FINAL VIDEO*

my parents and avoiding the pink collar

- Carolina Hidalgo

"original hipster"

Someone's comment upon looking through old photos of my mom that I pulled together for the family history project.

friendship

Friendships are strange things. They seem to be formed when you're not paying attention.

out

...the wildness, the freedom. Of clicking down dark streets and up dingy, dimly lit staircases in the cold with a little yellow purse haphazardly packed with a disposable camera, a pack of cheap cigarettes you bought the night before at a closed gas station and a few crumpled dollar bills...

garage band tracks

fall '10

On the first day I've spent by myself in a long, long time, I'm reflecting on the semester. So many new friends, new experiences. So much living. A while back I up a picture of me and some friends standing on the ledge of a lighthouse. We had climbed up after scrambling around in a nearby cove and racing along the shore. The caption reads, "It's quite possible I fell in love with life on the Oregon coast." And I believe this to be completely true. Some snapshots in an attempt to sum up this semester back in this place where I spent three years at without ever knowing anyone or anything.

Musings, cont'd

...Because she'll go to bed soon, next to that long-distance boyfriend she came to visit, and I'll head out, with this man I met in a foreign country a year ago, my boots clicking down the stairs, with my heavy eyelids and my uncalled-for laughter...

self

So for this New York Times photojournalism workshop I'm going to in January, the photo editor we're gonna be working with wants a self-portrait. I thought of doing something blown-out with studio lights but I would need some help with the lighting and studio is not really my thing and not what I want to do. Wasn't sure how I was gonna come up with a self-portrait and then I remembered this shot from the last day of a journalism conference in Vegas. I'm not sure if I'll go with it but it's the best option I have right now. We'll have to speak about our photo so I feel this would be relevant since it was from the first time I really applied as a photojournalist for something. I guess it was my first time with that title, instead of "reporter."


It was a sleep-less week filled with stress and coffee and, though I don't really even smoke, cheap Nevada-priced cigarettes. Instant friends, drama, journalism advice, slot machines, ridiculous amounts of alcohol, newspaper production.

This was the last morning. Almost everyone was gone. My friends from Minnesota had just taken off and my huge, upgraded hotel room felt empty. The sunlight filtering in through the window, which I had hardly had a chance to enjoy, highlighted the mess that remained. Business-card sized fliers for prostitutes, beer bottles and cigarette butts.

I had just had a final 8 a.m. meeting with the newspaper team in the same dress from the night before and a slight headache. So I sat across the window sill, lit a Camel and took it all in. The artificiality right outside with mountains in the distance. My own artificiality reflected in the window.

-CH

R. U. R.

Definitely not as enjoyable as the Hamlet portion of the show.

quiet rooms

"cars they go by slow."

family history

Really glad we had to do this project. I finally had time to interview my parents on video and the whole thing came full circle. It definitely brought us closer in some way and brought me closer to Colombia.

powerpoint

some screen shots from my old family history powerpoint.
this was my favorite class project. It gave me the chance to learn a lot more about my parents' lives and their childhoods.

party. after

post-show. new york city.

thursday thoughts

She was a movie character, that perfectly imperfect ex-girlfriend. With dark hair and Katherine Heigl teeth and a demurely commanding presence.

But being around such creative energy, such artists... The kind with plaster constantly on his jeans and his fingers rough and cut and calloused.

-CH

The worst bathroom in NYC

"In the social universe I inhabit, there’s such a strong belief that you can change things, you can make things happen. But in the Bronx, behind too many of the doors I knocked on, people’s faces are bereft of that sense."

- Elizabeth Dwoskin


Great column in the Times. Village Voice staffer writes about her experiences going out to the city's worst buildings to collect people's stories.

Pink collar

Going back to the family history and pink collar avoidance subjects from the beginning of the semester

jrn 490

Part of my semester-long capstone journalism project. Last journalism class majors have to take here and it kicked all of our asses. Pulled my first two all-nighters, watched the sunrise through the newsroom window and tightened bonds with old and new friend through the hellish project process. We got our final grades today and all made it out.

city show

"Maybe I'm a dreamer."

"Nothing lasts forever. Maybe I'm a dreamer.

It's like life-- you never know how much time you have guaranteed."

-Mikey Sarrell, owner, Ruby's Bar & Grill

twenty-one

We drunkenly slide down dunes, kicking up sand and blinding the night with disposable camera flashes.

The full moon illuminates everything and you hold my sandals for me and we get to the bottom and I stumble out of my jeans because I want to go in to the ocean.

You tell me I'm crazy and that it's cold but you pull off your clothes and I snap a picture of you and run into the ocean that is not really an ocean but a sound.

-- CH