Life After Death

Pittsburgh skyline from West End Park.

I just spent the last week in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 890 miles away from where I currently am in Minnesota, celebrating the life of a musician I only met twice. I saw Mac Miller in concert three times before he passed, and I’m thankful for every single memory, photo, and video I have of those experiences. There were hundreds of people across North America there, all for the same reason: to celebrate his life and our shared experience with his music.

It was an insanely powerful experience from start to finish, and I met people that I’d known online for upwards of three years. We came together as a group of fans, and left as a family (cheesy I know). I had the fortunate experience to photograph a lot of it. From moments of friends reuniting for the first time in a year, to people so encapsulated in the music they were blaring through Blue Slide Park that their existence in that moment was the only thing that truly mattered.

Everywhere you looked, there were people laughing, crying, and smiling about the grand event they were experiencing in real time, right in front of them. People from all walks of life coming together to celebrate one person and all the art they created throughout their lifetime. It’s hard not to smile about.

I’ve learned over the years that photographing things like this event, to tiny moments in simple life can be a comfort long after moment has passed. I’ll be looking at these little snippets of my life until the day I die, appreciative for my chance to finally go and experience it myself. I’ve looked at pictures of my friends I’ve taken, and come to appreciate them even more after I’ve had some friends pass.

Like the pictures or videos of Mac I took a long time ago, I visit them time and time again and try and relive those moments as best as I can possibly muster. Most of us have unfortunately experienced the death of a loved one, close friend, or pet, and that pain never truly goes away, the empty space and sharp pains just dull to an ache.

After spending an entire weekend celebrating the life of one person, I couldn’t help but think about another.

When I dropped out of school back in 2016, I moved back to Rochester, and cut off pretty much everyone I was close with. I was struggling with my mental health severely, and at the time, I don’t think I wanted to bother them with it. Michelle and Dustin took me under their wing pretty much as soon as I moved to Mankato. Michelle got me into rock climbing, got me the job at the rock wall at my school there, and Dustin opened up the world of what was possible with the sport, taking me climbing to places I’d never been before.

When things got really tough in 2016, Dustin and Michelle took me in and gave me a bed to sleep in, a backyard to relax in, two dogs to snuggle with, and an amazing set of friends all built into one little house. I was still struggling immensely, but I had a web of support around me for the first time in my life. I can never repay them for that.

Once the semester was over, I dropped out of school, and dropped off the face of the planet, leaving everyone behind. I didn’t want to bother them with my issues, completely avoiding any history where they had helped me considerably through those very same issues. I left behind all my friends and tried to bury my feelings in Rochester. For a few years I was just going through the motions, trying to get better so I could return to Mankato stronger for the people that made me feel at home for the first time.

I lived with my grandpa once I dropped out of school, he had broken his hip, and my family didn’t want him going to a home. I was working full time, taking care of my grandpa (read bribing him with muffins to shower), and raising a puppy for my first year back in Rochester.

In April of 2017, I was taking Miah out late at night, and she ran into my grandpa’s room like she usually did, to jump up on his bed and lick him until she got a reaction out of him. This time she jumped up, and I didn’t hear him yelling “MIRAH STOP” for the first time. I rushed into the room, flipped on the light, and saw an empty bed. I found him laying next to his bed on the floor, barely conscious, and called 911. He died less than a week later in the ICU due to a brain bleed.

I hardly took any pictures or videos of him, and now he was gone. I forgot to take my meds the following two weeks, and was in absolute shambles. Walking into the house, empty, not greeted by my grandpa tapping his wrist with no watch on it, was uncomfortable. No Judge Judy, no Grey’s Anatomy, just silence. O’Malley would jump down from wherever he was perched and rub against my leg, and I would hear Miah wake up upstairs. The next few months droned on, feeling like a sort of limbo as I watched over the house, the cat, and a dog.

I was in and out of social media, not really paying attention to anything but doom scrolling. I knew Michelle and Dustin were going to be having a baby, and I remember seeing the posts when their daughter was finally born. I checked out again for nearly 9 months before I found out Michelle had passed. I ran into Dustin at Costco a month or two later, hugged him, and saw their daughter in a carriage. I nearly asked where Michelle was. I was climbing at the local gym 6 months later where two people from Mankato happened to be climbing, and I mentioned getting Michelle and Dustin to host another Friendsgiving when their faces just dropped. They sat me down and told me what happened. I sat there for a few minutes swimming in every thought swirling around in my head, and in more than likely a state of shock, just kept climbing. Those moments haven’t left my mind since.

The guilt of not knowing about Michelle’s passing has eaten at me since, and spending an entire weekend celebrating a musician’s life only aggravated it. To say Michelle was a huge positive force in my life, and still is to this day, would be an understatement. I can not put into words what Michelle, Dustin, and everyone else from that time in my life means to me, and how appreciative I am to have known them.

Give your friends their flowers while they are still alive and can still smell them. And please, for the love of all that is good in this world, take pictures and videos of your friends and loved ones, because one day they may be your most cherished memories.

