Phoenix's Phixations

005

I wanted to start this post off by saying yes.. I am still here and foto-notes lives to see another day! For the first time in what feels like 10 or so years, I decided to put photography on the back burner so that I could focus solely on studying for a licensing exam that I had been trying to pass for the better part of 2024. And on this past Wednesday, I found out that I did pass!!

What a relief. Now back to photography and writing, haha.

During that hiatus and intense period of studying, I felt a little bit of what you could call an identity crisis. Not thinking about photography and/or making photographs on a daily basis all felt quite foreign to me. But last Sunday morning (after taking the test earlier that week), I went on my first photo walk in weeks and it felt so refreshing and rejuvenating to make some photographs and enjoy the moody winter weather we’ve been having here in Northern California.

It feels so good to be back in my creative mode! And writing these “phixations” is such a nice, slow way to get back into foto-notes! I hope you enjoy.

Oh, and happy holidays to everyone!

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Reading:

• Non technological devices by Chloé Azzopardi. “Using fiction and play, Azzopardi seeks other ways of imagining augmented lives, creating organic cyborgs whose aim would be to inscribe the body differently in the environment. She uses the poetic diversion of artefacts that are symbols of technical progress to question our relationship with the living and the disappearance of the earthly "resources" used to build the components of our technological objects.” // I’m going to let the photographs speak for themselves.. all I have to say is WOW.

  

  

• Overpass by Sam Contis..once again! It has been a treat to get to walk through the English countryside vicariously through the eyes of Contis again and again. One of my favorite things about this book is that since there are so many photographs (122 to be exact), I tend to find new favorites with each session of reading and I must say that it’s quite nice to be able to find a good stopping place and come back to it when I’m ready to take a little walk again. Also, I love that this body of work feels like a collection of snapshots or a photographic diary as opposed to an overly “clean-cut” array of perfectly composed photographs. Something about that is so inspiring to me as I reembark in this world of photography and rethink the ways in which I want to interact and document the world around me.

  

  

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Listening:

• Let’s just say I’ve been fixating on this album for a few years now (thanks to my wife)! It’s such a poetic and melancholic album that perfectly suits this time of the year. It’s ideal for a nice drive or walk!

• My dad raised me on a few Beastie Boys records when I was a kid but I never really listened to this one. But now I can’t stop playing it. Pass The Mic and Gratitude in particular has been on repeat for me!

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Watching:

• Control by Anton Corbijn. I watched this for the first time on a sick day a few weeks ago and now I think about it regularly. It’s an excellent biopic on Ian Curtis, the singer for the English post-punk band Joy Division, which only lasted from 1976 until their abrupt end in 1980. After reading more about the backstory of how this film was put together, it was so rad to see that Anton had worked as their photographer. And after digging more into both Anton’s and Ian Curtis’s lives through various interviews and such, the filming style and overall mood felt so authentic. In fact, I watched it once again last weekend and enjoyed just as much as the first time!

• Berle for Vans..what a part!! This guy is definitely becoming one of my favorite skaters to watch.

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What have you been fixating on? Feel free to share below in the comments!

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