// who we were //

In September 2018, I traveled to Iceland with my partner at the time. We rented a camper van and drove around the entire otherworldly island in search of things we had only seen in blogs and YouTube video diaries. I remember coming across this beach that one can only image in their dreams. At that time of year, there's an area of the shore that is so shallow you feel like you're walking on water. Just out of frame is a huge mountain that everyone else was enthralled by. Many of the people posing in this photo are using that as their background.

I, on the other hand, found it much more interested to turn back around at all the tourists. When I'm on vacation, I love taking photos and soaking up nature, but I also find it wildly fascinating how others get their photo taken.

My approach to photography has always been pretty driven by symmetry and finding a balance. With my background in documentary filmmaking, I think candid imagery and authenticity are much more engrossing than portraitures or these perfectly curated photos with eight different lights around a subject. No offense those photographers, but naturally lit and little slices of life feel like they tell more of a story, in my opinion. In any case, when I can find symmetry out in the wild and in these unplanned moments (happy accidents, if you will), I just love it. Without getting too romantic, it’s as if this moment was always meant to be or meant to happen. To be there in that moment, capture things at that exact time and place, it’s pretty magical when you think about it.

I shot this photo with my iPhone X. I remember purchasing that phone specifically for the upcoming travels I would have that year. For years, my partner would always insist on bringing a DSLR with two lenses and I always ended up being the one carrying everything. While there are so great photos she was able to capture with that camera, I loved the idea of stripping down my payload and just seeing what I could get with my phone. One of the great things about smartphone photography is ones ability to capture those magical moments in seconds. The convenience of simply pulling out your phone is pretty unbeatable. Like all my phone photography, I used VSCO to edit this. I crushed the blacks to get that distinct silhouette of all the tourists and pushed the saturation a ton to get the sky and clouds to really pop.

When I look back at this photo, I think about a lot of things. I think about how I screwed up with the flight arrival and camper van rental, getting in too early to check out the van. I think about being sleep deprived, roaming around local grocery stores in search of some easy food to cook with the minimal cookware we got with the van. I think about checking in and out of campsites, and meeting people from all around the world for even just a few hours. I think about how we had just gotten married months before. I think about halfway through our travels we would eventually fight about something totally un-important and let it ruin the rest of our trip. I think about the fact that we would be divorced seven months later. I think about how my life, like this photo, would be turned upside down.

I don’t think about going back to this time though. I’m glad this moment happened. I’m happy I have this slice of life from 2018. But going back feels like returning to the person that I was. I rather like who I am now.