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:

Photograph in the Field

This semester I was in a class that consisted of shooting at an assigned location (and one independent assignment) for 6 hours every other Saturday.

Here are some of my favorites:

Sacramento: This guy was working at the True Love Coffeehouse, my favorite place in Sacramento. He was really chill and gave me a discount on my coffee since they only took cash and I didn't have enough.

Santa Cruz: This was one of the hardest places to shoot, believe it or not. As one of my classmates put it: "There's a lot to photograph, but none of it is interesting."

Rio Vista Bass Festival: We were supposed to be photographing the Bass Festival, but none of us could figure out where exactly the bass fishing was taking place, so nobody shot it.

Discovery Park: We were supposed to go to the Consumes River Preserve, but I got sick that day, so I went to the Discovery Park in Sacramento instead. I rode my bike 14 miles that day and I never want to do it again.

San Francisco: SF was our last assigned location and I couldn't have loved it better. The day was foggy and misty like a typical San Francisco day and it was perfect. Out of my group I think I was the only one who thoroughly enjoyed myself while there.

Cedar City, UT: Our last assignment was a self-assignment. I chose to shoot in Cedar City, UT while visiting my parents over Thanksgiving break. I definitely feel like a struck up something good with this shoot and I'm going to shoot more of it while I'm here for winter break.

School work!

I took three portfolio classes this semester. So much work, but it's all done now!

Let's start with Alternative Photo Processes. My idea for my series was that a photograph made of one single frame cannot fully capture a moment as we remember it. Our minds remember bits and pieces from moments in our life, so I wanted my images to reflect that.






more at my flickr