'back'

As one of my favourite rappers, Charles Hamilton, has said multiple times, I am back.

I've not posted on this blog since 2012, the plan was to make it a place to put my work and any thoughts i may have. Since then (as you can see) not much has been posted. I moved from my family home in the countryside to Bristol (UK) where i spent a year and a half and i'm now living in Barcelona.

I feel like this is the most wholesome form of social media, even though not as popular, my favourite place to find information and read about people i respect's work/ramblings.

I've deleted most of my media platforms in the hope to find a better, 'real world' existence. I thought i'd feel out of the loop but i don't. I feel like i wish everyone else would do the same and get back into touch with conversation, work, collaboration and real life relationships. 98% of my friends have smart phones and 98% of my friends have snapchat/twitter/facebook/instagram/tinder amongst other lesser known applications running simultaneously giving them a constant update on what their 'online' friend just had for breakfast.

This is starting to sound like a rant and extremely pretentious. It's not and i'm not trying to come across that way. I love sharing what i had for breakfast if it's something worth sharing.

My friend, Conrad, emailed me about 3 months ago stating he had deleted Facebook and to communicate through emails as we are living in different countries. My initial reaction was 'what, why, how are you going to talk to your friends?'. One big contradiction, right? so with this, i deleted some platforms. I felt better, i didn't wake up to things on my phone that didn't matter to me and i didn't spend any time pointlessly scrolling through my associates life's with my finger tips.

I've realised i've stopped enjoying photography as much as i used to and i need to get back in touch with the whole reason i've spent thousands of pounds and hours on it. So with this I'm going to go on specific photography excursions and try to tell actual stories with it. When you first get a camera, you're intrigued into what the settings do, how to get the highest quality photo possible and eventually to get published in a high-street magazine. Well i've achieved that and it's become dry.

There was a time when i'd take a film camera out on a night out and shoot some of my best photos,

[click for big]

These days, i take my camera out maybe once a month to shoot a specific photo.

I've still got commitments to shooting skateboarding photos which makes the transition tricky, do i really want to not shoot skateboarding or am i just being bitter from a cold Barcelona winter?

Anyway, i've gone on long enough, i thought it'd be cool to include an inspirational/legendary figure/thing at the end of each post. So here's the first:

This is Larry Walters - 

Larry was an American truck driver who made his own flying machine. It was a lawn chair with multiple helium balloons attached. Larry was successful in achieving flight and sored at 15,000 feet. He carried with him a beer, a CB radio, a camera and a pellet gun to shoot out the balloons, allowing him to safely land. Larry managed to shoot out some of the balloons when he accidentally dropped his pellet gun over the side of his aircraft. Larry eventually landed on some electrical lines, he caused a power cut covering the whole of Long Beach but managed to climb safely to the ground. 15 years and a Timex advert later, Larry's long time girlfriend broke up with him. Larry took himself to the woods and shot himself, aged 44. Hold Tight Larry.