Night 3 was extra special because drumroll please I got a ticket! I met Kwinn in a Facebook group because she was looking for someone to go to the show with and, well, you know I would die to be there! But because I can’t turn off my work brain (and because I do truly adore the fashion) you know I snagged some fan photos, too!
film
The Dive Motel on Film /
While I’d been hoping to visit Nashville for about 4 years, my recent trip was planned in only 2 weeks, and my plans shifted pretty dramatically less than 24 hours prior to departure.
When I’m traveling, I tend to chase newness and emotion and change and adventure and I’ll probably write more on that later, but all you need to know now is that I usually choose to drive. This trip was no exception, which I realized was risky in February. However, it was also cheaper, and when you choose to drive, you also choose to pull over for sunsets and antique stores in old gas stations and the world’s biggest paintings and eggs. The intersection of slowness and spontaneity changes me in a way that flying doesn’t quite reach.
But in a twist of fate, as plots tend to do, the day before I was to leave, a storm warning was released—with ice—directly along my route. I will drive through many less-than-ideal conditions (I’m Midwestern, after all), but icy roads tend to be where I draw the line. I don’t need to spend the night in an ditch somewhere in Missouri.
Originally, I was supposed to begin driving home on Friday evening to get a few hours under my belt and lessen the load of Saturday’s drive. But now that I was flying, I could leave on Saturday instead. However, I didn’t have a hotel for Friday night and most of the places that had bed-bug-free reviews were booked or expensive. And most of the good (read: clean and safe) and affordable Airbnb’s were booked.
So I was feeling at a loss for options. Maybe it was my destiny to stay at an overpriced Tennessee Holiday Inn or Best Western. At least it would have free breakfast.
Somehow in the midst of my desperate googling for options, I recalled Urban Cowboy B&B, which was far beyond my budget, but in their Instagram bio was a link to a different place: the Dive Motel. I clicked on it, curious, and was swept away by the bright colors and 70’s themes—and the disco balls in every room. It was definitely too cool to fit into my price range, right? WRONG. And Expedia had an even better deal.
So on Friday night, I found myself at the Dive Motel. Being that it was one day it snowed in Tennessee, it was too chilly to enjoy the pool, but the bar had tea, so I cozied up in a booth for a bit, drinking Earl Gray and reading. And, yes, my room had a disco ball and different music stations. And, yes, I definitely danced in my room. You don’t have to wait to have a date or have a reason or have a big budget to fully savor the world and step into new places. You don’t need a plan free of mess to have an adventure full of magic. You don’t need a reason to dance. You are here, the disco ball is on: for tonight, that’s enough.
Lady Gaga : Disposable Camera /
This was the genuine feeling: what is my life?! How am I even here?! I was overnighted super close floor seats to Lady Gaga’s performance at Wrigley field in Chicago in August of 2017. It felt magical and surreal and I felt like a queen—second only to THE queen Lady Gaga. Thank you so much, Chris and Interscope, for treating me so well. I was a sparkly Cinderella for a night, dancing my booty off to pop bops.
Since I wasn’t formally shooting, I didn’t bring my “real” camera, but I definitely brought a disposable, primarily to document the fans and fashion of the evening. It didn’t disappoint.
This was one of the two photographers who asked for my photo; I told him he could have it if I could have his.
My friend Matt came in clutch and showed up last-minute to hang out!
“Can I take your photo?” “Yes!—if you’re in it, too!” “Deal!”
Before the show, a couple photographers asked to shoot my outfit which, especially in Chicago, especially at a Lady Gaga show, feels like a huge compliment (because it is). One of the photographers was from a newspaper and the other was from WWD. This will show my naivety, but I figured it was like a local music or fashion publication or blog. Once I posted about it, one of my friends told me that actually it’s a pretty big deal. I had no ideal. I was just living my life in my $20 thrifted outfit in a gifted seat and somehow I ended up here, on WWD’s site. Anyways, I said it before and I’ll say it again: I don’t deserve any of this and I’m incredibly grateful to set foot in these spaces. Who would’ve thought this is where I’d end up? Not me. For sure, not me.
