#52
5/06/2022

BLOOMing

This is Niki Download #52, which means I made it a year. Well, really it was a year and 21 days as it took me 386 days to make 52 downloads.

The goal of each of these remains the same,
to explore life through images, to savor, to deepen understanding, and to satisfy my insatiable curiosity.

A camera is a tool with which to articulate an image based language. I am still working on my fluency, and this download keeps me working and learning.

At the beginning, these downloads were really wordy and tended to indulge my internal monologue:

• 20210423 | #2 They Don’t Make Them Like They Used To

• 20210430 | #3 Roid Rage

• 20210528 | #7 Lab Leak

• 20210827 | #18 Garden Brain

These feel a bit cringe now, but it is tolerable.

By #20 my internal monologue recedes. Images reign and I focus on other people and places.

I began to treat each week like a field trip into someone else’s existence:

• 20210917 | #21 For the Hell of It

• 20211126 | #31 Noggin Robbers

• 20211203 | # 32 An American Tradition

• 20220107 | # 37 Cattle Man

• 20220304 | #44 Suckin’ Syrup From The Source

The main thing I like about making pictures is hanging out with people and getting to look at them closely.

And if I am on my game… I get to capture light and reflect their power and beauty.

This week I made some portraits of Casia, who I met during my first week of college. I remember when we met I was deeply impressed by their complete creative originality and personal style. One of Casia’s greatest gifts is their ability to create truly beautiful and sweet spaces for people to play and experience music together.

Let it be known, without Casia who is an excellent musician and recordist, none of my music would sound good. In fact I may have never made any music at all.

I am the best I know at starting a new hobby and getting really into it for about a month before I move onto something else.

This download has documented that habit:

• 20210507 | #4 The Fungus Among Us

• 20210702 |#11 Citizens for Mulberry Jam Fan

• 20210827 | #18 Garden Brain

• 20220128 | #39 Dough Boy

I have been fortunate to take some cool trips, some to other countries, some from the comfort
of my couch ;)

• 20210625 |#10 Tunnel of Trees

• 20211015 | #25 Life is Good and Good For You in Paris

• 20220429 | #51 Where Twisted Trees Grow From Rocks

I took a trip to make a portrait of my friend Andi, who I also met in college. I wanted to make a photograph of her IV antibiotic treatments which she self administers, often while enjoying a Virgina Slim.

In the top left corner of that photograph hangs a drawing of a unicorn I made in 2014 during my “beautiful losers phase”. I had no idea Andi had that or displayed it. I am making a note to send her something better.

“Something better” always turns
into another thing to replace,
another thing to improve on…

Or sometimes, like endings, getting worse at.

Thankfully is not the end.

See you next week <3

-Niki

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