https://spacecat.art/blog daily 1.0 2022-10-01 https://spacecat.art/blog/it-was-quiet-warm-and-comfortable monthly 0.5 2021-11-10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/1636526791970-EXAD3XZLP3K3CX4YLSGT/20211109-CO-4268+%2826%29-Edit-2.jpg Blog - It was quiet warm and comfortable - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/1636529243694-NGJ19OJE95Z4T2VHOBIT/20211109-CO-4268+%2829%29-Edit-2.jpg Blog - It was quiet warm and comfortable - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/1636528963594-QA54A7999XODSK2UIFNZ/20211109-CO-4268+%2821%29-Edit-2.jpg Blog - It was quiet warm and comfortable - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://spacecat.art/blog/joshua-tree-dhfest monthly 0.5 2022-06-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/ff49bcbc-6caf-4a08-9ca5-d73cd8733e96/JoshuaTree-macnativeres-1.jpg Blog - Joshua Tree - Make it stand out I’d never seen a Joshua Tree before - they’re quite alien looking. They’re also pretty sharp, I scraped my leg on one while hiking and was surprised how firm those spikes are! ouch! There’s these little fruit-looking bunches on them (they look sort of like banana clusters) and I wondered what they do - do they fall off and does something eat them? I didn’t have service and didn’t look it up. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/4684da48-703c-471b-a23b-d0aa7bf9d9f8/JoshuaTree-macnativeres.jpg Blog - Joshua Tree - Make it stand out This was just behind my site at Jumbo Rocks campground. The sun was setting so I climbed up onto these particular jumbo rocks to catch a look at the warm sunset colors. I saw these two watching it for a bit then they stood up to take photos of each other and I snapped this. I like taking photos of other people taking photos. Feeling pretty tired, I basically just went right back to the van and crashed after this, having successfully taken a sunset photo, haha. This was the first shot on an old roll of Portra 160 VC 120 film (expired 2010) given to me by my friend Jon. I used my Mamiya RB67 with a 90mm lens. I love how the sunset colors came thru on this film. The darker shade in the sky on the left hand side of the frame is some sort of artifact on the film. Not sure if its a color shift from the age of the film or an artifact of processing it. I think it adds to the frame, as it nicely aligns with the people, drawing your eye over to them. As I composed the frame, I aimed to line the people up to be a similar distance from the edge of the frame as the peak on the right hand side as that felt like a nice balance to my eye. The edge tension of the dark yucca on the right also adds some depth in a way that I liked. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/274e55d5-38f3-42c8-8235-5681e4750ffe/JoshuaTree-macnativeres-4.jpg Blog - Joshua Tree - Make it stand out I did a short hike up to the top of some hill I forgot the name of and don’t feel like looking up, haha. It was fairly windy and kept blowing off my hat, so I goofily hiked a lot of it with my hand on top of my head. My other hand was holding my camera bag strap and I laughed to myself thinking I looked like I was hiking while doing that ‘pat your head and rub your belly’ thing. The landscape was pretty and very interesting to me - I always find it amazing that anything can live out in the desert like that. The Joshua Trees dot the landscape along with various bushes and cacti with occasional outcroppings of these giant boulder piles. As I started the hike, two people (mother and son?) started on the trail just before me and were bickering with each other in a really nasty way. It sounded like the mom dragged the son (who looked like mid 20s - not young!) out for the hike and they were going back and forth on whether it was 3 miles or only 1.5, calling each other nasty names and really ripping in to each other. I knew it was 3 mi round-trip but I kept my mouth shut. Listening to them was such a shock after coming from the festival where people were so friendly, playful, and really trying to lift each other up. “holy shit, these people are so miserable! yikes!” I thought to myself then trail ran past them so I didn’t have to listen to it anymore. It made me wonder if they realized how nasty they were being to each other or if they were so caught up in their dynamic that it didn’t even register. A few minutes later, the next folks further up the trail let out such a bubbly giggling laugh as one of them dramatically acted like they were falling over onto an overlooked cactus as they tried to take a photo next to a yucca plant. I stopped and offered to catch a photo of them together on their phone during which they let me in on their little secret: “It is such a lovely day out here today, don’cha think?” I agreed. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/2b3ad7c1-62d8-4462-a691-f4abce770e64/JoshuaTree-macnativeres-2.jpg Blog - Joshua Tree - Make it stand out It was fun to drive the van out here on some of the dirt roads and check out all the Joshua Trees. Some of them are pretty big! After spending the morning driving around a bit and doing that hike, I continued on my way back north. But first, I had to pay to get out of the park! When I got to the entrance to Joshua Tree National Park the day before, I drove up to the little ranger booth with cash in hand for entry only to find out that they didn’t accept cash - card or apple pay only. Hmm, I reached over for my wallet and realized it was somewhere in the back of the van. Not wanting to hold the line up, I asked if I could pull over to find my card and he kindly said “Oh, just pay on your way out, not a problem at all!” That was nice. So as I’m getting ready to make my way out of the park, I stop to find my wallet. The inside of the van was a bit discombobulated after a weekend at the festival, so I wasn’t sure where it was. I generally didn’t bring it in with me into the event since I didn’t need it in there, so I started searching through where I remembered placing it in the van and couldn’t find it. I searched for about half an hour, taking everything out of my backpack, the dufflebag I’d put my clothes in, glove compartment, I popped the up top to check around the sleeping area up there… no wallet! uh oh… Thinking back to the festival, I remembered sitting down during the last 30 mins of the last set looking out over the lake. My phone didn’t sit comfortably in the pocket of pants I was wearing when sitting, so I’d taken my phone out of my pocket. Then a guy came and sat behind me then started talking at my back - he wanted to have a conversation and also wasn’t listening to much of anything I was saying - “him: where are you from? - me: I drove down from Seattle - him: Chicago! I love Chicago! - me: No, Seatt… him: have you ever been to X (place in Chicago)” lol, then he started venting to me about how some volunteers hadn’t shown up to their shift, blah blah. I humored him for a bit, validating his venting - “yeah, that is shitty that they didn’t show up for their shifts. Yeah, the staff definitely puts in a lot of work to put the festival on. You guys work really hard, I see it, and I really appreciate it.” Seemed like he needed to be heard… and simultaneously wasn’t listening to me. Doing emotional labor for an inebriated stranger wasn’t really what I wanted out of the last 15 mins of the last set of the festival, haha, so after declining his offer for a bump of coke, I kindly exfiltrated myself to go back up into the good vibes, dance a bit and, be part of the collective closure of the last 72 hours of music and dancing and good times. That’s all a round about way to get to this bit - about 20 feet after walking away, I realized that I’d left my phone just sitting on the grass there by that dude! I hopped back and picked it up and all was well. Now, looking back though, I’m thinking “oh no, did I leave my wallet sitting on the grass by that dude there and just walk away from it at the festival?” The wallet seemed nowhere to be found in the van. Luckily, I had a decent amount of cash with me as a backup but it’d still be a nightmare if I’d lost my cards, ID, etc. Finally, after finally resigning myself to the looming disaster of the lost wallet, I checked the pocket of a pair of shorts that I didn’t think I’d worn and there it was! Whew! What a relief. I sat back in the van and just stared at the ceiling for a minute, sighing in relief and chuckling to myself. I’d worn the shorts for like 5 minutes total on the trip before deciding they were too warm and then my wallet lived in that abandoned pocket for the entirety of the festival. What a strange and different experience my wallet had that