It Took Awhile to Get Here

After my Nanay had passed away I've felt uninspried to blog about anything. And even then I'm here sort of figuring out how to get comfortable again. But honestly I've been quite busy. Busy because I know I should be productive for the most part. Busy because that's all I know how to be when I want to run from stuff.

At the same time I've been surrounded by my loved ones to at least deal with the fact that my grandmother had lived a pretty fulfilling life and that she was around her loved ones before she left. So here I am.... trying to write shit again.

This record finally comes out and I'm actually happy that I had the confidence to arrange a specific thing. My friends and family have been very supportive about it and I'm happy they enjoyed it. The record is certainly a diary of my time photographing the street and I'm glad that I was able to perform.

I know this is sort of a jumbled post considering that death and a record is talked about, but that's the general feeling that I have right now. I'm happy, trust, but still melancholy about certain things that I would wish had been better. It's okay though. I'm here now and I'm hoping to post more soon.


- Arthur

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My Nanay Finally Left

As I'm watching a live broadcast of my Nanay's Vigil on Facebook I'm sitting in the porch tired, caffeinated & melancholy from the whole week realizing that she's gone. A couple of days ago I spoke with my sister regarding the guilt I felt and she pretty much summed up the fact that the framing of this experience resembled what we had dealt with when our father passed away.

My Nanay helped raise a bunch of spoiled kids growing up. Cooked, cleaned and even made sure we were all okay before and after school. She use to knit stuff for the house we were renting for a good amount of years before we would live in a coldesac. And before that move we'd see my Nanay out of the house as she got married. We'd see Nanay here and there, but eventually myself and my siblings would move out one by one. At one point she would be living alone. A friend found her having a stroke in her home. From there it sort of went downhill.

I don't want to go into more detail about these things because I'm just not good at it. She passed away in her sleep earlier this week. I was able to talk to her and say I'm sorry and say I love her weeks before she left her body. And by that time I kinda knew she'd be leaving us soon.

Sorry Nanay I wasn't there for you when you needed it the most. Life is a lot and especially when you're still trying to figure it out. Love you. Sweet dreams and watch me up there when I make stupid decisions.

- Arthur

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Daily Collect

As much I want to edit most of these pictures right now I'm finding that I'm making more time writing music than anything. I figured I'd be slowing down in the recent weeks, but that's just what it is. I do have a good amount of shots for Head in the Clouds that I want to start editing. Hopefully I can get on the ball and start doing that, but for now I'll definitely just keep coasting and doing the best I can to post whenever I can. I'm still shooting and writing so whenever I'm ready to post I'll do it.

- Arthur

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Daily Collect

I'm trying to catch up on things as I've been out on vacation or been doing some other projects that need more attention. It's been cool seeing the results of these things and having the will to keep being creative. I honestly feel grateful that I can stay busy for the most part and not have to stress on being bored.

Just last week I was in LA at the Head in the Clouds festival. I won general admission tickets a bit ago and my girlfriend and I decided that we should take a trip to go see her cousin and attend. I'm still working on those batch of images so stay tuned. Other than that. Here's me at my desk.

- Arthur

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Daily Collect

I know my inconsistency is starting to show as of late, but the outcome is the fact that I'm working on a couple of other projects that are wanting my attention more so than loading up images here on my blog. The fact that I'm starting to realize the potential of a lot of this stuff is what's keeping me grounded and well aware that I'm inspired to create create create. Before you know it I'll be back mostly to get a lot of these images in the blog, but as of right now I'm having a great time writing and designing a majority of this work. Hopefully all this will pay off and will be realized. But for now I'll keep grinding.

- Arthur

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I Don't Really Have Many Here

Being open takes a lot out of me these days. Staying closed off gets me depressed. I don't know how to navigate a happy medium being in-between things. And perhaps that's a thing I need to work on more.

