Ooooh 2010.

2010 has been a very unique year for me. It’s probably the most stable my life has been in at least five years – staying put in one city, stable income, relationship, 9-5 schedule – quite an adjustment for me. That said, it’s still been a year full of big changes, developments, preferences formed, lessons learned.

Most of the big changes came in March. I was working a job that, despite sounding pretty cool, made me quite miserable. I felt incredibly overworked and undervalued, and spent a good bit of early 2010 quietly hunting for jobs, though quiet jobs hunts never seem to be too productive. Fortunately (though it didn’t seem that fortunate at the time), I got fired. I immediately tweeted that I needed a job, and within five days, got hired by an incredible communications firm, where I still work today.

Around the same time, I met Aaron. Upon meeting him I was pretty sure he’d end up being my boyfriend. Sure enough, still is.

I’ve gone through a series of quarter-life crises over my photography, professional life, etc., but I continue to meet and work with folks that bring out the best in me and value what I bring to the table. As 2010 comes to a close, I’m surrounded by people who value and appreciate me, and that is the best gift I could possibly fathom receiving.

2010 largely set the stage for 2011, and I’m prepared to have an even better year-in-summary 12 months from now. So that said, 2010, you were good to me, but I’m ready to put you to rest. Move along now.

Anyway. Here are some photo-highlights from 2010. As I was sorting through my year in photos today, I noticed that this year in retrospect felt significantly shorter than 2009 – largely because I didn’t actually take many photos or write blogs this year. Frankly, that sucks. So in 2011 I vow to start taking more photos and blogging again, if anything, for the sake of my own sustained memories – that’s why I started this blog in the first place.

So, for those of you who read this from time to time, hi, and thanks for reading.

Happy new year!
hp

2010 recap photos:

Visiting North Carolina.

Having visitors from North Carolina.

Photogging SF music makers.

SFMOMA times.

Underground times.

Above ground times.

Dolores babies.

Road trips to Santa Cruz.

..and then driving until you reach Hermosa Beach by morning.

The first of many photo adventures with Aaron.

Lake Tahoe.

Wondercon.

Megavisits.

Road trips to Portland.

SF photo adventures.

Getting a Minolta for my birthday, and immediately becoming obsessed w/ film.

Visits from Yogi & Party Boy.

Exploring California.

Heading back to North Cack to shoot Hopscotch Music Festival, visit family & friends, and intro Aaron to the dirty south.

Baker Beach times.

Business meetings in LA…

Visits from Erin & JT.

Riding holiday trains through Niles Canyon.

Getting a Yashica Mat for Xmas, and shooting medium format for the first time (something I’ve been wanting to do for a long time).

END!

Here are some stray photos that never made their way into a particular blog post.

July 2010

My bedroom window & my very round head. I think I was excited because my hair was finally long enough to put in a bun.

Adventuring in the Mission.

Aaron had very curious facial hair at this time.

Late-night spontaneous trip to Ocean Beach. Aaron’s facial hair has transformed slightly. Also, please note our San Francisco “summer wear.”

August 2010

Mick & Lauren’s wedding! The dude on the left with the sweet beard just got married.

Pete & Esme being cute & shit.

Still cute.

Dude’s facial hair continues to evolve.

REAL. THEY ARE REAL.

We are twins. I’m on the right.

Wandering around California again, this time in an abandoned concrete factory (or something like that).

October 2010

Flying to LA for the afternoon. Yes, for the afternoon. My first business flight ever! Life is fun right now.

Oh, and another fun update – I’m a product photographer for Photojojo now! I’m truly stoked to be working for one of my favorite companies on the planet, and doing what I love at that. I’m still working my day job at theMIX agency, of course, which continues to rule. It’s just great to have a side project that satisfies me creatively and happens to earn me money at the same time! Life is developing swimmingly.

You can see my first gallery of shots on the Photojojo site here.

That’s all for now. END!

As I explained in a recent post, I just started shooting film. Here are some more analog photos from my recent adventures.

A trouble detector outside of Aaron’s apartment.

Finding horse (or maybe dinosaur) jaws in Niles Canyon.

Exploring some concrete factory ruins somewhere in California. More photos to come from that later.

Atlantic Ocean.

Pacific Ocean.

Sunset picnic at Baker Beach, shortly after being introduced to a European grocery store in the Richmond. My picnic food consisted of rye bread and salmon eggs, and it ruled.