weekend than I did. Wallet now in hand, I made my way out of Joshua Tree National Park and, true to my word, paid on exit. The same guy who waved me through yesterday was there and seemed confused that I was asking to pay on the way out - he must’ve forgotten about his little kindness the day before. Overall, I loved the park. A beautiful and unique environment. It was quiet, scenic, and a nice relaxing spot to stop, decompress, and think back on all the little memories of the festival. https://spacecat.art/blog/kukerartcar-dhfest monthly 0.5 2022-05-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/ab99acc2-6f9b-4937-b6cb-71ec5901cf62/kukerartcar-macnativeres-3.jpg Blog - kuker.art.car @ DHFest - Make it stand out One thing I enjoyed about bringing the Mamiya to the festival was that it was a really slow process to take a photo. I had it on a tripod and it took quite a while to go through finding an angle, focusing, taking out the light meter to figure out exposure, standing around, deciding not to take the shot, chatting with folks, measuring the light again, trying to take a shot but the shutter won’t press, realizing I forgot the dark-slide in so i missed it, and repeat haha. The whole process makes it pretty obvious that you’re taking a photo and the slowness of it seems to invite people into being more candid than when they realize they’re in the frame of an instagram story or with a fancy DSLR pointed at them. “Are you taking a photo?” “I’m thinking about it - I like this perspective looking out over the beach from here, still getting the camera set up” “Am I in the way?” “Uh, you’re in the frame but I wouldn’t say you’re ‘in the way’, just do your thing :)” “Ok… maybe I want to be ‘in the way’, though ;)” https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/9eba731f-f1b2-4829-9a56-8f5fd39ce3f7/DHFest-55-Edit.jpg Blog - kuker.art.car @ DHFest - Make it stand out After chatting with Stani, I offered a group photo of folks who brought the art car to the festival together using some OneInstant peel-apart film I’d brought with me. I shot this with my Mamiya RB67 with a Polaroid back. The way this peel-apart film works is that there’s a vertical reservoir of developer chemicals on the right-hand side of the photo paper and after you expose the paper in the camera, you pull it out through some rollers that smears the chemicals across the paper. I’m not sure if its an issue with my particular polaroid back’s rollers or just the nature of the OneInstant paper itself, but it always seems to get these incomplete smears. I like the effect, though. If I wanted perfect photos, I’d just shoot something digitally :) There’s something about the physical process that makes this shot so interesting to me. The result is delicate, incomplete, and almost fleeting in a way that feels somehow a fitting medium for capturing a fraction of the moment I shared with them. After this photo, we spent some time dancing and chatting about our plans on the playa this year - maybe I’ll track them down again there and gift them another polaroid print of the art car at its intended home. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/31f28766-04e8-4e3b-bba9-3f01466d9257/kukerartcar-macnativeres-2.jpg Blog - kuker.art.car @ DHFest - Make it stand out The sun was hot and intense out there on the beach with my pale Seattle skin, and I was happy that I managed to not get crispy. There were a lot of fun sun parasols around and it made me want one. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/85783901-53be-404c-90b0-d44b41a1c15f/kukerartcar-macnativeres.jpg Blog - kuker.art.car @ DHFest - Make it stand out The first afternoon, I climbed up onto the back with my camera looking to see if it lended any interesting perspectives that might catch my eye for a photo. While there, I had a lovely time chatting with Stani while sitting on the back of it as the whole chassis bounced around from the folks dancing up top. She’d helped build the art car and it was fun to hear about how it was built, the background behind it, and what their hopes were for it. The front mouth area inside is a cushy bed - as people warmed up to it and realized they could interact with it, I enjoyed the funny sight of seeing lounging legs sticking out of the mouth as the whole car sort of bounced around like it was munching on them. She said they started building this second version of it back in 2020 and were taking it on a tour of a few festivals to get some test driving in before the group takes it to Burning Man this year. I didn’t get any photos of the car at night, but it was also fun - there’s lots of lights on it and the disco-ball eyes light up and bounce around. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/e0ce8f81-dfb3-4f65-abb5-6add83dd6682/kukerartcar-macnativeres-1.jpg Blog - kuker.art.car @ DHFest - Make it stand out As I was sitting and chatting with Stani, the dude up top with the orange and green balloons (filled with nitrous oxide) climbed up. He had a yellow glass goblin head pendant around his neck which I recognized from the Glass Alchemy borosilicate glass color demo posters by Mike Shelbo. Not really my personal style vibe but I thought it was cool seeing one of those in the wild (they’re bigger than I expected, maybe 3-4 inches across), so I tried to chat with him about it. He tried to quiz me on who the artist was - I couldn’t remember the name off the top of my head but offered how I recognized it from the Glass Alchemy color demos poster and thought it was cool seeing one in person. He took a sip off his balloon, let out a whip-it laugh and just kind of stared at me. alright, good chat, haha. I went back to chatting with Stani and we both chuckled and felt like the goblin face pendant was the kind of evil spirit that the car was supposed to be warding away. https://spacecat.art/blog/black-rock-desert-dhfest monthly 0.5 2022-05-26 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/c079daa4-a1bb-4985-8f58-e5a0bb9ff0d3/DHFest-46.jpg Blog - Black Rock Desert - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/8ac513cd-4396-487c-81de-20f6f176793c/DHFest-45-Edit.jpg Blog - Black Rock Desert - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/6ff5202f-d545-4842-bd3f-557dd1008cfb/DHFest-47.jpg Blog - Black Rock Desert - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/36395143-f13e-4953-8e9b-db7fd9258d52/van-macnativeres.jpg Blog - Black Rock Desert - Make it stand out Here’s the van parked out on the playa just a few minutes after sunrise. This was shot on the same roll of Portra 160 VC that I used to shoot the Joshua Tree photos in the last post. Both sunrise and sunset out on the playa were gorgeous - it’s such an beautiful and interesting environment. There was a high wind advisory for the area and a steady 15-20mi wind was blowing all through the night and into the morning. I ended up sleeping in the backseat with the top down since the wind gusts during the night had me worrying about how much the pop top could handle. It seemed sturdy but I didn’t want to risk it, since it’s basically a sail on top of the van when its up. I was the only person out on the playa, and only person I saw on most of the drive to/from the area as well, which I enjoyed. In the morning just after sunrise, I saw two deer walking across the playa maybe a quarter-mile away. I wonder where they were going - maybe to one of the hot springs on the other side? I was hoping to spot some stars during the night but the visibility wasn’t great. There were breaks in the clouds, but there must’ve been too much dust and stuff in the air since the stars weren’t overly bright. I’ve seen brighter night skies out in CO and on the Olympic peninsula. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/f6904d04-3a76-429f-ba8c-c82a4d0dc230/DHFest-48.jpg Blog - Black Rock Desert - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://spacecat.art/blog/rollerskating-and-la monthly 0.5 2022-05-31 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/42bf1318-757c-4749-a059-8bcdc9d34835/PXL_20220428_220844929.jpg Blog - Rollerskating and Bonsai and LA - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/3fc04b70-2a03-48b2-be1c-cfa5c599a9e0/PXL_20220428_220501382.MP%7E2.jpg Blog - Rollerskating and Bonsai and LA - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/2edf8fb1-202e-49da-b7eb-138d71c326dc/DHFest-40.jpg Blog - Rollerskating and Bonsai and LA - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/2f5ad0fe-ea9a-4aa3-b2a4-d9c188df322e/PXL_20220428_210925110.MP.jpg Blog - Rollerskating and Bonsai and LA - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/bc247610-d964-406f-a139-0ffeb729cfdc/DHFest-39+%282%29.jpg