A Fist Full of Film

This is the Rebellion against overproduced images often in the digital world. These are images made from my film cameras. Each image I shot myself. The subjects are often friends, and acquaintances in their world.

Not From Around Here Earlier this summer I was at a community pool with my kids in a suburb of Phoenix called Gilbert.  Often times in the summer, in AZ, you need to beat the heat, and as such was on this day that’s what we were trying to do.  It was son’s birthday and playing in the pool seemed like a great way to start it off.  My Son, my daughter and I were all wearing Dodgers hats.  Regionally, you tend to wear the home team.  And Gilbert was not our home. Oddly enough the Dodgers were playing the Diamondbacks for three days, and this was the afternoon of the 2nd of those days, the night before the Dodgers had also oddly enough won.  And so sentiments run deep of pride about one’s team.  Somehow whatever that team/school/conference is that invasively permeates the character of an individual and becomes their identity.  And kingdoms and fortunes and personal honor rises and falls to the beat of 4th Quarter clock, and we take emotional losses and gains at the burst of the zebra’s whistle signaling: Game Over, your Fate abounds.  Or at least that’s how it feels. I grew up in Florida where it was always, Gators, Seminoles, Hurricanes, Orlando Magic and the Glorious, glorious SEC.  Went to school in Texas and it became, Longhorns, Aggies, and everyone else.  Now I live in a town that has the Trojans, the Bruins, the Kings, the Dodgers, some Minnesota Laker basketball team and the PAC-10 waxes poetic about an East Coast bias.  I know all about rivalry.  I know all about honor, and above all, I’m not into any of them as much as I am into taking pictures. So after swimming in the pool with the kids, I began to gather up the arm floaties, and the fun-noodles, and the damp towels with flip flops and all the ancillary things of going to a pool with some kids.  My son Jake, by my side, and Vivien still talking to girls her age and being the 4 year old Social Butterfly, I could feel eyes on us from all the lounge chairs and all the families surrounding the perimeter of this pool who all were trying to beat the heat.  The Blue Dodger caps on my head, and the custom fit kid ones on my two kids stood out against a see of Maroon of that Expansion team known as the Diamondbacks who were not rooted in Brooklyn with Jackie Robinson. Being a Dodger fan I know of the consequences lately of fans who beat the ever living crap out of someone for wearing the wrong thing.  And I certainly was in the enemy territory.  Imagine the soreness of the thumb, of a tiny community nestled in the shadow of small city known as Phoenix, and us Pacific Islander types hanging out in suburbia. I could feel out of the corner, the figure walking slowly to me, he was tall, tatted up.  He looked stern and something fierce.  He was carrying something I would later find out was a newborn child, but at the time, not trying to telegraph that I knew he was coming, I stayed cool pretending to concentrate on protecting my son in case any sort of belligerence happened.  Some call this Paranoia, but we were hot on the heels of fans dying for their team in the news, and it was my son’s 2nd birthday.   He walked up slowly to me, “Hey.” “Hello,” I met his gaze. “Couldn’t help but notice the hats,”   “Oh yeah.  Yup.” “They did good last night, huh?” “Yes, yes they did, for now.”  I replied neutrally. “Hey I’m David,”  he reaches out his hand for a shake/introduction I reached out and met his hand. He continues,  ”I was from LA, I moved here for the work, and I saw your Dodger Blue and your kids wearing the same thing, and immediately I was struck with nostalgia about growing up there.  I had to move here for work, and I can only do so much rooting for them through ESPN highlights, but to see a family wearing it here in the middle of the desert was surprising, it reminds me so much of home.  I miss it.” I exhaled, and the introductions began. “Yeah I’m not from around here either.” Gilbert, AZ Rollieflex 2.8E 80mm Schineider-Krueznach on Agfa 80

Not From Around Here

Earlier this summer I was at a community pool with my kids in a suburb of Phoenix called Gilbert.  Often times in the summer, in AZ, you need to beat the heat, and as such was on this day that’s what we were trying to do.  It was son’s birthday and playing in the pool seemed like a great way to start it off.  My Son, my daughter and I were all wearing Dodgers hats.  Regionally, you tend to wear the home team.  And Gilbert was not our home.

Oddly enough the Dodgers were playing the Diamondbacks for three days, and this was the afternoon of the 2nd of those days, the night before the Dodgers had also oddly enough won.  And so sentiments run deep of pride about one’s team.  Somehow whatever that team/school/conference is that invasively permeates the character of an individual and becomes their identity.  And kingdoms and fortunes and personal honor rises and falls to the beat of 4th Quarter clock, and we take emotional losses and gains at the burst of the zebra’s whistle signaling: Game Over, your Fate abounds.  Or at least that’s how it feels.

I grew up in Florida where it was always, Gators, Seminoles, Hurricanes, Orlando Magic and the Glorious, glorious SEC.  Went to school in Texas and it became, Longhorns, Aggies, and everyone else.  Now I live in a town that has the Trojans, the Bruins, the Kings, the Dodgers, some Minnesota Laker basketball team and the PAC-10 waxes poetic about an East Coast bias.  I know all about rivalry.  I know all about honor, and above all, I’m not into any of them as much as I am into taking pictures.

So after swimming in the pool with the kids, I began to gather up the arm floaties, and the fun-noodles, and the damp towels with flip flops and all the ancillary things of going to a pool with some kids.  My son Jake, by my side, and Vivien still talking to girls her age and being the 4 year old Social Butterfly, I could feel eyes on us from all the lounge chairs and all the families surrounding the perimeter of this pool who all were trying to beat the heat.  The Blue Dodger caps on my head, and the custom fit kid ones on my two kids stood out against a see of Maroon of that Expansion team known as the Diamondbacks who were not rooted in Brooklyn with Jackie Robinson.

Being a Dodger fan I know of the consequences lately of fans who beat the ever living crap out of someone for wearing the wrong thing.  And I certainly was in the enemy territory.  Imagine the soreness of the thumb, of a tiny community nestled in the shadow of small city known as Phoenix, and us Pacific Islander types hanging out in suburbia.

I could feel out of the corner, the figure walking slowly to me, he was tall, tatted up.  He looked stern and something fierce.  He was carrying something I would later find out was a newborn child, but at the time, not trying to telegraph that I knew he was coming, I stayed cool pretending to concentrate on protecting my son in case any sort of belligerence happened.  Some call this Paranoia, but we were hot on the heels of fans dying for their team in the news, and it was my son’s 2nd birthday.  

He walked up slowly to me,

“Hey.”

“Hello,” I met his gaze.

“Couldn’t help but notice the hats,”  

“Oh yeah.  Yup.”

“They did good last night, huh?”

“Yes, yes they did, for now.”  I replied neutrally.

“Hey I’m David,”  he reaches out his hand for a shake/introduction

I reached out and met his hand.

He continues,  ”I was from LA, I moved here for the work, and I saw your Dodger Blue and your kids wearing the same thing, and immediately I was struck with nostalgia about growing up there.  I had to move here for work, and I can only do so much rooting for them through ESPN highlights, but to see a family wearing it here in the middle of the desert was surprising, it reminds me so much of home.  I miss it.”

I exhaled, and the introductions began.

“Yeah I’m not from around here either.”

Gilbert, AZ

Rollieflex 2.8E 80mm Schineider-Krueznach on Agfa 80

5 months ago 10 notes
  1. epicleicaness reblogged this from fistfulloffilm and added:
    started following...have read every description ever posted
  2. fistfulloffilm posted this