Thank you. Memento Mori.

A New Beginning

A 9 foot roll of paper on two stands serves as my photo studio. Everything in the living room serves a purpose for either work or photography, with the newest addition being Miah’s bed where the vacuum is in this photo. The closet is absolutely filled to the brim with photography gear, and I can’t really see it serving any other purpose anytime soon.

I’m currently sitting here in my new apartment in Mankato, finally going down the path I set my eyes on years ago. I’ll be graduating in two years with two degrees, Multimedia Technology, and Interdisciplinary Studies. I tacked on the Bachelor’s of Science in Interdisciplinary Studies because, financially, it made the most sense since it would make me a “full time” student, and that helps a ton with grants and scholarship money.

I’ve got to say, while I’m glad I waited to go back to school full time, it’s incredibly strange being back in Mankato. The last time I was living here, I was in the midst of one of the deepest depressions I’ve ever been in, and my biggest fear of living here is falling back into that state.

Everyone I knew and was friends with when I lived here originally is long gone, so the only one I really have around is Miah. She has certainly kept me occupied, going on 4+ hikes or walks a day around the neighborhood or at one of the local parks. So far she has kept me very well grounded, and I am so glad I brought her with me, as I don’t think I would be able to do this without her.

Since she’s the one I’m constantly around, of course she was the first subject I had using my new photo studio I built out in this small, one bedroom apartment.

The yoga mats originally served as Miah’s resting place before I brought her bed over, and when we did our little test shoot they made the paper crunch under her weight, which she did not like at all. I’ve since moved them, and can move around everything else as needed. The biggest issue I have with the photo studio is having to turn the A/C off when I’m using it, which makes the apartment hot very quickly. Thankfully it will be fall soon and that won’t be as much as an issue shortly.

All in all, I’m really happy to be finally started on this journey, and the end of the new beginning is already in sight.

Preservation

I’m still trying to wrap my head around what happened and why, but a friend of mine passed this weekend. I got a call Sunday night from one of her friends who I know from the rock climbing wall in Mankato. I didn’t know how to react, and I was in a state of shock until later that night. After that phone call, I raced home and started searching for the negatives I had of Abigail, the ones I had taken almost four years ago.

I don’t remember how exactly I met Abigail, but I know we both shared a passion for photography and rock climbing. She was bubbly and always smiling, and it was contagious. She became one of my better friends that year. We spent a lot of time together, whether it was rock climbing, hiking, photography, or just hanging out at her apartment listening to music. When I started my film class in the spring semester, Abigail was absolutely ecstatic to help.

On one of the many dreary spring mornings we had that year, I headed over to Abigail’s apartment to hang out with her and her roommate Brooke. My assignment that week for my photography class was to shoot portraits, so Brooke and Abigail became my subjects for the day. I pulled out my brand new light reflector and started bouncing light around like any photographer with a new tool would. I moved them all around the living room, which had nice white walls and an open window, essentially acting as one giant light reflector.

Abigail wasn’t very good at acting serious, but at the time that’s what I wanted to photograph. She dealt with my requests and gave me her all the entire time. I photographed her and Brooke for maybe 30 minutes, or as long as it took to finish the roll of film. After I got done shooting, and since it was still morning, Abigail wanted to do her thing and make some coffee. I don’t know where she got the idea from, but she heard about turkish coffee readings. Turkish coffee is very finely ground, so when you finish drinking it, all of the grounds are left on the bottom.

The method (from what I remember) goes like this: drink the coffee in one go, and flip the cup upside down on the plate. Let it sit for a few minutes so the grounds have time to settle. Different patterns and shapes carry different meaning. After my coffee sat for a bit, Abigail flipped it over and gave me the news. (Sorry for the proceeding picture as I took it with my phone over 3 years ago)

Abigail saw the creature that had formed, and described it as a demon that was haunting my life. At that point in time, I was drowning in my depression, and knew exactly what that demon represented. Abigail asked if I knew what it could be, and I told her I had a couple things in mind. We hung out for a couple more hours, I said my good byes and headed home with a lot to think about.

Abigail was the first catalyst in me getting help with my depression. I think I told her later that night about it. I truly do not know where I would be without having met Abigail. She was an incredibly positive influence in my life, and I will always be grateful for having the opportunity to know her. I’m especially grateful to have these pictures of her. They bring a lot of emotion to the surface, and help me remember that day and the others that followed.

So I’ll end this emotional roller coaster of a post by saying this: Please take pictures of the ones close to you; friends, family, whoever, just take photos of them. The more time that passes, the more meaning they start to carry. Holding the negatives with Abigail on them brought me a weird happiness, but one I’ll hold onto for a while.

Abigail, thank you for being in my life, I’m going to miss you a lot.

Drive and Direction

Every second or third Thursday, I go and see my therapist. I’ve been seeing him on and off for the past year and a half. He’s been absolutely instrumental in helping me with my direction, my personal issues, and life in general. He inspired this blog post, so, thank you Jeff.