Climate Strike in Des Moines /
“This is our future.”
“There is no Planet B.”
Last minute, I was able to attend the Climate Strike on September 20th. I didn’t have a sign or a shirt or anything fancy: I simply had my self and my camera, to show up, to add to the numbers, and to bear witness through my film. Upon arrive, I got choked up at the amount of teens there. Everyone from punk kids to VSCO girls. When I was their age, I didn’t think climate change was a big deal and honest, I was probably too self-absorbed (and privileged) to care about anything that policitcal. To hear teenagers speak articulately in front of such a large crowd gives me hope that, despite all of this, empathy still exists and maybe things like climate change and the mental health crisis don’t have to keep getting worse. Maybe it can get better. Maybe it will.
“Climate change is a global emergency.”
I’m nowhere near competent on this issues and I’m nowhere near living a fully sustainable life, but I hope that I will keep learning and growing and maybe that's just it: maybe if we do that, it can get better—and will.
“Things to do: feed the cat, eat breakfast, save the world!”
“Learn to change or learn to swim.”
“Live from Area 51. Be green, earthlings. Climate change impacts everything.”
There was a Greta Thunberg quote on this poster (but it’s hard to read here).
“Demand climate justice from the fossil fuel industries.”
“You know it’s bad when an old straight white guy is marching.”
Halloween /
Some of my roommates and friends dressed as iconic musicians and singers for Halloween. Alyssa Leicht took absurdly good photos of us, and we shot a few behind-the-scenes photos with disposable cameras.
Steven Tyler
David Bowie
Bob Dylan
Johnny Marr
Kurt Cobain
Willie Nelson
Prairie Pirates /
We called ourselves Prairie Pirates and all wore black jeans and brown boots and flannel shirts and set off on foot across the Midwest. We braved water and thorns and trees and got lost once, but we made it back, all in one piece. A rather successful fall morning adventure.
This is how I feel about running around outside. Tanner took all the photos that I'm in.
Most of the photos are in chronological order.
More and more often, when I'm documenting my "real life" (read: not client work), I'll use disposable cameras. I can stick one in my pocket and I don't have to worry about it if I fall in the water (I tripped and almost did). They're not as "high quality" images, but sometimes I like them better because they feel more like the moments that happened and I want to remember those feelings rather than perfect pictures, you know?
Switchfoot : Disposable Camera /
On Friday at noon I had zero Friday night plans. Around 12:30pm, my photographer friend Chris posted on Facebook. To give you some background, Chris is the touring photographer (among other stellar occupations) for Switchfoot. His post was a list of tour dates; Switchoot was on a short tour, and two of the dates were within three hours of Des Moines. So I shot him a quick message, asking if he’d be coming through the city at all. He wouldn’t be, but he offered: if I was able to make it to the show, he’d get me in, and we could hang there. I scanned the dates. The closest show was Omaha—that night. Show at 7pm. I worked until 4:20pm. And it was a two-hour drive. Challenge accepted. I texted Brittany and she picked me up from work (with food and a hat because she’s awesome and my hair was a mess) and we booked it to Omaha.
We arrived with 15 minutes to spare. Enough time to take a photo with this animal head.
Switchfoot
I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve seen Switchfoot, and in how many city and venues. Outside, inside, Illinois, Iowa. I can’t count anymore. The first time I saw them was at the state fair with my dad and brother. I was in 8th grade and had just gotten contacts. It rained that day, and, as the show was outside, we got ridiculously wet, but it was completely worth it. A decade later, the band is still at it. And I’m still showing up, singing along, dancing, and feeling the words even more deeply than I did then. Stories of struggle and hope mean different things when you’ve lived more years. Deeper things. They settle into your soul and you find kinship in them.
