#miniessay

My childhood was filled with analog rolls and 35mm snapshot cameras. I briefly played with digital gear in my teens, but I remember the day when my excitement for digital cameras died. As a teenager my friend Rune Egenes (that I really looked up to) showed me his new camera. It was a Hasselblad from the 500cm series. Looking into that confusing, but the stunning waistlevel viewfinder completely shifted my whole idea of how you can take photos. It was hard shooting with my digital Nikon after that. My dad tragicallly past away around that time and I inherited a little insurance money, which resultated in a roadtrip across the U.S in 2008. On the start of this trip I met up with another photographer that I looked up to. His name is Lou Bedlam and we met in Los Angeles where he lives. He was super generous with his time and showed us around, but the greatest part was when he showed me a photo store and I bought my first proper analog camera, the same Hassleblad Rune had shown me. I was so eternally grateful, to finally have this camera, with Lou, this brilliant photographer by my side advising me.

So the journey began, across 19 states with my best pals in the world. We rented a minivan and every day was a new adventure. Luckily all of us were interested in stopping everywhere to film, shoot or play around. The photos I am sharing with you today are from my first analog rolls and I am happy to say that I have kept shooting analog ever since. I remember developing the first rolls at Wallgreens, checking out the paper copies and being mesmerised. Sure, there are light leaks and imperfections, but there is also so much texture and tones that came for free. I was converted then, to the analog belief system; to the medium format cameras, to the rolls of film, to the C41 chemicals stored in my kitchen, to the consideration of each frame, to the expectation during developing the film, to the heavy gear and the vast physical archive of negatives.

I know skin tone is determined by melanin, but why do we have to be a variation of a shade?

Like, why can’t we be, erm, determined by what element speaks to us? A wispy grey for wind or air, like mountain fog. Earthy tones of khaki and blooming green. Baby blue to deep indigo or turquoise for water. Hot red and flaming orange for fire. 

Like, imagine the possibilities! It’d be so awesome.

Oh, another idea! Imagine having a variation of, say, earthy brown depending on your lineage and where you’re from? Lovely pale skin with red flushes up North. Tan skin for those in the sun. Olive skin for those who come from places in Asia. Depp, honey-brown skin for those from Africa. How beautiful.

Don’t get me wrong here. I hate vaping, it’s obnoxious, it’s awful for you, I don’t do it and will never do it. It’s dangerous and gross in my opinion.

BUT

Vaping is a little better than cigarettes (they’re both bad but cigarettes are worse) and if cigarettes aren’t banned, vaping shouldn’t be either. (I have to say, at least vaping doesn’t smell half as bad) Vaping kills much less than cigarettes even though it still kills. Although I do think that vaping shouldn’t be marketed towards children, I don’t think it should be outright banned for being “too dangerous” because cigarettes are much worse. I think that both or neither should be banned. I think people are trying to get vaping banned because they’re new and scary. It’s similar to a juvenoia effect and being scared of . I do think vaping should be regulated since cigs already are, so that makes sense but maybe not ban them?

In conclusion, ban both or neither. At least regulate e-cigs because companies can put pretty much anything in them. 

So I've been thinking about one thing I noticed recently - that I often play horror games as cozy games. And I do sometimes play more normal cozy games: I played a ton of Minecraft after my eye injury, Animal Crossing got me through a lot, Celeste (even if it's not one of the canonical cozies) has helped me climb out of some low spots. But so did the Residents Evil, when I'm overwhelmed I have been going to the Silent Hill soundtrack a ton recently, and Signalis is currently my relax before bed game. And that does feel weird to me. Like, if I'm overwhelmed and tired, how is the sound of banging pipes and crying children the most effective at calming me down?

I played The Witches House recently, and one thing I noted was how potent the atmosphere was. And part of that atmosphere was the low-budget 2010s indie game feel. Signalis and Crow Country both have retro PS1 aesthetics (I'm not super familiar with Crow Country, I played like 10 minutes of the demo pre-release and decided I had to play it - I just haven't yet). Scarlet Hollow has you go cryptid hunting in the dark woods of a small town. For me at least, these are all pretty genuinely cozy, and also nostalgic. I don't have any direct memories playing PS1 games - by the time I knew what that was it was already a retro console - and I never personally played any RPGMaker games as a kid, but they both slot nicely into the parts or my brain that remember playing the Wii, or whatever browser games I could find. When my family went to Seattle, I did go Bigfoot hunting tho. Resident Evil is an okayish example of this; because it's tone is so heavily B-Movie, it gets some of these benefits too. Not the nostalgia exactly? But it can feel like watching a dumb movie with friends.

And it makes sense these games would have cozy atmospheres, it allows for greater contrast against the horrors. And it may explain why I did not stick at all to Fear and Hunger, because the base atmosphere is already so bleak, but I'm not sure on that.

An idea that I think I'm getting from Moon Channel(?? it's been ages since I've seen the video in question) is that horror games let you have agency against the horrors. Which makes sense that it would potent for me specifically, since feeling stripped of agency is something I struggle with a lot. So setting up a terrible situation, and then forcing me, at gunpoint, to get out of it, and then letting me use the tools and find the path out is a very comforting experience. Dropping me in the middle of a zombie apocalypse and getting stalked by an giant invincible man is scary, but if Jill's got a grenade launcher, we can deal with this together. And even Harry Mason isn't as cool as Jill, he can still keep going. He's just a dude with a gun and a pipe. He can barely tell what reality is anymore, but he has to look for his daughter, so I help him push through the fog. And so just by playing these games, I take small actions to step into the horrors and fight them myself.

And finally, horror games, oddly enough, do have to guarantee safety. When you get into a save room, and you hear the music, you know that everything is okay, and nothing can get you. Horror games to this to force you into choosing to go back out into danger, but inversely, they are forced into choosing to give you comfort. And genuinely, that's a beautiful comfort. Save rooms are always so serene, you finally have a chance to breath, to get your gear together and to prepare. But it also means that while you're out, while you are facing the danger and running out of medpacks, you know that you will be guaranteed safety if you keep on pushing. Even if you can't take one more hit, even if you have every enemy the game can render behind you, once you open that door you'll be okay. Which is different from reality, because after a day at work, I'm not guaranteed rest at home. I might still have to fix a leak, or pay that bill or whatever. So horror games can actually have more guaranteed safety.

Mary inverts the paradigm of the divine and the flesh. She feed God with her breast. She taught God how to walk.

Mary inverts the paradigm of man and woman. Just as God drew Eve from sleeping Adam’s rib, and so God drew himself from her womb. The creation creates the creator. Mary gave full consent to the task laid out before her.

Mary inverts the paradigm of refugee and empire. "And so a sword shall pierce your heart too." Mary already knew. Imperial violence weaves throughout Mary's story. As a pregnant woman travelling for the census. As a refugee mother fleeing into Egypt. As a woman, and a mother, and a Roman subject. And, thirty years later, as a mourner, watching the state murder her son.

Mary inverts the roles of the poetess and the silent. She understood her role as subversive to the social order: her Magnificat establishes this. Is it a coincidence that Mary's prayer became the battle cry of the colonized as they through off their colonizers? The woman who taught God to talk understood how God's love subverts worldly expectations.