But the thing is I don't really know anyone that I can go and hang out with. I don't know who to turn to when it comes to relatability and such. You're reading about an Emo / Hardcore / Punk kid that doesn't really know how to interact with other people outside of that. Perhaps I don't make the time to get to know people and to be some sort of casual person to them. No matter what my life is pretty cool considering that I'm able to make stuff without any cap. I have an amazing person in my life that helps me get to places I would never go. It would be nice, however, to find a pack of wolves to just shoot the shit and hang out. I'm okay, honestly, but I wish I had relatable people in my life.

I also need to get out of the fact that what I see on my phone is the reality of what's going on. And getting sick of just looking at it most days and maybe that'll be the crutch to get myself out of it more often than not. I did do a test the other day to see how much I'm on my phone by trying to actually work at stuff at work and write out ideas. Believe me I'm so bad at being on my phone and I usually listen to a lot of interviews and songs and such. Nope nope. I gotta keep it in the middle somehow.

Despite that being present here tells me how much friends I made. And honestly I've not made any. I've not made any.... It's my fault, for sure, but reaching out doesn't do much. I should be out there like the boys hanging out in the bars and shit and get all stupid, but, I'm here with an amazing girlfriend straight edge as fuck eating vegetarian all day everyday and going to the gym. Man... not many people can do what I do.

- Arthur

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Daily Collect

I find this on the ground a lot

- Arthur

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Been Away to Feel the Real World

As of late I've been writing more than photographing these days. When one thing lacks the other capitalizes and it's been strange seeing the shift of focus go on finishing up projects versus aimlessly photographing things. Of course, I'm still casually taking pictures, but I'm not making a high effort to go after images. If this was a thing back in the day I would've felt a bit nervous about it. Now, I'm happy I can keep a relationship with something steady when I feel a burnout coming.

I've been attempting to write music everyday before going to work. And because of this practice it's giving me realizations that I could be doing more with my time than just sitting here social-media-ing all these apps. Like, I could be writing shit or photographing shit rather than look at what other people are doing. And it's that curiousity that's giving me a lot of anxiety. Why does anyone care about what I do anyway? I'll just leave and no one will really notice.

The practice is meant to finish off a record I've been trying to complete for awhile along with a set of works that I'll be sending Daniel hopefully by the beginning of August. I told him the other day I was forseeing a plan to start production in the middle of next month. At one point I think I had just gotten fed up with waiting and started making the effort write songs before going to work. It's been strange seeing the progress I've been making and how my decisions have been very definite rather than elusive. This is the kind of directions I should be making when I'm working on stuff like this. I'm sure he's not reading these blogs at all and so its good to just let this out lol.

No one really cares about what I do. Maybe one day this work will have some sort of purpose, but right now I'm just trying to create stuff. I don't know what it is that's keeping me from leaving, but being compelled to do something for yourself has been a lonely trip. I'm a nobody and nobody really cares about what I do. If I had left all media I think no one will really notice. So... I think its going to be time to just live in the real world again. And maybe that will be something I could do to enhance my life as well.


- Arthur

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Daily Collect

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Daily Collect

Last month I was able to witness Yvette Young play with a string orchestra. It's funny how well the electric guitar blends with the other string instruments, but at the same time Yvette's compositions were made for that type of setting.

This performance gave me the realization that sometimes you gotta just say yes to things. You gotta make stuff that's not really within your element. The three movements that were performed were seamless, together & dynamic. And honestly that's what Yvette's strength is. Her ability to create dynamics is just unbelievable. And you can tell that as a painter and musician her creative direction mirrors both outlets to produce one. She's truly an alien in her craft.

Thank you Yvette for showing us this piece. The orchestra was so good and I hope to see them more in the future as well.


- Arthur

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Daily Collect

We went to New York and decided to walk around and eat before the Yvette Young performance. It was pretty nice being back in NY to just chill and whatever. I hope we get to do this again very soon.

- Arthur

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Daily Collect

June was pretty slow for me other than hanging out and reorganizing everything. I'm kind of happy that I gave myself this month some time to experience things and not get burnt out on the creating. I love it and I love the fact that there's a lot of things in this process where its allowing me just to shoot with no project in mind other than keeping a diary.

