Photography died for me about the time when film was phased out. My family never owned a digital camera. Also, the phasing out happened while me and my siblings were teenagers; which, I suppose, curbed my parent’s desire to take family pictures. I never felt drawn to digital cameras and the Instagram era fueled my hatred for photography, which I considered banal and superficial. It was thanks to my friend Che Sun, an avid landscape photographer, that I discovered the true essence of photography and the exhilarating fact that film had never died.
Unfortunately, the year I jumped into photography, the world plunged into a pandemic. As mobility was severely restricted, I decided to document the life of Davis, California, the small city were I live. Armed with a modest Canon A1 (purchased from Che) and several different film stocks, I wandered the streets to portray everyday life. The result was as idiosyncratic as Davis itself: an interesting mix of urban and rural landscapes, a diverse student body and thousands of bicycles.
The films used in this volume are Ilford Delta 400, Kodak TX 400, Lomography Potsdam 100 and Berlin 400.
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