Blog - Rollerskating and Bonsai and LA - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/28962102-3161-4402-a91b-8e09d6321387/DHFest-41.jpg Blog - Rollerskating and Bonsai and LA - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/2ece50c1-ba00-4924-a6a9-bb2e9f4717b6/PXL_20220428_182735556.jpg Blog - Rollerskating and Bonsai and LA - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://spacecat.art/blog/colorado-trail-21-near-durango monthly 0.5 2022-06-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/171450fd-529a-4761-838f-0347a38a630d/coloradotrail-1.jpg Blog - Colorado Trail ‘21 - Near Durango - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/5267f7b2-05e3-4161-84b8-1721bbb6b265/coloradotrail-3.jpg Blog - Colorado Trail ‘21 - Near Durango - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/fe24356b-842f-42b9-9abc-3402bd26a4c3/coloradotrail.jpg Blog - Colorado Trail ‘21 - Near Durango - Make it stand out The white streaks and dots on the trail is hail. One of the nice things about bringing a film camera hiking is that I didn't worry as much about it getting a little wet compared to something digital. I wouldn't have taken this shot if it weren't for that. https://spacecat.art/blog/colorado-trail-21-molas-lake monthly 0.5 2022-06-04 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/6da88227-0bba-4863-889a-e3421e63af76/molaslake-macnativeres.jpg Blog - Colorado Trail ‘21 - Molas Lake - Make it stand out The view from Molas Lake was gorgeous, and the blue sky weather gave a lovely sunset. I camped a bit outside the campground behind some trees with a nice view of the mountains. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/240cf044-7047-40d8-996a-d2ff042ed902/molaslake-macnativeres-1-2.jpg Blog - Colorado Trail ‘21 - Molas Lake - Make it stand out Chasing a rainstorm going up over a pass the day after my Molas Lake resupply. I joked with some other hikers just on the other side of this pass that they could thank me for the fact that the rain hadn’t yet hit us as I’d done the “sunshine dance” for us all - I put on my rain gear before it started raining, which usually means the rain won’t ever materialize and you’ll just hike in your steamy rain gear. Once you take off the gear and stash it back into your bag, though, that’s when it’ll surely start to rain. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/488300b3-f361-4c40-8dec-80db21059f93/molaslake-macnativeres-2.jpg Blog - Colorado Trail ‘21 - Molas Lake - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/e678c42e-b78f-43c6-b531-d1597fa3d681/molaslake-macnativeres-3.jpg Blog - Colorado Trail ‘21 - Molas Lake - Make it stand out A lot of the other hikers I’d been around had planned their last stop for Silverton. A few miles before the Molas Lake campground, the trail passed over the Silverton - Durango rail line and hikers could flag down the train to get a ride into town (and pay for the ride when they get on). That sounded fun, but I didn’t have enough time for a big diversion like that, so I was glad that I’d just shipped a box to the campground, which was right off the trail. https://spacecat.art/blog/colorado-trail-21-a-day-at-13k-ft monthly 0.5 2022-06-09 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/75464eba-9675-47ff-92ed-25c97034eb07/CO-4277+%2811%29-Edit-Edit-3.jpg Blog - Colorado Trail ‘21 - a day at 13k ft - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/4854d330-366c-4eed-a89a-46adc0965c06/CO-4277+%2826%29-Edit-Edit-3.jpg Blog - Colorado Trail ‘21 - a day at 13k ft - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/34ee407f-870f-4b8b-813a-79a4244db362/CO-4277+%287%29-Edit.jpg Blog - Colorado Trail ‘21 - a day at 13k ft - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/df92efe7-b264-4dfa-bfbd-f59484398693/CO-3810+%2831%29-Edit-Edit.jpg Blog - Colorado Trail ‘21 - a day at 13k ft - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/bf3f6ae7-ecba-439f-a1e9-a3f7a9232b31/CO-4277+%2816%29-Edit.jpg Blog - Colorado Trail ‘21 - a day at 13k ft - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/292f404f-9b7a-4b37-ae66-5af833715c09/CO-3810+%2834%29-Edit.jpg Blog - Colorado Trail ‘21 - a day at 13k ft - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://spacecat.art/blog/more-art-cars-dhfest monthly 0.5 2022-06-06 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/eacb3874-f242-4084-97ae-c06b06276e2a/dhfest-2.jpg Blog - More Art Cars @ DHFest - Make it stand out The dragon car and a fur-covered bike. At night, when the music moved to the in-land grassy stage, the art cars would also migrate in there. Other than that, the cars were stationary throughout the festival, though. This one was shot on Portra 800. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/bc43e522-c2b2-44f2-b3e1-745cdc1fb9d5/dhfest.jpg Blog - More Art Cars @ DHFest - Make it stand out These first two shots were taken on transparency film - Fujifilm’s Fujichrome Velvia 50. This was the first time I’d shot Velvia 50 and I’m in love with the vibrancy of the colors. I was using a simple incident light meter to figure out exposure settings, which worked well in the uniform daytime light out on the beach. I was a little worried about how the shots would turn out, since previous attempts at shooting Kodak’s transparency film Ektachrome 100 for some outdoor landscape photos showed that it was very sensitive to exposure, where shots turned out fairly muted if I got the exposure off by a bit. Maybe I got the exposures right this time, maybe Velvia 50 is more forgiving, I’m not sure. Regardless, these shots came out beautifully vibrant and really match what I remember the scene looking like at the time. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/ad11dec3-7b9c-440f-96a8-956ed0662b4d/dhfest-4.jpg Blog - More Art Cars @ DHFest - Make it stand out The back of the dragon had steps where you could climb up onto the back. It made for a nice perch to look over the party, and lots of people climbed up and danced around on it. These last two were also shot on that same roll of Velvia 50. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/2d850d81-3639-471f-9c2a-fa5b8e398b05/dhfest-1.jpg Blog - More Art Cars @ DHFest - Make it stand out I particularly like the pineapple. It’s decked out with LEDs and is basically just a bed on wheels. Lots of folks lounged around on it throughout the fest, and one night I watched as a group of probably 20 friends, all dressed up in pineapple onesies gleefully gathered around it as their unexpected temple. At DHFest, the pineapple was mostly stationary. Seemed like the fest didn’t want anyone to get run over on accident - understandable. When I saw it at DB Campout, though, I remember it driving all around, and at one point even trying to slowly drive into the big crowd at the main stage. It also had its own speakers on it and was its own moving party into the early morning once the scheduled festival sets stopped at night. The proliferation of renegade parties at DB Campout are definitely a fun contrast to DHFest’s one-stage-one-vibe atmosphere. I like both of them in their own ways. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/5ed02f79-5e8a-4acc-81a8-21a5b2a132c2/dhfest-3.jpg Blog - More Art Cars @ DHFest - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://spacecat.art/blog/berlin-analog-photos monthly 0.5 2022-08-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/cf120a5a-554b-41e1-ab43-5844101d257a/Berlin-10.jpg Blog - Berlin Thru Analog Photos - Make it stand out I saw these photo booths in various places across the city - they had a nostalgic charm to them that attracted all sorts of folks. The physical realness and immediacy of experience offered by the photo booth is refreshing and exciting in our world of ephemeral social media distraction. I increasingly feel that the ubiquity of low effort digital photos that immediately disappear into vanishing void of the social media vortex is driving the resurgence of physical and analog media. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/f70d54f1-bf80-4773-aeb4-b62c07bf48be/Berlin-04.jpg Blog - Berlin Thru Analog Photos - Make it stand out The same photo booth as above but later in the night. The soft glow of “Photoautomat” felt increasingly romantic as the night drew on. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/a456d87e-1bb0-4c3d-b714-7dfa07b47628/Berlin-19.jpg Blog - Berlin Thru Analog Photos - Make it stand out One of my shots from the photo walk. The scooter was “locked” onto the bike rack but the lock didn’t actually loop through anything on the scooter. The whole scene had an “overlooked” feeling where people had clearly been present to create everything in the scene but none of the human influence felt recent. When was the last time someone walked through that door? Today? Last year? I couldn’t tell. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/6ca8b7f4-aedb-433c-a9e4-96b806641894/Berlin-08.jpg Blog - Berlin Thru Analog Photos - Make it stand out I found a lot of spaces like this across the city, where people could hang out and loiter with friends without the need to consume. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/7055a1b2-7820-45c9-af7f-b086bca567b1/Berlin-09.jpg Blog - Berlin Thru Analog Photos - Make it stand out The tan/orange/blue aesthetic of this one felt very 1970’s to me. I wonder how long this one’s been around. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/180db87e-42b8-469d-a81e-18409d732a06/Berlin-18.jpg Blog - Berlin Thru Analog Photos - Make it stand out We came across this while on the photo walk and joked about how quintessentially Berlin the sentiment was. Everything everywhere was always better last year. https://spacecat.art/blog/berlin-transit monthly 0.5 2022-08-11 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/4322a54f-1e9f-43c5-938d-8bd278a419b5/Berlin-14.jpg Blog - Berlin Thru Transit - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/be774b20-a36c-4c63-b240-de2bfe6febcf/Berlin-07.jpg Blog - Berlin Thru Transit - Make it stand out This was the east-facing view from the Modersohnbruecke looking out at the Ostkreuz S-Bahn station. I enjoyed watching the trains pass by. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/c8fa179e-2100-4996-aa55-dfadd213db0e/Berlin-06.jpg Blog - Berlin Thru Transit - Make it stand out This bridge spanned some rail tracks with a nice view of the city skyline in the distance. Each evening, people would gather on the west-facing side of the bridge with a bottle of beer or wine and hang out looking over the sunset. It was a very chill vibe with occasional bikes riding by over the bridge. I don’t remember a single car crossing the bridge in the time I sat there, which I really appreciated. If you look closely in the middle left of this pic, you can see a strange color artifact in the scan. I’m not sure the cause of that, maybe something to do with color clippings or insufficient washing of the film, but it’s something I’ve started noticing when using the Epson V600 to scan that I didn’t notice with the Plustek Opticfilm 8100. With one experiment, I tried wiping the spot on the film with a clean microfiber cloth and it seemed to lessen the artifact, so maybe it’s some sort of oily sheen on the film that’s being picked up differently. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/23c42f09-c783-4a60-b723-2883adac90d2/Berlin-13.jpg Blog - Berlin Thru Transit - Make it stand out Overlooking a bike lane over by the Technikmuseum. The bike lanes were abundant and generally safe feeling - not once did I find myself spit out onto a treacherous bike line threading through trucks with no barrier protection (something common back home). https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/242f75d9-a168-4cd7-be16-cfb2535b1f86/Berlin-15.jpg Blog - Berlin Thru Transit - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://spacecat.art/blog/burning-man-temple monthly 0.5 2022-09-10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/11ce50a9-2fa4-4610-b7ab-34acafaca5ce/burningman-9.jpg Blog - Burning Man - Temple Ritual - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/34b02607-0aa9-41bb-91a4-93c05b3205c6/burningman-8.jpg Blog - Burning Man - Temple Ritual - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/f1ae375c-469e-46ef-84f6-6d8c9201dacb/burningman-7.jpg Blog - Burning Man - Temple Ritual - Make it stand out Feeling myself thoroughly honored in the ritual, I slowly made my way back out and onto my bike to quietly explore deep playa and reflect on the experience. Eventually, I came across an art piece with a single blinking red light and some glowing words of support dug into the playa speaking towards letting go and stepping forward into life. It had a book and a sharpie in it, asking folks to “sign the guest book”, and so I stood - alone in the dark deep playa, all of burning man happening behind me, and I wrote: https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/13577a9f-46b6-4195-94a8-42992d3ef246/burningman-6.jpg Blog - Burning Man - Temple Ritual - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://spacecat.art/blog/tiger-art-bike monthly 0.5 2022-09-13 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/640e151f-f3c9-4adb-abd5-3a8316c02dc4/IMG_0130+copy.jpg Blog - Burning Man - Tiger Art Bike - Make it stand out Another in-progress fur-ing photo. I’d originally planned to put tiger stripes on all the pieces of the back frame/rack but ended up liking how the original blue paint went with the other tiger furred pieces so I kept some parts exposed. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/074c0fa6-685a-4157-a532-4dfe2749f0f9/IMG_0099.jpg Blog - Burning Man - Tiger Art Bike - Make it stand out It started with a beach cruiser that I picked up off of craigslist. The wider tires, and more upright riding position of the beach cruiser make for a more comfortable playa bike. It also had a kick stand on which I put a tennis ball to keep it from digging in to the playa which helps a lot when parking. It does have a rear derailleur, which is a common source of broken bike woes on the playa, but I didn’t have any issues with it this burn. The playa dust is extremely fine and gets in and on everything, so the simpler the mechanics the more reliable time you’ll generally have. Also, keeping the wide tires under-inflated helps both give a smoother ride and avoids flats as the sun and high temperatures cook the bike during the day. It also had a happy-sounding “get out of my way” bell, which quickly got filled with playa dust and was a source of joy as it slowly stopped working. Well, it kept working but not on-demand. The dust froze up the little ringer thumb lever which I eventually accidentally MOOPed while riding one night as the plastic failed and snapped off and disappeared into the night. The bell, however would then randomly start jingling from time to time from bumps in the playa - a wonderful little happy song emanating from the nuances of dust. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/7ff1508f-507b-44fd-b56f-10ef85ed4cd9/IMG_0115+copy+2.jpg Blog - Burning Man - Tiger Art Bike - Make it stand out I bought some tiger stripe fur from my wonderful local fabric and crafts shop Stitches and spent between 30-40 hours meticulously cutting and glueing the fabric on the frame. I was careful to keep the mechanical bits accessible so that I could service the bike without having to remove the fur. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/3a1cfea7-f651-4f17-a643-1e5a9981a149/burningman-16.jpg Blog - Burning Man - Tiger Art Bike - Make it stand out Whatever it is, the way you tell your story online can make all the difference. https://spacecat.art/blog/burning-man-black-rock-philharmonic monthly 0.5 2022-10-01 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/6b26fc5c-ae5a-4cc1-a12e-6d213b8afb9a/burningman-2-2.jpg Blog - Burning Man - Black Rock Philharmonic - Make it stand out Action shot. The strings were tuning here during a rehearsal at camp Frozen Oasis so I held up my trombone in front of the camera as if I was playing, too, haha. https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/9e96061a-b488-44ab-a1b7-bc74294db537/burningman-1-2.jpg Blog - Burning Man - Black Rock Philharmonic - Make it stand out Our Thursday performance was in the evening out at the art structure Paradisium - a group of tree-like structures that you could climb up into and walk between across small bridges. This was my favorite performance of the week. I felt like I played my best, and the orchestra as a whole also sounded the most vibrantly together that night. A lot of friends from my camp also came out to this show and it really warmed my heart to be able to share this experience with them. https://spacecat.art/blog/category/hiking monthly 0.5 https://spacecat.art/blog/category/photography monthly 0.5 https://spacecat.art/blog/tag/film+photography monthly 0.5 https://spacecat.art/blog/tag/colorado+trail monthly 0.5 https://spacecat.art/blog/tag/hiking monthly 0.5 https://spacecat.art/blog/tag/film monthly 0.5 https://spacecat.art/about daily 0.75 2021-11-10 https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/6185eda96e78f3137da17054/1636168397183-UY4P06YT142WDCTC404Y/20200829-2020-08-28+%2813%29-Edit.jpg About - meet the artist~