- Arthur

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Daily Collect

Alright I'm done with the Chicago vacay. This is me and Jen at the Mamamoo concert before the concert started. Thank you everyone that tuned in. I'm going to be finally editing the new stuff here so just keep tight I guess.

- Arthur

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Daily Collect

Promise I'm almost done with these vacay photos of Chicago, but for the few days I was there I was quite surprised how much I shot and what I shot. I don't know when I'll ever go back, but you know it was a good time and a good time to just hang around and shoot ya know?

- Arthur

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Daily Collect

I'm starting to finish off all the pictures that I took for the Chicago trip. Been gathering a lot of work in the last few weeks and had also been busy playing guitar and figuring out stuff for the next record I'm going to release. Hopefully I can come back here and chill with a friend I haven't seen in years.

- Arthur

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La Hwa Sa

So, a couple of years ago I salvaged a guitar that my former boss from Guitar Center was gonna trash. The guitar was in bad shape with all this filth, a missing tuning key, and I think an input jack that was crapping out. Restoring would probably cost an arm and leg for the company so I think my former boss was looking at a loss rather than a gain on this. I took it home and closeted it for years.

Welp... just the other day I found the guitar snoopin' around the closet hallway. And yes the condition of the guitar was at the same state when I found it sitting in the can at the Guitar Center warehouse. For awhile I wanted to have a guitar I could bring to play before work and during lunch to dish out some ideas. I needed something to occupy my time rather than dick around and buy shit during my break times. And when I found this piece of junk I immediately got excited to turn a junker into a worker.

My first objective was to see if the guitar actually outputed sound. I connected it to my amp and started touching the pickups. Luckily the pickups were responsive so it gave me insentive to continue on. I turned the volume and tone knobs up and down to smoothen out the scratchy breakup. There's still a bit of it, but just enough to not be a nuisance. I actually took out the input jack to see if there were any adjustments that needed to be made, but luckily not too much. I think I just bent the part the 1/4 inch plug met to get stronger contact.

Next was to clean the guitar. Already the body suffered quite a bit of dents so banging it on a wall or floor would not make me feel some type of way. I actually did the worst thing and sprayed some clorox bleach on it (and honestly I didn't want any germs staying alive so I hit it with that nice nice house cleaning lol) and began to wipe it down. I also disassembled the tuning keys. The nut on the guitar was almost out of place, but I hit it with a rubber hammer and aligned it with the bridge saddles as best I could. I brushed the bridge saddles with some clorox and a toothbrush and got most of the dirt and grime out. I also cleaned the nickle plated pickups (needs some work, but I'll do more later).

I ordered some cheap tuning machines from Amazon ($20), bought some new strings from my former job, adjusted the action a bit and presto!!!!!!! The guitar came back from the dead. Honestly.... this guitar is pretty sick. The 5-way selector switch needs to be replaced, but for now it's playable. I started playing the guitar right after I had done the adjustments.



Now it doesn't sound anything like "Big Red" (my red stratocaster), but I've never owned a guitar that had two humbuckers on a strat body, let alone, a two humbucker strat with a 5-way selector switch. The tones sound pretty good and with this setup it has a bolder sound for sure on the neck and bridge pickups. Everything in-between doesn't sound too bad as well. I did some research using the Fender Serial Generator and found out its a Fender Blacktop Stratocaster.



This guitar was produced from 2010 - 2014 and it seemed like it was overlooked. The prices on these are still affordable and it seems as though no one really gave a shit about them. And for the the last few weeks I realized this is probably one of my favorite guitars I've played. It's a Mexican Stratocaster, but jeez there's a lot of personality to it. It plays well, sounds good and just has a good weight to it. I'm happy that this thing exists.

Not all great guitars need to be expensive. Sure, buying a guitar with a cool body, paint job and neck type with a high price is something to be desired, but are you playing the guitar for aesthetics or you playing to make sounds? You can do so much with a piece of wood, strings and pickups. And it won't make you sound better if you spend thousands of dollars on a guitar. You gotta put the work in and just get good.

