Nov. 8, 2011

I need a distraction tonight, and it's a little embarrassing to admit that it was only after I'd exhausted all my possibilities for drinks with friends with whom drinks would be relaxing and not stressful that I realized that settling into the groove of photo editing would do the trick just as well.

These are some photos from Pittsburgh from my little Rollei 35mm from the 70s. I actually lied I have another Pittsburgh roll kicking around somewhere, but I think I still need to scan the negatives in so it'll be another long while.





















Look at that face. I love my friends.

I am going to Japan in fifteen days. I have done no research and prepared nothing. I will miss three Microwave Engineering classes, two Backpacking classes, four Soils Science classes plus a lab, three Yoga Philosophy classes and one Sustainability class. I am already behind in most of these classes.

My study abroad application to Russia was accepted, but I've gotten no scholarships thus far from the program. I think I will probably go even though it will put me fifteen thousand deeper in the hole and stretch my undergrad to six years.

It feels like I'm blindly and recklessly charging forward in the way I do. ...But I guess that's what I do. I think it'll be alright.

Life's good.

By the time photos like these have made the rounds of Facebook, Google+, Flickr, and Blogger I am pretty sick of it all. How do people deal with it? Anyway, onwards and upwards.

California was magical. San Francisco is a full day's drive down from Oregon and so it was night when we got there, but we did a little wandering around with the friend whose apartment we were going to be crashing at. Something I didn't realize about my relationship with western Oregon is that it's lowered my standards for the dryness of weather significantly. So when we were walking around near Oakland and it was sweatshirt-warm and NOT RAINING and the smell of delicious blooming flowers was drifting on the night air? Nothing short of magical. I remember thinking how lovely it was that it was still March and spring seemed to already be in full swing in the Bay Area. One or two rainy days out of four? You've still got my experiences in Oregon beat, SF.



I was rather drawn by all the new and different things people had growing in their front yards.








Seeing as how I fall in love with every big city I ever visit, San Francisco stole my easily-impressed little-girl heart.







I wasn't going to include this photo, but check out the sign on the awning.










The nice thing about cross-processed film is that I don't feel obligated to bother with color-balancing and it usually turns out good-looking anyway. Downsides are lack of subtler values and frustrating outcomes of neutral colors.






My lack of botanical knowledge is showing here, but I have no idea what these trees are and I want to know. In the land of palm trees and generally colorful flowers and plants and things, these trees seemed kind of out of place. Do they bloom and then look more (traditionally) nice? I dunno...




This was from the end of our first day of walking around the city. It was already starting to get dark and my blisters (though not unbearable) were making their presence known. Sharply. Anyway, while my current hometown has a number of graffitied empty husks of pay phones, I'd never before seen the ATM equivalent.


There was only one other day that I spent properly seeing stuff in San Francisco, and that day involved a stroll through Chinatown, and the eventual arrival at the end goal of the day: the Golden Gate Bridge.







Wonton spent our time in Chinatown searching little hole-in-the-wall places for something I don't remember the name of, but which was described as a Chinese tamale. Sticky rice, sometimes egg, some kind of meat, all wrapped in banana leaf. And in this case, tied up with string. My stomach was in the middle of a period of unhappiness so I never ate mine, and so sadly have no feedback. Though Wonton did find a tiny bit of surprise sausage amongst the turkey/chicken/something that was the bulk of his tamale thing.




So, San Francisco is kind of big. And the Golden Gate Bridge is like way off in the corner. It took a lot of walking to get there. "Dammit," said Wonton more than once, "why can't the bridge be in the middle of the city?"




By the time we got there it was dark and incredibly foggy.




The experience ended up being really surreal. Gazing up, the cables and towers would just disappear into the fog, and looking out from the bridge into this dense, monochrome sheet of fog gave an odd feeling of floating in nowhere.




Unfortunately photo opportunities without a tripod were scarce. This is a photo straight up one of the towers.




Over the four days I was in California I split my time between the Bay Area and Santa Cruz (which may be classified as part of the Bay Area for all I know). I didn't shoot too much in Santa Cruz, but there is a roll of B&W film somewhere that has some more photos from there on it.


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I like the worldview-broadening powers of rejuvenation that even the shortest trips seem to have.

X-processed Fujichrome Sensia 200, exp. 01.2011