook fade is setting in nicely. And no one's commented on any unwanted odors or anything like that, so I'm gonna say that I'm safe with not washing these things for now. Ha.