During one of Switchfoot’s songs, frontman Jon climbed into the crowd and wandered through nearly every section. He walked down the aisle behind Brittany and II held out my right hand to high-five him. He high-fived me—then grabbed my hand and pulled himself up onto my chair. He stood right there for a moment, then grabbed my hat right off my head. And put it on his own head. He stood there, right next to me, on my chair, singing to me, with my hat on his head. Fifteen-year-old Liz geeked out. And let’s be real: adult Liz geeked out a little as I sang along to the same song. A minute later, Jon set my hat back on my head and moved on.
Lecrae
After the show, Chris met us in the foyer to say hi. He is an incredibly kind and gracious human and it was delightful to make his acquaintance in person. Until Friday, we had simply been internet friends, our paths barely missing each other in Chicago. One of my favourite times in life is when internet friends became “real life” friends and this was no exception.
post-concert Buffalo Wild Wings
Tory met us for dinner and it was wonderful to laugh together and hear about her life and adventures.
Our last stop was Walmart. We needed a phone charger and caffeine. At that point, we were pretty tired, after working and driving and the concert, so everything was funny. Those are the best drives: singing as loudly as you can to twenty one pilots and He is We and laughing and everything and nothing at all.
Katie and Hannah : Disposable Camera /
I've been focusing more on being present. On creating life, and if art comes with it, all the more beautiful. To that end, I've been shooting more with disposable cameras in my "real life" (read: my non-hired shoots). So when Katie and Hannah visited from Colorado, I shot through the entirety of the 27 images in those 18 hours. These gals are such kindreds spirits and I love them and their company. This was our day. A little blurry, but beautiful and brilliant and summer and windows down and catching fireflies and not enough coffee or sleep but just right.
First stop: coffee at Mars Cafe
Stop #2: lunch at Zombie Burger
Domestica
Coffee #2 at Scenic Route
Just before dusk, we headed to the prairie.
The last morning. Bittersweet.
I'll see you soon. Some state. Some day. We'll adventure.
Romance /
Working at a job at a desk by myself and road tripping nearly every weekend has lent itself well to pondering. My most recent thoughts have circled around the concepts of the known and the unknown and the romance of both. All these photos are film and of my own city.
My first thought was this:
Maybe there are two great romances in life: the romance of the unknown and the romance of being known. Perhaps God is both.
I left the idea there—as a stand-alone thought, as a caption, as a few words with no more depth or conclusion. But they were a beginning. A few days later, those words chased me down again: this time in regards to a city. There are so many stories that begin in cities. Poems about cities. Songs about cities.
Ed Sheeran crooned: “The city never sleeps, and that makes two.”
The 1975 chanted: “Yeah, if you want to find love, you know where the city is.”
And those are just two that come to mind in a few seconds as I sit, writing, balanced on this little wooden chair.
Cities have a romance entirely unique to their size and diversity. They’re a delightful picture of the romance of the unknown. Unknown like eye contact with a stranger. Like buying a train ticket without looking at the destination. Like the feeling in your stomach when the airplane leaves the ground. Every day is guaranteed to be different, delightfully and extraordinarily so.
The city is dangerous in all the best ways. In this romance of the unknown, we may brave a bit more physical danger, but we are emotionally safe. Whereas in the romance of being known, we are safe physically; but emotionally, to be known, we give some person or some place the ability to draw close to us, the potential to reach close enough to hurt us. The unknown is a safety net of romance and being known feels like a free fall, not knowing if the bottom is a canyon or an ocean—but I wonder if the reality is the contrary. Perhaps the unknown is a free fall and being known is the safest place—it is just contrary to our feelings.
We tend to latch on to the romance of the unknown because it feels safer than the romance of being known. Or at least I that’s what I tend to do.
The biggest city I’ve ever lived in was Chicago. This week I thought about its adventure and mystery and opportunity and how difficult it was to leave. Years later, I still feel a kinship to those trains and cafes and dirty streets.
The year I left, I wrote:
“…in the month before leaving the city, I was offered somewhere to live and fantastic photography networking opportunities seemed to present themselves. I began to question everything. What was I doing? Am I crazy to move to Iowa? There’s so much more going for me in Chicago.
