My Camera & I Go to Austin, TX

As you saw earlier this week in the post below, my empty stomach and I went to Austin, but my camera came with too! I haven't posted a lot about it much lately but my true passion and love lies in photography. I've been taking photographs for at least 10 years now, studied it in high school, took classes, and even went to an art school in Manhattan for a year. I really just realized I didn't need to be spending thousands of dollars learning about a craft I already knew so much about but thats a different story.

I post a lot of pictures to my blog but most of them are taken just on my iPhone so they're obviously nothing special. These photographs are taken all with a Canon 7D in RAW format. Each one tells a different story in itself of the city and I find they all really do Texas a good job in justifying its uniqueness.

This is only a small selection of a larger body of images that I took while I was there. I didn't want to inundate this post with too many images. 

I really do enjoy looking at them. 

I hope you all do too! 

Loving/Hating Philadelphia

Christ Church 

After moving full-time to the city of brotherly love over eight months ago, I have had many ups and downs with the city. Moving from a city like New York City, where every place is extremely accessible via public transportation, and then moving to Philadelphia.. makes me frustrated to say the least. Trust me, if you have ever had to deal with SEPTA you know what I am talking about.

My pup at the National Constitution Center

Philly sunsets

There are also a lot of reasons to be in love with a city like this. Huffington Post has determined Philadelphia to be the most underrated city in America… and has given us 31 reasons why. If the over 200 BYOB restaurants don't make you fall in love, then going to a Phillies game or grubbing out at the Reading Terminal will. I have found myself in love with the city just walking my dog in my little neighborhood. I mean whats not to love living next to a book store and a record store? Or living directly across the street from a park or even living walking distance from the Constitution Center? I walk my dog past Betsy Ross's house every night for christ sake.

If that isn't convincing, Philly is also significantly cheaper than living in Manhattan and being a college student, cheap is my favorite word. I also came across this article for doing Philly on a budget. Basically, I will be definitely doing a lot of what is in that article when it gets warmer out and so should you!

Happy Friday! & Happy birthday to meeee! I'm unsure of what the weekend holds for birthday festivities but I hope all around its a lot of alcohol and positive vibes. I spent all day yesterday in the hospital so basically the only cure is those two remedies. Hope you all are planning an amazing, relaxing weekend. 

This week I am discussing an American woman photographer, Sally Mann. She is ultimately known for her large-scale black and white portraits. My favorite collection of her work can be found in her, Immediate Family, photographic book that was published in 1992. The images are a collection of her children, all under the age of 10, participating in daily activities. The book caused a lot of controversy because many critics thought of it as child pornography and neglect. She has contradicted the critics by saying her photographs are, "natural through the eyes of a mother, since she has seen her children in every state: happy, sad, playful, sick, bloodied, angry, and even naked." Currently, she lives on farm in Virginia and is represented by the Gagosian Gallery in New York City and the Edwynn Houk Gallery in New York City. 

All images © Sally Mann. 

Here's what I'm listening to:

My Girls - Animal Collective

&

Owl Eyes - Devendra Banhart

Nan Goldin. A name synonymous with portrait photography. Her work captures the most intimate of moments between individuals, shockingly because of the introduction of a camera. As described by one of her current gallery exhibitions, "As a teenager in Boston in the 1960s, then in New York starting in the 1970s, Nan Goldin has taken intensely personal, spontaneous, sexual, and transgressive photographs of her family, friends, and lovers. In 1979 she presented her first slideshow in a New York nightclub, her rightly colored, snapshot like photographs were soon heralded as a groundbreaking contribution to photography." She currently lives in Paris and New York. 

Her work is something that I wish I was personally more comfortable with shooting. She seems to have no boundaries between individuals and you can feel her intensely personal relationships with the subjects. 

All images © Nan Goldin. 

Here's what I'm listening to:

Gravity Rides Everything - Modest Mouse

& 

Unavailable - Papercuts

Thank fucking god its Friday. AMIRIGHT. Not really though… I'll be spending my weekend studying for midterms that I have next week. Yup you heard it here folks.. midterms! & it's not even February yet.. well it will be next week but #ugh. My school is a lot of work & sometimes it just really sucks. On  a more positive note, my favorite part of the week is here, friday obviously, but photographer friday!!

William Eggleston is an American color photographer born in Tennessee (I suck at American geography, I had to spell check Tennessee how embarrassing). He exhibits work similar to Stephen Shore, as in he is drawn to the ordinary. Again, something I find myself drawn to as well. Recently, three dozen of his large format prints were sold $5.9 million in an auction at Chritie's to benefit his own organization, Eggleston Artistic Trust. Which sounds like a loud of crap to me because it's his own organization to preserve his own images. One of his prints set a world auction record for 'single print by the photographer' for $578,000. He has been quoted saying, "I only photograph one thing one time." As a photographer I find that extremely hard to believe. In order to get the perfection he is able to achieve in every shot (compositionally, etc.) there is just no way. There is also just no point. Why only photograph something one time? If you have the option to photograph it a few times at a few different angles, distances, etc., why not? How do you know that just stepping a few feet back won't completely change the image in an amazing way? Or flipping it from horizontal to vertical won't redefine the image and the subject? Whether his remark is true or not, his imagery is beautiful. 

All images © William Eggleston

Here's what I'm listening to:

Let It Fall - Lykke Li

&

Auburn and Ivory - Beach House

& 

Happiness is a Warm Gun - The Breeders