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I first met Sinna when the New York Times sent him up to Montana to photograph me for a piece during the pandemic. He spends most of time doing documentary photography and photojournalism, and was in the middle of covering the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally when he got the assignment. I feel like he brings a fly-on-the-wall, investigative quality to his portraits, and a portrait-like staging to his images of plane spotters, Met Gala afterparties and Las Vegas architecture. I’ve always aspired to collide mainstream and underground approaches, but he makes it look effortless. His instagram is also a constant stream of fascinating candid clips and observations.
Related Recs
She’s been my favorite since her work caught my eye on Tumblr, circa 2016. She photographs buildings, primarily in Southern California, where I live. You can find her on Instagram as casualtimetravel.
Southern California is naturally beautiful, but most of what’s been built here is based around cars - wide streets, strip malls, big parking lots - and there isn’t much beauty to be found in it.
Lots of photographers take photos of banal American architecture, but typically they seem to try to show it as ugly and soulless. Which, fair enough. SV looks at that architecture and shows us something else.
Her compositions are clever and precise, bringing elements together in brightly lit, complex compositions. The light is key for me. She embraces midday sun and its clear colors and sharp shadows. It’s what it feels like to live here where the beaming sun is an almost-daily presence.
But what really shines in her work, what I fall for every time, is the sense of humor that comes through her photos. I can imagine her smiling as she composes them, happy to see how she can bring the elements together for the viewer. Yes, the dull architecture is there, but it’s been cropped and composed into something almost whimsical.
It’s always there, in the supermarket parking lot, the back of a strip mall, the stucco facade of an office building, it just takes an artist to show it to us.
Feb 12, 2025
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She’sa photographer named Sinziana Velicescu. I first saw her about nine years ago on tumblr and have followed her since. she captures the feeling of Southern California in a unique and true-to-life way. And her work has a sense of humor to it that gives it warmth and life even though her compositions are precise.
Also for photography, check out The Heidies and Brooke Holm.
Jun 11, 2024
She mostly photographs Southern California, where I’ve always lived, but creates meticulous compositions out of boring and inconsequential architecture rather than from beautiful people and gorgeous vistas.
I don’t think her photos ever include people so there’s a sense of distance or disconnection from the rest of the world. And even disconnection from what people think of when they hear California.
The weather is ideal here and Mother Nature did great work here, yes, but anything man made was built in the last 75 years. It’s all built as a home for cars, not humans. There’s a cognitive dissonance that comes with living here.
I’ve seen a few photographers produce similar work, but she’s inimitable. Follow her @ casualtimetravel
Oct 23, 2024
Top Recs from @a.
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I used to be obsessed with a dish at this Taiwanese restaurant Little Fatty - a “sunday gravy” served with pipe rigate pasta instead of rice. Here’s the TOP SECRET recipe that I managed to track down and successfully prepare. Cooking time: 3 hours. Ingredients: 1 lb ground pork, 1 lb cubed pork butt, 1 lb cubed pork belly, 1/4 cup shiitake mushrooms, 1 large strip of kombu seaweed, 1/2 cup shallots, 2 cloves of garlic, 2 tbsp low-sodium soy sauce, 2 tbsp fish sauce, dash of sesame oil, 2 tsp hoisin sauce, 2 tsp sambal sauce, 2 tbsp Shaoxing cooking wine, 2 tbsp kecap manis (Indonesian sweet soy sauce), 1 tsp five-spice powder, chicken stock to cover. Directions: Soak the kombu and shiitake mushrooms in hot water. After 10 minutes, dice the shiitake mushrooms and kombu. Mince the garlic and shallots. In a large bowl, measure and combine all the liquids, then set aside. In a large pot, brown all the meat in two batches over medium heat. In a separate pan, sweat shallots, garlic, and mushrooms for 5 minutes, then combine them with the meat pot. Add the liquids and spices. Add enough chicken stock to cover the meat mixture by half an inch. Bring to boil, then simmer for 2 hours, stirring every 20 minutes. Serve with pasta (or steamed rice) and pickled mustard greens.
May 13, 2024
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This synth-plugin has been doing the rounds amongst my producer friends since it was released at the end of last year. It has a pretty radical approach, using Sonic Charge’s “genopatch technology” to grow and unravel synth patches based on a small audio sample. It isn’t really like sampling - it’s a much more beautiful and chaotic hall of mirrors. Pure synthesis has never been easier or more uncanny than this.
May 13, 2024
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A modern music folklore podcast hosted by Alaska Reid and featuring a wide range of interviewees. I’ve been with Alaska for the last 6 years, so I’ve really witnessed and learned a lot from her dedication to songwriting. She’s also a human can-opener, extracting golden nuggets while discussing her guests’ rawest demos. There’s a new, extremely thorough episode with Gus from Kero Kero Bonito, someone else who I’ve known for a long time, and it’s special to hear such a sincere conversation in an otherwise opaque online world. Her episode with Lauren Mayberry is also particularly direct and touches on a lot of things that musicians don’t often talk about.
May 13, 2024