the journey is the destination

The title is borrowed from one of my favorite books called The Journey is the Destination: The Journals of Dan Eldon. The book is a rich visual exploration of the young photojournalist’s work before he was killed by an angry mob in Somalia. I bought this book when I chanced upon it at a Borders store during my first years in San Francisco. I had moved to the city on a whim after falling in love with it as a tourist and decided that I had to move out here. It was a period of transition– of me going back to being a student from a full-time paid job. At that time, I was looking at a couple of options for a Masters program in Design. One was to stay in Chicago where I lived at that time and go to the School of Art and Design. The other was to go to the Academy of Art in San Francisco. I picked San Francisco over Chicago, a city I had fallen so in love with during my visit here a few months prior to it. After a short stay at the Academy which didn’t feel like a good fit for me, I went back to work but on a slightly different journey. It was the height of the dot com boom so I got sucked right in….and then out. I loved every minute of it and it was an amazing learning experience to dive into the world of pixels and cyberspace. If you want to take a peek at my really, really, old design site you can see it here.

While updating the bio section for my blog, it made me think about my own transition and journey in photography. The dreams and reflections of where I have come from. Where do I go from here? What is my style? I have seen myself evolve although one thing has been a constant. I have always loved, loved taking pictures of people in their environment (not so much nature) and documenting life in stories. Sometimes happy, sometimes sad, but always real. Recently, someone asked me about my early work and I thought I would share some of it. The pictures below were all shot on 35mm film using a SLR.