This week, those fellas in Looking for Alaska have been on tour around the Southeast part of our country. Lucky for us back home, they played a tour kick-off show here before hitting the dusty trail. There was a lot of Josh Cannon and several balloons involved. See for yourself in the photos linked below!
Wicker. Projections. Looking for Alaska. Dec. 16 ’11 @ Awesometown. Cordova, TN.
Bon Voyage, LFA!
Two Shows for the Price of One
Well, kind of.
It’s been a crazy sort of a week, in which I attended two shows whilst having my website non-functional for most of it. Thanks to those circumstances, I present to you a quick SWP update containing photos from both of those shows, in one fell swoop .
Show, the first:
“The Acorns Appreciation Show “
There is an annual, and sometimes bi-annual, event wherein the Acorns (aka Ryan Hailey) are (is) in the Memphis area and plays a show or two. It’s an experience you won’t soon forget!
ManCub. Chad Turner. The Acorns. Wicker. Nov. 27 ’11 @ The Smith7 House. Cordova, TN.
Show, the second:
Caleb Roedel Benefit Show
I went to see Looking for Alaska at this HUGE benefit show out at Hope Presbyterian. This was an LFA unlike any we had ever seen before. I would describe the experience as “intense” (and did so several times to the band’s members afterward.) They played a set of distinctively heavy covers, which I personally was not expecting. But I also personally give this performance two thumbs up. They were SO awesome, as per usual. It made me one happy girl, as per usual.
Looking for Alaska. Dec. 2 ’11 @ Hope Presbyterian. Cordova, TN
Okay, that’s it for now! If you’re looking for me over the next coupla days, I’ll be busy photographing a gala tonight, baking ten cakes for a banquet tomorrow, and being busy busy busy in general ! Phew!
♥♥
“Hey…Remember that time I went to England?”
I have to admit. Every year around this time, I get a fit of nostalgia (or, a dull pain in my heart, to be more accurate.) That’s because I went to London in November of 2006. I’m sure most most people who hear me reminisce about it think I must have been there for a year or some other extended amount of time in the Motherland. It really was just a eleven days. But those were among the most important eleven days of my whole life.
Why am I talking about all this now? It was five years ago, and I wanted to commemorate the anniversary for myself by revisiting the photos from the trip and the blog I wrote once I’d returned. The written portion of Shoot with Personality didn’t exist until 2009, so I registered a WordPress url and officially had my first blog. It was my first official blogging experience.
Things to know about me and England:
- I have felt an affinity with England since my fourth grade class studied the country. This also began my career as a baker, because I made “tea cakes” for my class’s British-themed party.
- I bought myself a ticket to England as a birthday present to myself in 2006. Some people thought it was a sudden decision. It wasn’t. I had started saving for such a journey, I thought I should check plane ticket prices so I’d know what number I was saving towards, and I found some insane deal: a round-trip ticket for a little over $500. I had $500. I picked travel dates in a way that only just qualified as being “non-arbitrary.” I bought the tickets.
- I quit my job a week and a half before I left for England. This made people think I was making a rash decision. I wasn’t. I had been wanting to leave this job for awhile so I could move to Memphis. Once I got my plane ticket, I decided I had better work up until nearly time to leave, so I could have money to navigate “Old Blighty.” It was my exit strategy.
- If it wasn’t clear up until this point: I went to England alone. One of my friends thought it would be so boring to travel on one’s own. I explained that I actually enjoy my own company. I knew I wouldn’t mind hanging out with myself exclusively for most of my stay in Great Britain. It didn’t occur to me until after I left for England and returned that it was sort of crazy that I went so far away on my own. I came back in once piece though, so I guess it my decision wasn’t that bad!
- My main activity in England was photographing my journey. That’s probably a given, considering that it’s me, Amanda, who’s writing this. What did I pack in my camera bag for this transatlantic photo journey: some film and a few 35mm cameras. I had a good digital SLR, I just didn’t want to do digital photography in my “favourite country I’ve never been before.” Even though, as tends to happen when over 4,000 miles from home, I ran into some problems with one of my cameras, but I still wouldn’t have changed a thing. Film all the way!
