I brought a knife to a gunfight

Any one that knows me well, knows that Taylor Swift and her songs are a giant guilty pleasure for me. Thus why I have made soooo many blog posts using some of her lyrics as titles for posts. So of course I am using another one with this post.

I have made a couple random posts since spring break and the pandemic wrecked havoc on all of our lives. And mental health. Which kind of leads in to this post. I shot the images that you can see at the end of this post before the pandemic, back in August of 2019 (along with a couple others that I am already writing and scheduling their publish date). I shared a couple on social media here and there. But didn’t write a blog post like I usually do. Some of that was just the adjustment to working from home full time, two kids doing school online and having to be a teacher at the time(which was an absolute shit show at the time because there was no real structure or plan then), trying to build and maintain some kind of consistency with every moment of our days being stuck inside the same four walls, my personal life and the relationship I was in at the time, and then of course the anxiety and depression set in. Some of it was just trying to find and enjoy the highs and happy moments that were going on. Some of it was just a complete lack of desire to sit behind the computer and edit. Loss of motivation and desire and just fucking being distracted.

But the anxiety and depression affected EVERYTHING in my life. Like every god damn moment. Nothing felt exciting or fun. Everything would cause me some kind of anxiety. I remember texting someone in the grocery store, mid panic attack. Because I couldn’t remember what all I needed because I left the list at home. Oh, but there were some moments when I felt like I was on fire and motivated as hell to do things. I edited photos, made new shirt designs, was consistent with plans and commitments. But looking back on it, that was happening during the manic highs after just existing through the manic lows.

I know I was not the only one that was dealing with this stuff. Apparently the whole fucking world was adjusting to it and falling apart in their own little ways. I just acted oblivious to it and kept doing my own self wallowing. But before I turn this in to some fucking boring and long winded poor pitiful me post, let me talk about these images.

The black and white images were shot on Iflord HP5+. It is hands down my favorite and go to film to use. The grain is just so fine and beautiful, even when pushing it 2 and 3 stops. The blacks are rich and solid with a great transition and gradation in to the gray midtones. If you haven’t ever shot a roll, I highly recommend you do so. The shoot itself was a little off the cuff. I knew I wanted to play around with this sliver of light in one of the bedrooms. I had recently shot a full set with another model using the same sliver of light, but wanted to try something different with it. And of course, shoot some of my regular shtick. So Attica and I worked out our schedules and made the damn thing happen. And well over a year later, here they are…