A few months ago I got the opportunity to start going through my grandmothers photographs. This collection is not your standard few albums with posed family snapshots, but thousands of prints, slides and negatives by both my grandmother and my great-grandmother. There are family portraits, landscapes, snapshots, and close-up shots of flowers. Starting to sort through these photographs that span my grandmothers entire life (and yes, I mean entire, as some of the oldest negatives in the collection were taken in Salt Lake City by my great-grandmother in 1911 when my grandmother was born), I find myself focused on the compositions and lines in the photographs, as well as the life lines that flow through the photographs and make up the stories of my mother’s, grandmother’s and great-grandmother’s lives.

So much of our lives have been shaped by where we live, and where we come from. My grandmother spent her childhood in the Alberta prairies, mapping the land her father farmed, and much later, helped her husband work their farm in the Wenatchee Valley. My grandfathers family had helped settle the land, and it was here, after 30 years of being a nomad that my grandmother settled down, as best as a nomad can, and found her roots.

So this is where I have started, somewhere before my beginning, in the middle of my grandmothers story, and near the beginning of my mothers story, following the maps of my family’s roots.

Bright sun yellows and shimmering golds; fire reds, neon greens, and shimmering silver sequins. Dragons and lions moving like water above the crowds and small children sitting on shoulders, giggling with glee. Drums pounding out celebratory rhythms to welcome in the new year. the smell of sulfur lingering in the air long after one’s ears stop ringing from the firecrackers, and lettuce and discarded medallions wishing good luck scattered on the ground. Happy Chinese New Year!

Went down to the International District in Seattle today for the Chinese New Year festivities and spent the day shooting and seeing friends. Ended the day at the Panama Hotel for tea. ‘Twas a good day.

It’s a delightful (and rare) occurence when I drop off a roll of test film (ie- the first roll of film I’ve run through a camera I purchased at a yard sale, antique shop, or that devil of a website ebay) and come back to find a roll of film that’s actually usable. It’s almost more exciting than Christmas. And it’s exactly what happened today. I finally ran a roll of test film through my Kodak Brownie Twin 20 that I acquired at an antique mall down in New Orleans in October, and am happy to find the camera is in working condition. No light leaks, and the film was (pretty much) properly exposed. The lens is a little out of focus, but let’s be honest, if I wanted a crisp image, I wouldn’t be using old plastic cameras. Granted, I have yet to take anything but photos of houses in my neighborhood, but hey, that’s what test rolls are for. And besides, I live in a pretty rad neighborhood.