Ok, so this is kind of crazy. After enjoying shooting film with the Minolta so much, I decided to pick up my old Canon EOS Rebel that has been sitting in my room for a year or so now. It was originally my mom’s, and one day a few years ago, while visiting home, I noticed it sitting in a “$5″ box for the yard sale she was having the next day. I of course swiped it. I forgot about the camera until a couple of weeks ago. A roll of film was already in the camera (I had no idea what was in it), so I finished up the roll, not having a clue if anything would even turn out. I was surprised to see these shots show up in the scans.

These are from Raleigh, probably two years ago, at GraffitiSpark. The guy below, Joe, is now a friend of mine, but I had no idea who he was when I took this photo. I remember loving his art more than anyone else’s that day.

And some more surprise shots from the past…

And here are some shots, taken recently, from the same roll.

The first test shot. The owner of the bike walked up as I was taking this, and seemed a little agitated/creeped out that I was photographing his ride. I complimented his bike and skipped off.

Walking through my neighborhood.

This is jpeg. She’s the newest member in Troy and Shipa‘s family, and we love her. You can even follow her on twitter: www.twitter.com/jpeg.

This is jpeg trying to make Troy into a nice chair.

Aaron + jpeg being bros.

I’m still figuring out this whole film thing… and yes I’m still hooked. It takes me a while to get stuff developed (I’m going to have to start budgeting for film), but I’ll be posting it in clumps here and there. Stay tuned.

END!

Hi! It’s been a while.

It’s my birthday! It’s days like these where you can’t help but to spend your entire workday (other than eating cupcakes) daydreaming about how another year has flown by and how much has changed over that course of time.

Let’s think about it. One year ago, I was touring the country with two boxes of personal belongings, a camera, and about 40 bucks to my name. I was a bit nervous about the fact that I was attempting to move to San Francisco with only those 40 bucks to my name. However, when I am determined to do something, I always somehow pull it off, so I put the worries aside for a night to drink tequila with Tim, Bowerbirds, Megafaun and Huggins in a hot tub in the Arizona desert. It was a good birthday.

I’ll be having a relatively unadventurous birthday this year – I’ve spent the workday in my office, and I’ll spend my night drinking beers on the back porch of a bar in the Mission with friends. No hot tubs (I may be speaking too soon), no tour, no parties in random states. I’m actually kind of okay with that.

I have an incredible job, with a salary, that I enjoy. I have stability. I have a roof over my head and a jungle yard. I have an amazing dude who I go on adventures with. I have awesome friends who I go on adventures with. I live in a rad city with an exhaustive amount of things to do and eat and see. I drink less. I eat better. I sleep better. I’m healthier physically and mentally. Things have changed and, while I miss the ridiculous adventures and stories from the road, I wouldn’t change what I’m building for a minute.

That said, I need to post more!!! And I promise I’ll start posting more soon.

I have so much to write but I won’t get too ranty. For now, I’ll just post some photos from my recent adventuring.

Greetings from Omaha!

This was the first time we actually had a deadline to be in a specific city. We knew that no matter where we ended up in the country prior to this, we needed to be in Omaha by the 22nd, as our friends Bowerbirds and Megafaun, two incredible bands based out of our hometown of Raleigh, were playing a show that night. No traffic jams this time… and we actually made it into town a day early!

This left me the entire following day to explore downtown before the show. The area where I spent most of my time could be compared to Raleigh’s warehouse district or downtown Durham… lots of old warehouses and otherwise giant brick buildings that had been renovated but still retained their integrity. The streets were made of brick and most of the streets had giant wooden awnings installed over the sidewalks with flowers planted on top. Way fun. The weather was a little crumby, but still good enough to snap a few shots.

I stumbled upon a random thrifty antique shop in the midst of my exploring… and was greeted twice by a young hipster lady who seemed too inebriated to realize she had started a conversation with me five minutes prior. I carried on the second conversation as if the first never happened. I’m not sure if she ever realized it. Perhaps that’s for the best.

I met back up with Tim and Alyssa, our lovely Omaha host, and we spent some time drinking coffee and browsing record shops (Saddle Creek Records, founded by Conor Oberst, is based out of Omaha… so you can get a lot of their tunes for cheap here).

Next stop: Meeting up with Bowerbirds & Megafaun. They were playing at the Slowdown, the venue owned by Saddle Creek. The venue was nice… very aethetically pleasing and quiet and completely devoid of smoke or grime. Nice change.

The show was great, which shouldn’t surprise anyone, and the show was well-received. We stayed for a bit to catch up with all of them post-showtime, but we were all so exhausted from our own individual tours that we said our goodbyes early and promised to catch up in Denver, when we all reunite.

Omaha day 2 consisted mostly of pizza, beer, and mustaches. Just you wait and see.