During the final Junior Photo class of the semester I presented work from most of our fieldtrips in terms of aesthetic and thematic experiments.
Bypass
Yolo Bypass 2023
The farmland and levees that we traveled along the Yolo Bypass are just that, something you can miss. Places and jobs that we’ve stopped thinking about as our economic machine turns out supply for an increasing demand. But what about the rice fields, broken bridges, and old machines that no one talks about anymore? What about the burning fields that keep these places of product protected? A set of processes that we ignore in a system we don’t understand anymore and something by building a bypass to avoid.
Sublime
UC Davis 2023
The arboretum and student farms came late in the field trip process. Our last foray into the wild and unknown nature of social practice. What I found was a strange aspect of peace and these photos represent a sense of curiosity about what comes next. I impose a sense of wonder in these photographs. Almost too bright to see. An obscured horizon and an uncertain future, but content, nonetheless.
Athenaeum
Sacramento Library 2023
A place of great spectacle and also knowledge. I felt at home in a place of learning yet amazing by the odd angles and shadows that were cast. Where even bookshelves mold their own strange shapes. It was the second half of our first-class trip and served as a good starting point. Framing our minds first in the academic relationships with the society around us that students are well immersed in only to strip that environment from us. There is safety and wonder in these photographs. A place where you want to spend time and let the world pass around you.
Urban Trash
Eggery, Oak Park 2023
The Eggery was a strange place secreted away in a small plot on a quiet street. It reminded me of the streets where I live. There is quiet but also a grime to its nature. I took these photos knowing I would do something with them eventually. It was around the time when I was looking more critically at my own home and its shades of gray. A feeling of familiarity in the broken, the discarded, and the unwanted. In a place meant to give back to the community you find these objects reused and perhaps even appreciated once more.
Melody Morose
San Francisco 2023
This collection of photos was taken at Nigel Poor's studio in San Francisco. These photos represent a melancholy represented in the harsh industrial landscape of the shipping yard. An indescribable sullenness even when you're surrounded by others. A morose feeling and a melody of photos. Visual music in its cohesion and at the same time ill-tempered in its theme.
Nature Industrial
San Francisco
The second trip to San Francisco and my third time ever being in the city left me with strange feelings about the colossal space I only inhabited for a short time. The golden gate with the center of the odd fixation I felt at the time. This monument commented in every American child's imagination felt even bigger in person. An odd spectacle standing against the city itself. Smog and fog covered, obscured from our eyes. It makes you realize everything is built and changed. The shoreline artificial, and the rolling hills conquered by monumental architecture. It has naturally evolved and changed but not naturally, certainly not biologically.
