Beige of buildings against blue of sky.
















I can't read the rest of it, but the bold letters at the bottom of the sign say: "...and in the blockaded Leningrad." This was outside an exhibit of lilies at the botanical garden.




My view for the first couple months.

These are some of my final shots in Oregon. The roll of film extends from Oregon, through the flights, and ends in Russia. It was also a lab in Russia that gave me back these... unusual scans. At first I thought I'd be able to just take the strip of out-of-place image and join it with its counterpart, but when I tried this I found out that there was stuff missing in between. You'll see the results. Ah, the joys of shooting film. Mmmm :)




My trusty bicycle in my trusty alley!




I had my first Russian class in the first floor of this building.




The back door of the trashy club downtown that closed at 2, spilling its drunk, and loud couples and singles and weirdos onto the streets of Corvallis and the alley outside my window.




This was in Portland, shortly before my friend showed me a nice cafe that serves this dirt-tasting tea out of big white bowls.







My first photo in Russia. Seems fitting.

Today was good. For one, although it is Christmas (and a White Christmas, to no one's surprise), people here don't celebrate that today, so I didn't have to play the game where I try to skirt around the questions about my planned whereabouts in order to avoid friends' invites to spend the day with them and their families so I can just get shit done. AND, stores and things are actually up and running today so I could indeed get shit done. Double win. I bought peanut butter today.

For two, I met some for reals analog photography enthusiasts. As soon as I told these guys I was into photography, the gear started coming out. Cameras were pulled from backpacks, B&W film followed. A tripod was brought from a corner. The great thing is that they were at an English lesson. It's not like this was a photo outing; they just carry it all around with them all the time. Atta boys.

Rainy weather plus mood slump plus short days has equaled a lull in shooting for me, but my goal is to capture some of the sweet holiday lights before the holidays are over, and hopefully this unexpected meeting of photographers will be motivation enough. In the meantime, I just got back five rolls of film that I'd been letting pile up. Here's: the seagull my host mother feeds from her kitchen window; the friend with lovely freckles in her eye; the Beatles alleyway in St. Petersburg; and the statue atop the Alexander column, the posture of which I adore even though I am usually not into those kinds of things.