- On the subject of photography: One upside to traveling alone was that I was able to spend as much time as I needed at any given point of photographic interest in order to get the photos I wanted. If I travel with others, I do my best to be considerate of those other people with whom I’m traveling. It was good to know that I wasn’t being selfish by spending so much time photographing whatever I wanted.
Five years ago today, the 22nd of November, was a pretty good one in London. It was rainy, but I got to do some great things.
I lunched with a very nice African lady I’d met at a church I visited that week.
I visited the National Gallery for a second time. It’s free, so why not??
I walked to Big Ben, the Houses of Parliament, and Westminster Abbey and produced some of my favorite images of London.
I ended my day by going ice skating with an American ex-pat, on an outdoor rink at the historic Somerset House. I felt like it was a once in a lifetime experience for a girl from the Mid-South in the U. S. of A.. Even if I am horrible at ice skating (or anything that involves skills of coordination!)
I’m hoping sharing this fit of nostalgia (slash dull pain in my heart) with all of you will help me get over it more quickly. It’s still my next goal in life to return to England in the next year. I continue to pour coins into my bluebird of happiness bank, so I can exchange those US coins for some British pounds sterling one day. I even held on to a five pound note from last time. I thought I could buy a cup of soup and baguette with it upon my return to the Motherland.
And, hey, maybe next time, I’ll bring someone along with me.
If happen to be interested in such things, I don’t mind if you take a look at my little “Amanda Goes to England” blog from 2006.
{Forgotten Frames} Waterproof
File this under “that’s just crazy!”
I pride myself on being fastidious about getting film developed in a very timely manner, as well as making sure I know what the content of each roll is when I get it developed. Well, I thought I was fastidious about that, until this past year or so. First there was the half 2006, half 2010 roll of film, then there was the mystery Holga roll, next it was this test roll from 2006 I sorta forgot to get developed, and now the subject of today’s post! I think I am going to have to add a new category to my blog called “forgotten frames” since this keeps happening…
Backstory: When I moved this summer, I noticed some rolls of film in my things. I assumed they were blank (that perhaps they had been misloaded in a camera and rewound before actually being exposed, that they’d accidentally been exposed to light, etc.) I thought it would be good to take the film into the photo lab just in case my normally fastidious film record keeping skills had failed me. When I picked up the developed film, I’d found that I was right: some of the film was unexposed, some of it had been fogged by exposure to light, and my record keeping had failed me when it came to one of the rolls. And this failing in my film record keeping is one of the biggest treats I’ve had in some time. I am smiling from ear to ear!
That’s because the forgotten frames of film held some gems of my favorite person, when she was half as old as she is now. Once I looked at the pictures, I knew EXACTLY what was going on here. I remembered this day well. And fondly.
It was summer of 2007. My aunt was staying in a motel while damage to her house was being repaired. My niece, who was five at the time, and I went swimming at the motel’s pool. I took my Yashica Electro 35 GT into the water with me, which probably wasn’t advisable since I could have completely ruined the camera if I got it wet. I came out with some of my favorite photos of my niece ever (see here). I also had another camera with me that day. It was an underwater/waterproof camera I’d purchased a couple of years before but hadn’t gotten much use from since, you know, it’s not like I spend my weekends kayaking or snorkeling. But swimming in a motel pool was a good chance to use it!
I don’t know why I didn’t get this film developed at the time it was used. I think it may have been because I wasn’t that keen on this camera. I hadn’t much liked results I’d gotten from it previously. But, as I said, I am so glad that I got the treat of seeing these for the first time four years after they were taken! They’re so precious!
BEST. PICTURE. EVER.
I am pretty delighted right now.
Prologue:
Now, maybe you noticed the colors are kind of weird in these photos. There are also dark curves at the top and bottom of each photo. The weird colors are from years of heat damage to the film – that can make the colors get all whacked out. The dark curves, well, I was surprised at the source of those. I thought that perhaps the film had curled up in the negative scanner at the photo lab because heat damage can also cause film to curl. But, no, the blackened areas are actually ON the negative. I dug out the (now broken and unusable) waterproof camera and found that the the plastic frame inside it was bent. Basically, the weirdness of this roll of film is all due to the sort of happy accidents that happen from time to time when shooting film. I couldn’t reproduce if I wanted to.