I named her "La Hwa Sa" lol. I love Hwa Sa from Mamamoo and I dedicated this guitar to her. I don't know why, but there's something sexy about it. The sound and look (here I go talking about the aesthetics ha) just told me "La Hwa Sa". I don't know.. whatever. She's a fav of mine.

The guitar plays well enough. And maybe might be my main for certain things I write. It doesn't need to be fancy. It just needs to play well. That's all.

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I've been having fun playing guitar these days. I try to discover stuff as much as I can and honestly I'm trying out new tunings that could help with new recordings in the future. I might want to illustrate that more in the months to come.

- Arthur

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Daily Collect

We got to see this thing. It's pretty big. I like it. That's all.

- Arthur

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Daily Collect

These vacation photos are almost over trust me lol. During the walk I stumbled upon the Chicago Tribune and made my girlfriend take a portrait of me in front of it lol. Walking a lot was tiring, but cool that day.

- Arthur

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Daily Collect

I haven't done a lot of street work in the past few years and to be honest it's been nice to actually shoot this way again. However, a good body of my work does not have that viewpoint anymore and I'm mostly shooting a lot of silent work. A lot of moments where it's personal and mostly at home.

I tried to get the best shots during my chicago trip, but eh... they came out alright. Next time though I do want to incorporate more of that mindset when I head back. I want to actually get strange shots.

- Arthur

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Daily Collect

I know I haven't updated in a bit, but with what's been going on for the last few days I've just been living life period. I'll be sort of back on schedule in the next few weeks, but don't really count on it be a definite thing when you're having fun.

Chicago has some pretty good eats. I was able to get this veggie dog with the fixin's and ate two nights in a row at this hot pot joint. I tell ya.. I was not hungry for those few days I was there. Hella worth it.

- Arthur

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Daily Collect

Awesome Days

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Daily Collect

Over the last few weeks I've been trying to catch up on posting work, but I've been quite busy with life and it's been amazing. I'm going to keep this a bit brief, but this set was me and Jen out and about in Chicago taking pictures and checking out the Chicago Art joint. Simple pleasures of just walking slightly aimlessly and having fun with being around each other. It's been great.

- Arthur

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Shoe Collector

Theo Slavin has to be one of the weirdest and coolest dudes I know. He was nice enough to help me get into photography either on street or in studio. And in fact I owe him a lot towards how I take pictures today. At that time I was producing a lot of unhinged work. Theo, Sean Custer and I would walk around San Francisco and get as many snaps as I can. Those were the crazy days where I could just bounce around and try to hone in my skills through film photography. And to this day I still try to press that shutter as much as I can.

Despite that Theo has many projects on his belt (The Brankas, Balloon Time, etc.), but for some reason this newest project has me intrigued. I only say this because this was more of a conceptual piece to me. For as long as I've known Theo his approach and meanings to his pieces were clear, but foggy. And those meanings never needed to make sense. This is what this record showcases to me. This shit absolutely does not make any sense and I love that about the record.

Theo started out as a grind to record something everyday be it loops, beats, noise and whatever to somehow make them into songs. A lot of cool ideas are manifested with this practice and the movement of it all is oddly smooth. You can hear the influences of Nick Reinhardt here, but somehow has an industrial free jazz approach to the compositions that he can certainly call his own. You can hear the movement start to gain traction, but out of nowhere suffocating fart sounds of a low G note nearly blows up my ANKER speaker.

It's amazing to know that a person like Theo can develop such a neurotic composition, but end up having it move at a pace that is breathable to us nerds that love the suffocation of noise. I hear what he's doing here and for the most part am able to follow, but there are certain times where I can get a bit lost and then end up back on track again. This is a record you'd want to grab if you're a fan of experimental sounds like this.


Grab the tape HERE


- Arthur

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Self Portrait

Lol, so the other day I had taken some portraits for my agency and I had told one of my coworkers to take a picture of me. And you know what? It actually came out alright hahhahahaa. I wanted to interrupt the programming and show this silly picture.