Almost every person you meet along your way in life, has a passion of some sort. Some people have a passion for sewing, maybe painting. No matter the craft, bringing an idea into fruition is one of the most validating and rewarding things you can do. Holding something tangible, something real, that you made, it’s pure bliss.

At this very moment, I’m surrounded by different cameras, film I have developed myself, and photos I made are hanging on the wall. It’s clear to me that this is my passion. I love learning about the world around me, but this is the one thing that I have always come back to. It’s one of the few consistent things in my life (Miah of course is one), and sometimes that consistency provides solace in this hectic world of ours.

For the past two years, I’ve been trying to figure out how to turn this passion that I have into a career, something I can do day after day, and still be happy.

Jeff explained the situation as this (not exactly):

Passion is the engine, the fuel that makes the car go. People have the fuel, the energy, but they don’t always have the ability to direct themselves where they want to go. The steering wheel is that direction, it’s how you channel that passion.

The artist’s dilemma, how do I make this my reality? When you’re starting at the bottom, you won’t just fall into success. You have to sit down, figure out a plan, and execute it. I’ve been slowly piecing together this steering wheel, so I can finally drive the car with the roaring engine, where I want. It’s slow, there’s lots of friction, it’s frustrating, but I’m figuring it out.

I applied for a part time job, making more money hourly, but will be working much fewer hours in total. In this particular situation, getting a new job and no longer working at my full-time gig is the catalyst that will kick my ass into the next step. It’s motivation to keep pressing forward; motivation to make my dreams a reality.

I’m on the right road, at least I think I am. Wherever it takes me, I’m excited to see where it goes.

Enjoying *Most* of the Process

There are multiple reasons I started shooting film again, but the biggest reason is that it slows me down and makes me more present in the moment. Shooting film is inherently a slow process, and since I started developing and scanning at home, it has become even slower. I’m learning to set aside an hour or two a week to develop film that has been sitting idly by for sometimes two months before I get to it.

Shooting is obviously my favorite part of the whole experience. Developing only takes about 20 minutes from start to finish, hanging to dry takes about two hours. I find the process of developing very therapeutic; I am fully engulfed in the moment, and it feels like my own form of meditation.

After the film has dried, I get to cutting it up into scannable sections to hopefully make it a little more efficient.

BUT, scanning is awful. It’s painfully slow, the software is buggy and reminiscent of early 2000’s Internet Explorer. It’s like someone designed the software back in ‘01 and failed to ever update the interface. Trying to edit within the scanning software feels like walking through the woods on an unknown trail, blindfolded. You take one step off the trail, kick a rock, trip and fall into a ditch. I’m only being slightly dramatic. Pull up the histogram to edit the blacks, mid-tones, and highlights, and what you see happening to your photo doesn’t make any sense compared to what you’re doing to the histogram. It’s incredibly inaccurate and doesn’t loan much confidence in the scanning program.

Epson V750 - Nothing PRO about it.

Another issue I had with scanning was the inability to leave the computer and software to run and go do something else. If you didn't keep clicking on the screen between every photo, it would stop. How incredibly efficient. After digging through a couple pages of Google results, I actually found out there is a solution to this stop-go issue I was having. I had to download another file which was separate from the main program, restart the whole software, and then it would scan continuously like it’s supposed to. I have no clue as to why they chose to keep those things separate instead of just including it in an update. But again, early 2000’s design.

Scanning does go quite a bit faster now, but it’s still the worst part of shooting film. If I have a professional lab do the scanning, I have to pay at least $20 a roll, and that adds up quickly with how much I shoot. Scanning at home is the more economic option, but my $300 scanner doesn’t quite give the quality that the professional lab’s $15,000 scanner is capable of.

If I try to push the scans too much while editing afterwards, they get some gnarly lines going up and down the frame. Everyone loves seeing lines going across the frame and spending 30+ minutes trying to edit them out right?

Unedited scan from an unnamed lab in Arizona. Notice the vertical lines across the entire image.

Any attempt to make the scanner do what it’s designed to do, and it’ll wreak havoc on the scans. I tried to apply the “Digital ICE” function to this picture to have the dust, scratches and other blobs removed from the photo. It didn’t work in the least bit, and honestly I think it made the entire scan worse than if I had kept it off like usual. These scans were a cluster from the beginning, as the lab I went to in Arizona mailed back the negatives on top of one another, which in the film world is a huge no-no. They stuck together, ready to rip off the emulsion from the negatives.

Thing is, just because there’s one awful part to shooting film, doesn’t mean I’ll stop anytime soon. The majority of the process is a blast, scanning just sucks. I leave the negatives under books for a couple days to help flatten them out anyways, and I’ve found myself doing that more often now that I’m scanning at home. Maybe one day I’ll be able to invest in a $15,000 scanner, but that ain’t happening for a long, long time. Until then, I’ll keep dealing with this crap shoot of a system.