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I 💛pittsburgh ig

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A couple of test shots with my new Polaroid Flip 🌌🪩

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The Outback, Australia

@kevintadge

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as soon as the World Wide Web stopped being a room in your house it was over for us.

Home Office Life (2001)

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self indulgent public journaling ☀️

Having artistic ambitions is hard.

I've been reading Goodnight Punpun while my bf gets tattooed six or so feet from me and it's making me a little introspective, something you're free to ignore!

I've always been someone who's run the other way when it's come down to taking myself seriously. In high school I was singled out for my writing by my english teacher, and for a brief moment I let myself get caught up in the idea of being a fiction writer, then a script writer, before finally deciding it wasn't a realistic ambition.

In college I decided the grounded version of being a writer was being a journalist. My writing was enjoyed by my professors, some went out of their way to take me aside and furnish me with references, connections, personal friends I could use as subjects. For a while I took journalism as my career path, that is until graduation crept along.

In 2020, the year I graduated my bachelors program, I suddenly decided Journalism wasn't for me. The path I was set on, that I was encouraged to pursue by friends, family, and professionals in the industry I had access to, miraculously no longer appealed to me.

There were real reasons, some ideological, some down to timing, some down to just the particular flavor of exploitation within the industry. But I can't help but feel as though in many ways these were just excuses. New shifting desires, expectations, masking fears of making a fool of myself or worse --finding myself ill prepared or without the actual talent needed to make it.

Photography took journalism's place. This time it's a passion that came from an internal drive rather than external validation. The last time I really had that was as a child making little character designs and overly detailed maps up until I made a friend who was better at it, which at the time was enough to break my little 12 year old spirit. Dork.

Validation from others is nice. Necessary for most I'd bet, necessary for me. No one is an island and no one does anything only for themselves, we're all a little selfish social creatures. Validation isn't always without its complications I guess, it can breed expectations from others. I haven't gone a year since graduation where the same faces in my family remind me of how much they enjoy my writing, and how much they'd love to see me engage with it again. I never have the heart to tell them it's not something that I think would make me happy.

But photography for me is from the heart. I've been lovingly, jealously, stoking the flames of this passion for five years now. Cupping my hands around the embers to keep them from blowing away. The idea has always been in the back of my head that I could try and go at it professionally. "But freelance work doesn't get you healthcare." "But I only shoot film and it's not realistic to try and do work with an outmoded technology like that." "But if I make it my work it couldn't possibly be my passion." "The need to do something I love professionally is just a symptom of capitalist conditioning."

Incorrect buzzer It's fear of embarrassment right? The same fear of embarrassment that stopped me from drawing when my best friend ended up being better at it. That stopped me from writing. It's hard to try, if you try you can fail, if you fail others will see. If others see they'll think less of you. They'll know you were less than someone else.

Still five years in I decided to really try. Maybe for the first time! I have my partner to thank for that I think. I've always surrounded myself with artists of one kind or another (a title I've always been too uncomfortable with using for myself) and in that regard he's no different. A successful creative who's been able to pay for his house with his own independent work as an illustrator and comic artist. He's been a consistent pusher of trying and I'm very lucky to have him for it, and for many many other reasons. I love him.

I made a portfolio site. I submitted a story idea to a local art magazine with the request that I be allowed to do the photography for it. And it worked! The story was accepted. My portfolio was accepted. I shot the shoot, shotted the shoot, you know. The editor loved the work! My photos ended up in print, locally distributed, found in a paper on my couch end table.

I got asked to help with another story. An indoor farmer's market had murals going up, and a photographer was needed for a story about the project and organizer. I flubbed it. Hard.

I have excuses, reasons, but a lot of came down to me. Yeah the film got fried by the TSA, but I also missed focus on a couple frames, I didn't check that my flash was still on between shots, or even that it was working properly at all despite having a history of being finicky. I was anxious. I didn't ask for the time that I needed. I didn't ask for people to move, or pose the way I needed. I didn't do the work that needed to be done. I'm an amateur, how embarrassing.

Along side the roll of film I used for the shoot, I received two rolls of film from a vacation I went on recently, full of some of my favorite work I've ever done. I'm lucky for that. I'm not the most resilient, and had it not been for those two rolls I think I would've given up.

Two emails to the editor later. No responses back later. I'm still committed to having a professional photography portfolio. Okay I messed up my chances with one local art mag. That sucks! I'm embarrassed. I'm sad. But it's not the only avenue to share my work, and I'm not going to give up here. I have a lot of growing to do as a photographer still. I'm an amateur, how embarrassing. But I'm determined to do that growing, and stumbling, and celebrating new achievements.

I have independent work to do, galleries to submit work to, other magazines to reach out to? Work to do! I'm excited, and anxious, and excited! More than anything though I'm proud of myself for going on even with the initial failure. That's growth which is something that comes slow to me. And that's kinda rad.

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Hassan, Urban Aftermath

📍Albany, New York

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I did a shoot for a local paper regarding a book and art store and I'm really excited by the results I got back! I especially love this shot I got of the family with everyone looking off in different directions 👀

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Adirondacks, Summer 2022

So much of what I love about film comes down to the colors but every once in a while a roll of b&w film just hits

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lil oil pastel doodling while waiting for christmas dinner ⭐

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Architrave • No Fun

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Philly PA • Spring 2021

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📷 #OlympusOM1

🎞️ #kodaktri-x

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y

you don’t know me. In my “free time” I can use my mind to sexualize scarecrows that are little more than huge piles of sticks and clothes ONLY OCCASIONALLY having a head. I can eat a bowl of plain rice nothing on it nothing in it and be sick for a whole day or more. Im taking all the wrong things in stride when I should be running people down

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what I've been up to lately

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really sad today

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ADK • October 2024

(Moss Lake, Inlet NY)

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Fuji Superia Xtra 400