- Arthur

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Daily Collect

I always thought that airports were a fascinating place to take pictures. The lighting always seems so captivating to me. I was on my way to meet my girlfriend in Chicago. Yo... that plane ride was so short it was awesome. And the time I was in Chicago was also short lol. Chicago is pretty damn cool and I'll be posting more of those here in the next couple of weeks. Until then enjoy!

- Arthur

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Daily Collect

Sometimes you just find weird shit when you go to the store. I didn't have anything to pair with this image since it just stood alone by being its stupid self. And these are the images that I look for that people pass and don't give a shit about.

I'm hoping to catch up more on these posts during this week. So far this process has been very fun for me and I'm enjoying just finding the dumb in the mundane.

- Arthur

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Yeah Man

It's been an eventful few weeks heading out and watching shows consistently. Honestly, this has been a great year for influences and creating. Though that I gave myself a bit of a sabbatical to just refresh on things I realize how much of my mind opened up to all these new things. It's been just cool.

Photography is cool. Making pictures is cool. Playing music is cool. Writing songs is cool. Recording songs is cool. All these things I've been doing has been just cool. And I feel like I'm at this point where I don't really need anyone to tell me that these things are not cool. I feel like its cool to share these things with the people I love and letting them just have fun with them. I'm not at all a famous person and just a little nerd in the corner of the internet, but goddamn it this shit is just cool ya know?

Have fun. This is the only time you'll be able to.

- Arthur

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Daily Collect

Been away for a bit and not really updating things, but holy cow is it already June. I'm currently sorting through some images and will be doing a lot of editing in the next couple of weeks. There's just been so much happening and I'm glad that I'm busy. Just recently I got to see Yvette Young in an instrumental orchestra setting and got so inspired to write. I think I need to start listening to different things and saying yes to things more. It just seems so much fun.

Anyway. Enjoy the images today. Just some color play.

- Arthur

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Daily Collect

Again, it's been fun just shooting around and collecting stuff that I see on the daily basis. The practice of shooting images and gathering them up have been a fun part of my work. I'm hoping to enhance more of this in the later future, but for now enjoy the collection.

- Arthur

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It's Nice

Nice to know that the sun is here and the summer didn't even start. It's nice to know I'm able to sit here with no worries writting this blog post and watching Summer Games Done Quick on my phone hanging out in the front porch ready to head to work in a couple of minutes. It's nice to know that just this past weekend I saw a Kpop group in a stadium, at a bunch of good food & mellowed out with my girlfriend. I don't know what else to say.

And this coming weekend I go back to New York to see Yvette Young play in a string quartet. There's just so much shit happening that I'm starting to realize where I am at is where I wanted to be this whole time. I'm happy and content and grateful and will work harder and smarter and be better and all that other shit that will hopefully get me to do more things like this in the years to come.

I wouldn't want to be anywhere else, but here. And I'm glad I'm here. I'm glad this all matters.

- Arthur

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Daily Collect

This past weekend I was able to see Mamamoo perform in Chicago. Jen had told me they were performing and would possibly be our only chance to see them in the U.S. This was our chance to check it out. Some of the members' contracts are ending and they may not be renewing as they've been in idol status for a good 10 years. Shit I'd be tired of doing it too.

Not often do you get to see international performers in a big arena live on a huge stage. This was something I never got to experience in my past life and was able to find that this past weekend. Hwasa, Solar, Moonbyul & Wheein did such a great job that night. I hope to see them perform again soon, but in all honesty I think it's doubtful.

I got a lot of images to sort out this week so bare with me. It's been one hell of a weekend.

- Arthur

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Daily Collect

Head in the Clouds 2023 was more like Rain in the Clouds 2023. The whole experience was back and forth due to the weather conditions, but for the most part I was able to see Dumbfoundead & Beabadoobee perform. And like always they put on good shows. In fact everyone put on a good show.. I just wasn't interested in their music. This was sort of one of those things that I needed to do just to see them play once. It was good.

