VALLEY OF PALMS lost images

VOP is a photography project I have been researching for over a year, and production began in March 2025. I had been taking images slowly on one roll of film using my Canon AE-1 while simultaneously working on other projects. I had been using this camera since 2017 and have only ever lost one roll of film because it hadn’t attached properly to the spool. Unfortunately, I didn’t finish that roll until about three weeks ago, when I realized it had happened again. I had decided to take the next week to shoot everything over again to get images to you, but in the worst of luck, it happened a third time. It was only then that I investigated my camera and fixed the actual problem inside. To ensure it would not happen again, I wasted a couple of frames to see it roll up inside, as it had failed to do so in the past. It’s currently out for development, which will take a couple of weeks to get back to me, at which point I’ll be able to send you the finished results. The project is intended to include over 20 images, but these incidents have back tracked my original deadline. I’m predicting I’ll be able to complete it by the end of the year, but the more I shoot, the more ideas come to me, so I’m staying open-minded. Click here for the inspiration collages. (project proposal at the bottom)

VALLEY OF PALMS is a self-reflection and acceptance of everything that has made me who I am. For the longest time, I spent my time wondering why I didn’t have qualities my classmates had, the qualities that helped them understand a book the first time they read it, or the ability to grasp knowledge so easily. I never knew the answers, even when I studied, I had to read one page ten times, and still, my mind would wander everywhere else on the day of the exam. My classmates used to tease that our art class was a joke, a ploy to waste time, and no one took it seriously. In contrast, art class was the only 45 minutes of the school day when I felt smart. I didn’t have to think about why yellow and red made orange; I could see them blending in my brain. It wasn’t until I started going to Parsons that I found out that school could be a place of comfort that challenges you and brings out the best in you at the same time. It was then that I noticed all the qualities I despised as a kid, because they made me so different from everyone else, were in fact the same qualities I was now being applauded for. In the same breath, this also led to my distance from my hometown. I used to feel as though my home hated me, it couldn’t understand me, and I needed a bigger city to fulfill who I was meant to be. By the time I graduated, I still had my lease for another year, and my parents said if I was able to find a job within that time, they would help me keep living in New York if that was what I wanted. But I hated how I felt about the place that kept me safe all those years and that holds everything I’ve ever loved in it. I had let myself despise parts of myself because they were attached to a town I didn’t want to forgive, but for what? The only choices I felt I had were to go back home and find a way to become at peace with it or continue running away for the rest of my life. I have always been loud, I have always loved stickers, I will always prefer color over neutrals, and I have always had the tools I needed to become who I am today. This project stemmed from this journey and includes vibrant details from my childhood merging with my life today. My goal is to see this project displayed in an exhibition and create a photobook.