Campus Noir

How last semester felt.

Maybe I should submit these to BYU Magazine.

Will to Power

Artisan

"Last night was the best night of my life."

Outside it's a beautiful day

Finding the Stallion in the Colt

This is Matt McDonald.

Taking in Water

Tintagel, England; Summer 2009

Joey's Guitar

Joey Burns of Calexico and his guitar. From Calexico's performance at the Urban Lounge, SLC, August 10, 2011.

Ride On

At the 2011 Tour of Utah in SLC

Telefunken

Kräftig, oder?

"a little willingness to see"

Antelope Island State Park. On flickr.

Antelope Island

Antelope Island, UT. On flickr.

My first visit to Antelope Island was a very nice experience. As was shooting this roll of Walgreens 400 speed. Something about these cheap rolls of film that I just really like. I took about a dozen shots with my D40 and didn't like any of them (except maybe one). I suspect the digital pictures could have turned out better if I'd exerted a more disciplined rigor toward shooting with a D40. But no matter how much effort I'd put into those digital shots, they still wouldn't look like this.

All That Could Have Been

A recurring pattern: I load the film, and fry the first image. Keeps me humble. Or something. A reminder that the whole process is rather delicate and it doesn't take much for your world to vanish. Still, from the look of that water, I'll bet this would have been the best oceanscape on the roll.

Waiting for the Man

Outside the Fourth District Juvenile Court, Orem

Self-Conscious Waterfall

Also found at LDS Earth Stewardship

I took this picture at BYU's south campus stream and trail, a landscaping/restoration project completed in April 2011. It was apparently quite a project, and thus somewhat amusingly became an Event.

I admit, it looks nice. But there's something rather (to use my brother's description) self-conscious about this project. My picture doesn't show the stream, or the trail, but shows one of five waterfalls along the stream and trail. It also shows how badly BYU's landscaping team wants to create a natural scene. But by wanting a natural look that also imbues each waterfall with "its own personality" (Bruce Maw, BYU Campus Landscape Architect) they have constructed a natural look that is so calculated as to become unnatural. It's basically an outdoor set piece, where nature is a prop used primarily for our personal pleasure, rather than an autonomous group of systems that each have their own patterns of behavior.

I appreciate having a place for students to "get away from it all" and enjoy some nature - I want that, too. It's important to have gardens and responsibly integrate nature into the urban space. But I get uncomfortable when part of the motivation seems to be to construct a superficial image of beauty and prosperity that values nature solely for what it can do for us, something to be tamed and controlled. BYU sits at the foot of the Rocky Mountains, where trails aplenty take you out of the city and human-constructed natural landscapes into much more vibrant, rejuvenating and adventurous territory. I worry that creating such docile and predictable spaces hinders us from taking nature on its own terms, where it is not simply a submissive prop. We think we know how best to handle the environment, which is hardly true considering the strain Utah Valley, and BYU, put on our desert environment.

The south campus stream and trail is a nice gesture, but it's incomplete. For my part, the south campus stream and trail still lacks a genuine personality, and instead displays a self-conscious and somewhat superficial personality I too often find at the university.

Turn on the Bright Lights

Pretentious

I don't typically do self-portraits for rather apparent reasons. But I had a roll to finish and my creativity was exhausted.

"Was ist die Befindlichkeit des Landes?"

Potsdamer Platz, Berlin; summer 2008

One of those lucky moments. This picture still just charms me and it's probably my favorite picture from Berlin. I don't think we have to be city people to be fascinated by the city and urbanity. Berlin is without a doubt my favorite big city and I'm hoping for the chance to go back.

Cascade

On flickr

Another shot from way back that seemed appropriate after this post. I'm still very fond of this one.

Broken, Pt. 3

Somewhere in SLC.

So It Goes

First time shooting Ilford HP5. I'm glad I have two more rolls of the stuff.