I met the owner of the Bmore Flea Market, Patrick Horvat, from being a frequent shopper at the flea. I would always have my camera on me and he started to notice me taking pictures of people's outfits that I liked, and he asked me to start photographing for the Instagram page. I would come and walk around and scout out anyone who had really cool outfits on, I'd ask if I could take their photo for the Instagram account, let them know its film and then they would always get really excited when I would mention to them that it's on film and would pose. It became a really cool gateway for me meeting other artist, people who make their own clothes or jewelry, people who are also into photography that we could exchange social media handles to support each other - it was amazing. I was quickly thrown into an environment with very likeminded creative individuals, something I was unaware I was lacking to be around. Being around other artist fuels you to keep creating. Its inspiring to be around other people that uplift your work and share with you theirs.

The owner/creator of Jett Brand clothing I happen to meet along the way taking photos for the Bmore Flea Market. Joey is a local professional skateboarder, as well as a business owner now. He sold his clothes at the flea on the weekends, and I would take his photos and ask questions about his brand, to then which he asked me to be a part of the team and help take photos for his next clothing drop/launch. It was a lot of fun; I got the pleasure of working with other creators in this process as well which is always very rewarding to me.

Being in the darkroom is a magical, inexplicable feeling. It will have you losing track of time for 7 hours at a time. I would go in, early in the morning and wouldn't come out until the sun had gone down, unintentionally, trying to perfect the perfect print and exposure. It was a massive privilege for me to have access to such an incredibly stocked dark room at my college, Towson University. I was lucky in more than one way. It was my senior year, my very last semester and I needed 1 random elective credit, I saw they offered a film developing & printing class which raised my eyebrows. I had been wanting to learn for years and here was my opportunity. I noticed you needed a pre-rec for the class in which I did not have. I emailed the professor (a semester before the class started) and explained to her how passionate I am about film photography, how I had been doing it for at least 5 years at this point and how this was my last semester/last chance to get into the darkroom and that I would do anything for a spot in the class. She responded back mentioning she really loved my passion and would happily wave the pre-rec for me so I could be one of the ten people in this prestigious class. I was over the moon excited. I learned so much in this class, and firmly believe it has made my photography skills infinitely better. To be able to witness, let alone learn the science behind making a tangible photograph is a knowledge ill carry with me for the rest of my life. The chemistry making your image appear right before your eyes is an unmatched feeling that my words could never articulate. 

Around October, I started to work for a Black&White Film Magazine on Instagram called @dominofilmphoto with 2 other guys. It has been nothing shy of extremely rewarding and fun. Our entire concept is to just share other photographers work, completely free, in hopes to create community and give peoples work some decent exposure. It boosts people's confidence and inspires new ones. It's truly an amazing thing having to consistently reach out to creators, asking if we can share their work (we ALWAYS get consent before we share someone's photo) and to be on the receiving end of how happy and honored they are to have been asked.  

Mid-December a team member reached out to the marketing department for the camera company Lomography. They sell cameras & film as well. They were luckily very receptive to our idea to have them send us some rolls of film and we review them on our Instagram page for them. They sent us each one roll of a 35mm roll and each one of us also got a roll of 120mm to test for them. It was really fun to go out and shoot two brand new film stocks I had not tried yet. We each put forward our best shots from each roll and had our own post and review on the page of our day shooting them, what we think of the film stock and if we would shoot it again. Lomography was super please with our reviews- so much that I think they will continue to send us merchandise to test for them. Extremely cool concept- I am still unsure how we pulled it off.

An old friend of mine who attends a prestigious music school in LA called 1500 Sound Academy came home for the holidays and asked me to shoot some new portraits of her for her new music page on Instagram. She wanted them to be on film, at night with flash- shot in a car. I had never done a car photoshoot before, but I was eager to take on something new I hadn't perfected yet. They came out better than we had hoped - what we always want.

Live music on film is unmatched. You have to really feel it in your bones if you got the shot or not since you can't see your image right away like with digitals. There is something so rewarding about knowing and feeling that you got the perfect candid, and then actually getting what you intended to capture.