First off, I'd like to mention that I'm working on making this my new photography/etc blog. I'm working on a new layout for it as well as putting together some more cohesive posts, so for now it's going to seem a little random and maybe a little scatterbrained, but it's all a process. All posts here (samanthasaturday.blogspot.com) before 2010 have been moved over from my old blog.

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Tonight I was reading some quotes by photographers and came across this one by Garry Winogrand:

"I don't have anything to say in any picture. My only interest in photography is to see what something looks like as a photograph. I have no preconceptions."


(from a walk around midtown Sacramento during Second Saturday Art Walk)

For the most part, this sums up how I feel about my own personal photography. Often I photograph something just because I like how it looks. My mind/memory are driven by textures and bits and pieces of moments. When I photograph something I am usually not thinking about meaning or symbols or anything like that. Instead I typically photograph something and forget about it for days or weeks until I rediscover it on my SD card.

My Senior portfolio was made up of images that trigger conversations and feelings in my memory. Since I was little I've always been distracted easily, but I've come to realize that this is just my way of taking in the world. When I recall some of the most powerful memories in my mind they consist of little bits that I piece back together. A remembered conversation does not just consist of words, but it can also consist of images such as branches being reflected in a raindrop, condensation running down a glass, an intriguing shadow, a nervous tic.

The photograph above is the newest that I've added to this series. Below are images from my original portfolio.

Mail Love

Recently I've been digging through old photos on my external hard drive to test out different ways of editing. How do you decide the right level of editing for your photos while keeping a consistent look throughout all your work? Sometimes playing around in Photoshop is too fun to stop and other times it seems less is more. But how to balance the two? I'll probably be posting more old photos in the coming days and weeks.

Anywho, this is a stack of mail that I sent out sometime during the summer (graduation gift thank yous, mix CDs, etsy orders...). Stacks of mail like this make me extremely happy, whether I am sending them or receiving them. Some people dread writing out Thank You notes, addressing dozens of envelopes, and sticking postage on each of them, but I quite enjoy it!

A post in which I ramble about Sacramento's art/music/alternative culture scene (or arguable lack of)....

Lately I've been thinking a lot about Sacramento's "scene" compared to bigger cities like San Francisco, Austin, L.A., Chicago, Seattle, Portland, and New York City. Some friends and I have been planning on moving to San Francisco once we're all done with school, but at a recent show Natalie from Agent Ribbons commented on how they have thought many times of moving to another city, but each time they come back to Sacramento it makes them love it all over again. So I've been wondering, is it lazy or apathetic to simply pick up and move to a bigger city with a well-established alternative culture? Or is there hope for Sacramento? Clearly people tend to gravitate towards moving to bigger cities, myself included, but part of me feels like Sacramento won't gain any notability as a culturally relevant city until its artists, musicians, writers, creators, etc do everything they can to cultivate an influential scene.

Second Saturday is at the heart of all things cultural in downtown Sacramento. Musicians playing in the streets, art openings all over downtown, vendors selling their creations on the sidewalks. The atmosphere is amazing, especially in the warmer months of the year. You can feel the creativity and sense of community in the air and it feels like there's no better time to be with your friends. But it seems like this is it, one big shebang a month and then everything immediately slows back to a trickle. Still, there are some art and music venues that are doing the best they can to keep that atmosphere going in between Second Saturdays. Places like Luigi's Pizza & Fungarden, Buff Castle, and weekly DJing events like Lipstick! and Record Club Presents, and the now defunct Fools Foundation and True Love Coffee.

True, as proven with the struggle to keep True Love open and it's eventual closing, it's difficult to keep these great places running. This is where the people of the community come in. If Sacramento wants to gain a better position, everyone needs to come together to give everything they've got to push Sacramento to be its best.

summer so far...

Some candids of some of my closest friends and some other shots for what the summer has been so far. There's still so much to happen, I can feel it...


This was actually before the summer, when Amy, Karen, and I went to San Francisco to see Friendly Fires.


dinner at the Guad


John


Karen at the Grizzly Bear album listening party at R5 Records


In Santa Cruz with John, Lucy, and Amy. It was almost 90 degress in Sacramento so we thought it'd be a good day to take a trip to the beach, but when we got to Santa Cruz it was about 60 degrees. But we went in the water anyway.


Also Santa Cruz

First published shots...

A little over a month ago I was asked to shoot the show that Vivian Girls headlined here in Sacramento! I shot them for Submerge Magazine, a local free publication and it was the first time my work has been published. Local bands Agent Ribbons and Dog Party, along with Abe Vigoda from L.A. opened. Here's some photos that I took that didn't end up in the article, along with a link to the article at the bottom:

Dog Party


Agent Ribbons



Abe Vigoda


Vivian Girls

more at my flickr

click the thumbnail to read the article: