2008
Joel, Painted Hills, Oregon, 2008
Last week I shared some sort-of recent film work from 2019-2020 and it made me a little bit nostalgic for the years when I was REALLY into film and the process of shooting/developing. To be honest, I feel more nostalgic for the processes than I do for the times and experiences captured in the images, even though the work from this era is MUCH more personal, diaristic, and sincere than what I do now. I was young, I was doing exciting things with exciting people and I had to document every silly second of it.
New Years Eve, Holocene, Portland, Oregon, 2008
When I was looking back at old pictures I felt like I should focus on specific years and it made sense to start with 2008. Up to that point in my life 2008 was the year when the most stuff happened. I traveled the most miles, the most people died, I had the most fun, and I had the best friends. It was a peak. I tend to blend anything that happened between 2007-2009 together as 2008, it is all kind of a blur but I promise that every photo included here is from 2008 proper.
Joel, cabin camping at Champoeg State Park, Oregon
It's worth noting that at some point in 2007 as my grandparents' health started to decline, one of them sent me a 35mm point and shoot, a Kodak K-40. It's not a camera that people talk about, it has no hipster cred the way that The T4 gets talked about or The Olympus XA. Maybe with good reason, it's just a plasticy, consumer-grade camera but damn, it worked really well. I named it "Colleen" after my grandmother and I started using it in earnest on New Years Eve for a night of partying and dancing. I remember Niles wearing a suit and Ryan Jacob Smith putting tin foil on his teeth to look like a grill.
Eastern Oregon Road Trip with Joel and Shawn
Both of my maternal grandparents died that year, which meant more travel, and actually more inherited camera gear from my grandfather, who worked in insurance and had a bunch of cameras for documenting boat damage or whatever.
Shawn and Marybeth in Col. Summer Park in Portland
I remember 2008 as being the last time I had a bunch of friends in New York (many of them moved to Portland actually) so it was the last time I could easily slum around the city without paying for anything.
Various Brooklyn things
Various PNW Summer things
Outtakes from a shoot for the "Disease and Disorder" issue of the Expensive Shit for Wealthy People zine. OOOOHH very eerie, all of the photos I took had people wearing masks and PPE. I can predict the future apparently.
NOEL/JC & The Killers Halloween show to celebrate the release of the aforementioned E.S.F.W.P. zine. Video from that night can be found here.
East Coast summer visit, first time using medium format film, shot on an annoying LOMO Diana. I thought it was funny that I walked around everywhere with a Colleen and a Diana .
Despite feeling like my life was great at the time, various things (death of grandparents, death of friends, relationship stuff) led me to make the decision to move back east near the end of 2008. It was a terrible idea, but the road trip across the country was the most thorough cross country trip I've ever taken, and brought me to many new places.
I forget this guy's name. He was a San Francisco legend. I gave him $5 and he played "Hound Dog."
Big Sur, it really made an impression on me. I had never been so moved by a landscape before. Just standing on a coastal road and looking out above AND below the clouds at the same time.
Somewhere in Nevada
New Mexico
Classic Texas stuff
Mississippi
The Sunsphere in Knoxville, built for The World's Fair but mostly notable for being the setting for the episode of The Simpsons where Bart and his friends go on a road trip and get stranded in Knoxville. In the episode this tower is full of boxes of unsold wigs.
After a depressing New England winter (and finding out that all of my east coast friends had either moved away or had serious drug problems) I decided to move back to Portland and start attending PNCA. Within 10 months of returning I met the woman I'd end up marrying. The fun and wild vibe of the city and my friends had changed. It was all part of the journey. No regerts.
