Tearing Up When You Have One Thing Left to Represent Your Parent

As I'm listening to Japanese Breakfest's recent record "Jubilee" I'm here thinking about Michelle Zauner's book "Crying in H Mart" that I had just finished. It certainly inspired me to think about the loss I experienced of my late father who in 2003 passed away due to cancer. And through it all it made me realize the message of relationships with your parents can/will always be complicated. They'll never live through the experiences you've experienced no matter what they say.

It's funny you know? Reading somebody's memoir that's almost near to what I experienced as a kid was validating. When you grew up not fitting in because of your enthnicity, your taste in music, your viewpoints in life, the kind of clothes you wear and how non-white you are it gets you thinking to adhere to their standards. Though that much of my interests in art and music has been influenced by white culture my filipino-ness (and asian-ness in general) has been realized more and more as I get older and to discover more of those artists everyday.

And still I feel I don't fit in the world of photography, the world of music, the world that I so happened to be deep in and that I'm unrecognizable in all fronts. I could certainly give up and just keep my 9-5 track for the rest of my life. But reading the book made me feel like I was on the right track of everything. The experiences with Michelle's mother were certainly deep and the regrets were real. This is her telling her mother that she misses her very much and that she's gonna do her best to keep her memories alive.

Maybe that's why I play the music I play. Maybe that's why I photograph the images I photograph. Maybe these are things that allow my father know that I'm still practicing and that I'll never be as good as a guitar player as he was when he was still alive. Maybe that living this life was to help him stay alive with the kinds of messages I try to deploy to everyone. I still think about him everytime I write songs. And everytime I do it I remember him well.

Thank you Michelle for the reminder that we are ourselves and no one else. It was validating to here your taste in music relate to mine, how our emo-ness is still a factor to our everyday lives and that asian cuisine nurtures our need to be hugged by a relative that we will never be hugged or see again.


- Arthur

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Neigborhood Stroll

As of the late the light has been coming out which prompts me to shoot more. During pandemic I used to just stroll around and take pictures just to keep the exercise of having the viewfinder in my eye. I'm always looking for stuff and looking to see if there's anything I can take pictures of. This kind of shooting is fun for me and I hope to do more of it in the future.


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Wow.. I'm really having fun with this camera. The thing is so freakin' slow when it comes to saving images to the card, but to be honest I'm glad this process is a bit laggy. It really allows me to shoot in a certain mindset. I have to be a bit more selective about how I frame the images. The viewfinder is soo small lol, but it's a small camera. I just got a new memory card for it so I'll be able to hold at least 200 something images instead of 15 hahahhaa.

Also, I think I'm done posting film work and other work on the gram. I'm just not having fun with it anymore and am more apt to just observe rather than post. I mean I'll post all my digicam stuff, but that's about it.


- Arthur

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So, Spring Is Finally Here

You wouldn't believe how much crap we had to eradicate. Recently Jen and I strategized the idea of cleaning up a part of a house each weekend we have free. And to approach it this way gave us some piece of mind without having to feel stressed out trying to do everything all at once. When you were young in an asian household you were a child laborer for your parent when spring decided to come around. The annoyances of having to spend the whole weekend inside the house while you saw your friends play outside..... And to think about it I'm glad I was instilled that mindset of making sure you had to at least make your bed..







It gave us some focus on what needed to be changed up, thrown away and wiped clean. It felt good considering a clean house really clears the mind. And especially when you have a bunch of crap just lying around that's not being used it can get bothersome knowing that particular thing lives with you (at least it bothers me). I'm glad I took the time to help get this done.









Springtime is here. Remember to listen to my Springtime Cassette Tape I recorded a year ago lol






- Arthur

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I'm Gonna Just Use My Digicam for Most Things For Awhile LOL

So, recently I acquired two "DigiCam" cameras for the price of $10. Freakin' steal man, but one particular camera I'm using right now is this Minolta Dimage XT.





Currently this is my go-to camera that I'll be experimenting with for the rest of this year. I had the idea of playing with these cameras since getting the Polaroid Point & Shoot and realized the potential of it benefiting my everyday rig. Sometimes you just want to bring something small when you're going to work, out with friends or to just don't want to carry anything else.

What's different about this camera is the ability to shoot in TIFF (Raw for current cameras if you haven't heard of TIFF before). This gives the camera more appeal to me as it allows me to control more information when I want to edit images in Camera Raw. I know the appeal is to treat it like an instant camera, but as someone who has control issues I felt this was a great fit for me.

The TIFF thing is what helped me think about the camera as a permanent source for digital imagery for the everyday. I know that my X100T is a great camera (and definitely not giving it up), but I want to be a bit more discreet and allow myself freedom to shoot images without a care. Like, use the tech as a dice roll of chance for decent exposures. And based on some of the research I conducted the printing at this megapixel quality is pretty decent. This thing is 3.2 Megapixels, but it can certainly print up to 8 x 10 if upscaled properly. It's very slow, takes awahile to process, but compact and unintrusive. I don't blast photographs like most people do.






I know it's silly to be using old tech and such (and to be sucked in such a stupid "DigiCam" thing), but I appreciate the fact that people are looking at these old units with a freeing approach. Seeing these folks take these outdated units and celebrate its limitations is what makes this fun ya know? I like being around a community of folks who like to have fun with the art of photography and not be too serious about it. And I get it that this is all a fad, but for me I'm interested in seeing what we had abandoned to have it be replaced by our phones. It's been cool seeing how much of this has risen up. I'm happy that I get to experience this all over again.


- Arthur

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