Would I go back to see this festival again? Maybe not, but that's just because the performances aren't really to my taste. I respect these artists, but I can't relate.

I'm glad they're around though. Do it for the kids.

- Arthur

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Yo WTF Did I Not Want To Do Anything This Week?

Honestly, on some real shit I had this fatigue and wasn't sure if I was depressed or just burnt out completely. Over the last few days I felt no need to exert myself and take as much rest as I can. And since my girlfriend is away for company activity until this Friday I've been kind of realizing how much of my mental is attached to her presence. I hate that she's away, but that's just me being love sick.

But the past few days had me learn to be more alone that I usually am. And you know it's not bad to have some solitude to yourself without any worry. Its just a good reminder that you can reorganize some thoughts and priorities you have been keeping idle towards the finish line.

So, I've been keeping myself busy a bit. I finally cut up the developed film that I had neglected for months and had started the scanning process of the images. I finally get to see new shit this time rather see some old stuff I've been trying to rescan for the last few years. And pretty soon I'm going to get my ass in check and develop all the film that's been sitting in the closet and my desk to get that prepared for some scanning shit as well.

The creative grind is still in effect. I'm trying to take things slowly, but I think I want to amp up a bit and just start getting these images out there. There are a lot of prospective projects I want to complete before I die and this is one of those goals lol.

I'm going to be leaving for Chicago this weekend to go see Mamamoo perform. I'll check back in next week and write about my experience. Hope to eat a bunch of fucked up food hahahaha.


- Arthur

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Tumblr Nostalgia

During the tumblr days you could find yourself immersed in the world of photographers who are upcoming, current or casual posters celebrating a craft that journals out their lives. As someone who still considers himself a novice in the photographer world I looked up to these people showing me a bit of themselves and their contributions to other tumblr sites and such. Bands were also a deep dive for me in the age of Bay Area hardcore (thank you Comadre) and the amount of underground noise it generated. It was almost a replacement for Myspace for me since that kind of network did not exist anywhere else.

These days Instagram, Facebook (surprisingly for some), Tik Tok and even YouTube are the new networks for social media coverage. And I find myself sort of lost in the fold most of the time. And maybe because I don't have a network like most people do. Above all these are the current ones while tumblr just sits there with much of its dead sites.

I miss the fact that I could look after my favorite artists and see what he/she/they post or repost. Their thoughts, their inspirations, their frustrations... A lot of the ways they view the world just by images or text so simple. I was an avid poster myself (I didn't have much of a following their either lol) and it was interesting seeing the images sort of pop out a bit when I showcased my work. What was cool is the fact that artists were certainly communitive and very kind (at least in my eyes) and supported each other every way they can. Now? I'm not sure that's the case. I'm starting to get annoyed just looking at my feed these days.

I give Tumblr props for helping me find some of the best artists. It was indeed one of the best times I had through a network of folks who were upcoming and have come out showing their best works. I wish I could find that with these current socials, but I think I'm out of the loop with everything else.

Funny enough though.. I reopened my Tumblr account again hahahaha. I'll most likely be cleaning it up configuring some images that I don't want to show (aka my ex). I'm posting my Daily Collect work there so check it out. And like that platform I'm going to strictly be doing DigiCam stuff anyway.

I don't know what I started this thing again. Maybe I'm after some nostalgia and maybe I'm just tired of looking at the gram now. But hey... who knows? It might be good again in the near future.

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Daily Collect

I'm liking that I've been posting more these days. A nice practice diary as I've been loving the images I've been taking on this camera. And considering it's been giving me a rough draft view of what I'm looking for it's allowing me to focus on other projects as a whole rather in pieces like Daily Collect.

Having such a camera has been a thrill these days. It's putting into place a regular look at the things I see. I don't have any crazy things happening and most of the time the light guides me to places that I wouldn't normally head towards to. The images are of empty or isolated places and perhaps a look at how my life is: simple.

Not only that these images are a good way to see if a record can be built from it. Hopefully I can continue onto this.


- Arthur

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