But here’s the thing: in Chicago, I can make something happen. There are so many opportunities. I can work hard and take the credit. And then there’s Iowa. If something is going to happen here, it has to be God. I felt as though there were less opportunities and less dreams.”
The city represents opportunities. The numerous unknowns that I can make my own.
The city is diverting, distracting, beautiful, romantic. It’s the perfect setting of a novel or to meet a stranger at dusk. When the world is so large and so completely out of my control, I feel strangely like it is more in my control. The unknown feels safe to my tumbleweed soul. It’s easier for me to cling to only one of those romances—the unknown—while forsaking the equally important romance of being known.
It’s why the boy across the bar is more intriguing than the one leaning against your elbow.
It’s why it’s easier to start a new book than finish the one on your backseat.
It’s why we run to mountains and away from our childhood homes.
It’s almost nearly easier for me to leave than stay. To stay and be known is messier. And more difficult.
The unknown is poetry. It’s picturesque. We can shoot mountains and write poems about the ocean or a boy whose heart we hope to meet. We don’t write poems about the grocery store at night or crying on the phone at 3am or the struggle to cultivate romance in a place that has lost most of its mystery.
However, in only romanticizing the unknown, we lose some of the depth of what love can be.
I’m of the opinion that romance must be both: unknown and becoming known and when I run from the latter, it’s only a sort of wanderlust or hunting for the person in the painting, only to realize he doesn’t exist. That the real people may have callused feet and messy hair and crooked collars and crooked smiles, but they have something the painted man or the mountains don’t: they are here and they can hear me and I can hear them and we can learn to know each other. It’s slow. Driving into the unknown is faster and fiercer and makes for more beautiful photos. And not that the unknown is always wrong. I simply think both are necessary.
I don’t want solely beautiful photos; I want a beautiful life and beauty comes with both length and breadth. With both unknown adventures and new humans and quiet deepness and late-night home-in-this-place laughter.
And the most beautiful thing about being known is this: you don’t have to face the unknown alone. You can face the unknown—known—and together.
(I’ll likely have more thoughts on this later, but these are a few hours of my life and thoughts on a page. Please, if you have thoughts about this, talk to me. I’m still pondering all of it.)
LANY /
All the images are unedited disposable camera shots and all the lyrics in quotes are from LANY's "Youarefire."
"Half days and Fridays and any days..."
I've been hustling 10-hour work days this week so that I could leave work at 11am.
Our only stop on the way to Minneapolis was at a rest stop. The light and the trees were just lovely and Blake is quite dapper so I asked him for a portrait. I was afraid it would be too dark without a flash, but it turned out lovely.
I'm pretty sure I took this at Spyhouse Coffee, but I honestly can't quite recall.
"...any days without school."
It's summer and roadtrip season. The world is wild and awake and saturated in color and life and adventure.
Spyhouse coffee. Otherwise entitled: 4 shots of espresso is a lot.
"Can I get a portrait of you right here next to all the cars?" Real life. Blake taught me about seltzer water and it was very interesting and feels quite European.
"Means more days in more ways, I've been running around...with you."
Blake and I left Ames around lunch time and drove straight to Minneapolis. Coffee, and all black everything, and no rain, and good parking. The world was in our favour. The city was ours.
Blake was kind enough to drive downtown and I took photos out of the passenger seat window. These tunnels fascinate me.
I took this shot--with flash--as we left, avoiding eye contact as we ducked out of the door, after lighting up the foyer with my 90's camera.
Minneapolis was full of old signs like these. This particular one was one of our favourites.
H&M
"Suburban World"
The valets across from this restaurant were doing a crossword puzzle together.
"This is it."
LANY
LANY went on just after 9pm and we sang and danced until the last song.
LANY : Paul
LANY : Les
LANY : Jake
OW: Oh Wonder / Oh Wow / Oh What a darling duo
Midnight found us in a white peeling parking garage (some might call it 'ratchet'), then we drove home, hands full of cold pizza, road full of fog, and eyes full of startlingly clear Minnesota stars.
"We are gold.
You are fire."