In 2017, I was focused on writing and hadn’t done much with photography in several years. I got the idea to do a romantic photoshoot on disposable cameras after my friend Alison had some disposables at her birthday picnic—the sun and heat overexposed the film and the picnic photos came out soft and dreamy. On October 28th, my cousin Felina and I lugged several enormous bags of wardrobe changes and two disposable cameras all over town, for eight hours, without snacks.
We climbed trees, we laid in grass, we got in the freezing river. I had a ton of hairspray and glitter spray in my hair, later joined by sticks and leaves from the James, and when I finally climbed out of the water after we shot our last frame, I said, “My hair is a thicket of trash right now.”
And here we are.
That photoshoot, and before it, @alisonbeshai ‘s birthday picnic, inspired a return to photography and the super fun, incredibly rewarding journey the last eight years have been.
Thanks y’all 🩷
(If you have any knowledge of my “magnolia foot,” that’s actual footage of me contracting it in slide 9.)
In October I finished a full first draft of a novel and met a few friends and family in the park to celebrate.
I’ve been trying to write a whole book for a long time and recently it dawned on me that I got it done during a year that I was often sick with the onset of an autoimmune disorder. The timing of my illness was actually probably helpful—I cleared a lot of my life last year. I couldn’t leave my house sometimes, and when I could, sitting in a library or a cafe was exactly my speed. I didn’t take many photos or table at any markets except my very dear zine fests. I didn’t work on many other projects or do much else at all—I wrote.
I wrote nearly every day after work for a while. I came home from wherever I was writing and wrote some more, then I brushed my teeth and wrote in bed. Towards the end of the draft when everything had gelled entirely in my head and all I had to do was get it on paper, I wrote while I waited for a friend to pick me up to go out, I wrote for five minutes in the middle of washing dishes, i wrote out loud into a voice note app while I drove, while I showered. I wrote, I wrote, I wrote.
An author told me that he gave up running to write a book because there wasn’t time for both and I feel that. He’s since written like five. Writing a book is an incredibly intensive, tedious process. It takes so much time and attention—I think I would have finished a long time ago if I didn’t like taking photos so much. In truth I’ve partially resented how much time photography has taken from work on this book, because my only true goal in life is to write books for a living.
But 2025 was a good reset and cleared so much space in my life to get back to what’s important. And I’m grateful for that. I have a lot of editing and querying and crying left to do on the book and it feels good to have the space to do it. People ask me about writing all the time but often can’t seem to figure out what they want to ask—sometimes figuring out what you need just happens to you but a good place to start is clearing the time and space your writing needs 🧹
1st shot is iPhone, rest are 35mm
Today is my dad’s birthday—he would have been 79 years old.
I love you, Dad. Happy birthday. I hope it’s rad wherever you are. Though I have a feeling my dad is fascinated by the afterlife.
Around this time in 2024, me and @vileator and @pjmartin__ went down to the spot to do skateboard shit
and I shot these photos on @lomography LomoChrome Metropolis
Josh is always super fun to shoot because he’s fearless on a board and will keep at a trick until he lands it, no matter how battered
I also shot a little four-minute video this day that I couldn’t tack on this post but might share later! 🤙🏼
