Holga Page--removed on 11/29/2014

1970's Highrises and Sculpture 

Made entirely of plastic, the Holga is closer to a toy than to a camera. It is often referred to as a “toy camera.” Well, call it what it is, I suppose. My attraction to the Holga is neither that it is a toy nor a camera. What it is, well, both the Holga and the attraction, is the sheer silliness of it.

I want to know silliness. Silly, to me, is the five pointed intersection of the sad, the macabre, the senseless, the inane and the funny, in short, the way I see life. It seems the best representation of all of this is, in fact, a ridiculous facsimile of all the facets.

Pentax K1000 Page--removed on 11/29/2014

Bike racks at Portland State Campus

It became obvious to me sometime in June of 2013 while wondering the streets of Portland, Oregon with my Pentax K1000. So obvious in fact that it was not a surprise. It was just one of those ah-ah moments. There I was, on top of one of those Natio Parkway parking garages looking at the Hawthorne Bridge. It was late afternoon, the time when the light stills feels like day but the streets of an after-work downtown feel like evening. I was alone. And it occurred to me. My time as amateur-hobbyist photographer comes down to what I like to shoot pictures of. The conclusion? I like to take pictures of the same things I like to write about: loneliness, decay; abandon, filth and decline. Capturing this on film is not a particularly difficult thing to do. This is America, after all, and we build fast and let things fall apart even faster.   

Photo Stream--removed on 11/29/2014

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