Minnesotan Cotton

San Francisco

My father and I end up going on a lot of small trips away together and San Francisco is always one of my favorite getaways. We always end up exploring some new territory and having adventures.

Tomato

Drawers

As I began to think about college in junior year, I thought more and more about growing up and aging. I wasn't as interested in the physical manifestation of age, but rather how the mind and personality change. I thought about how I present personality to others and I wondered if that would change in the future. This idea of maturing and becoming an adult with more layers as life went on fascinated me even more this year since I graduate from high school in ten days. After visiting the school I attended from K-5, I realized how much I have changed as a person. Change is unavoidable and it is embodied differently in each person. I felt that the best way to represent this hidden layer of personality and experiences that tend to develop with age by opening drawers in my house and photographing the contents.

My sock drawer

My simple shirt drawer

A card drawer

My mother's night stand drawer

My father's dresser drawer

Newspapers

During the election this year, I decided to do an exploration of newspapers as not only props in an ordinary Sunday morning, but as relayers of information. 

Minnesota Storms

Minnesota is best known as the Land of Ten Thousand Lakes, but I know it as the Land of Ten Thousand Storms. Although Minnesotans are stereotyped as quiet, passive aggressive Northerners  our weather is the opposite: loud, aggressive and in your face. The summer is sweltering and incredibly humid. Walking outside will cause any fit person to pour sweat down the back of their shirt. The fall is sharp, gnawing and drawn out. Winters are infamous. I had a snow day on March 5th this year. You know the snow is bad when Minnesotan schools close. Springs are punctured with strong storms that tear apart the beautiful budding flowers and newly glistening leaves.

Ferns that are unlikely to survive the next thunderstorm bravely unfold.

When I was studying for my midterms junior year, my father called me on the phone intercom system (his favorite technology discovery of 2012) and said "Come outside with your camera quick! There are a bunch of clouds that look like butts!"

When it started hailing, my dad ran outside and collected hailstones to freeze and put in his drinks later.

Rain almost always comes at night.

I know summer is around the corner when I am watching the storm inside the screened porch after the sun sets.

Moroccan Chicken Photo Story

The leaders on my Moroccan photo expedition assigned everyone in the trip a theme and we were expected to find a series of photos that tells the story. My peers received themes like the line between work and play and how religion and family mix in Islamic cultures. After looking through my photos from the beginning of the trip, the leaders decided I would do a quirky story about chickens. I suppose I can really capture the spirit of a chicken.

Forgotten Moroccan Photos

Going through pictures from a photography expedition takes me almost a year before I completely analyze each photo and see it multiple times to get an idea of if I like it or not. As a result, I often find photos from the trip that I completely forgot existed but love.

The campsite in the Sahara desert consists of tents, cots and carpets to sit on. My roommate and I decided to ditch the cots and sleep under the stars every night. We often waited until everyone was asleep and the moon rose so we could run off into the dunes, guided by the bright shining moon and the meteor showers.

We weren't supposed to touch cows.

A ruby red scarf catches one of the rare breezes in the Sahara desert.

We set up camp next to a well and we often splashed each other with water to stay cool.

The morning sun hits the camp tents and wakes me.

The sun sets on the dunes, creating a pleasing golden yellow and crisp lines.

Some of the dunes have caked cracks that make my dried out hands look tame.

The Spirit of Alaska in Pictures

 On August 8th 2010, my sixteenth birthday, I woke up in an Alaskan cabin in the middle of Denali National Park. My mother's oldest brother owned the only residence in the entire park and invited my mother, father, sister and I to come up for a week and a half to relax as he and my mother grew closer (she was the youngest of ten and he was the oldest. Their age gap of 18 years separated them for many years as he was a young man and my mother was a drooling toddler and later on a smartass teenager).

My uncle's cabin is right next to a small, family owned resort and because of their characters and hospitality, my uncle and his wife are good friends with most of the staff members. They were all young people, but they love my uncle and aunt as good friends but with great respect. I believe this is in part because it is rumored through the staff members that my uncle won the land and right to build a cabin in a drunken poker game. He confirmed with my mother that it was absolutely not true, but I'm not sure if I believe him. Every night, they host loud dinners with a wide variety of people from different walks of life. These dinners were a time for stories, debates, discussions about Spinal Tap and tasteless jokes. One night, a woman shared a long story about when she almost lost her life while lost in a blizzard. The room was breathless, even though we all knew she survived.

My sister and I found ourselves once again the only teenagers in a hundred mile radius, like most family vacations, and we ended up embarking on small adventures every day that eventually studded my memories of the trip. Every morning we strapped on our hip waders and walked around in the frigid running river while picking up rocks to skip and discussing the logistics of seeing a bear. After a long walk that often ended with someone stepping in a deep spot and filling their boots with icy water, we began the activity that defined us the most: gold panning. My sister and I are used to the lovely lifestyle my mother's hard work has provided us with so naturally, gold panning appealed to us. Sarah had the easy job of scooping gravel and I had the backbreaking job of sifting the dirt out. Much to our surprise, we actually found a nugget of gold that is now in a safe somewhere. My mother was convinced my uncle planted it in an attempt to thrill us even more.

My uncle is an adventurous, wonderful man who hoped for nothing more than to find the adventurous Conlins inside my sister and me and nurture it until we ran just as wild as my mother and her siblings did in North Dakota. He took us on hikes and taught us to look at Alaska from your belly so you could see the diversity of plants and life in every inch of the state. He let me drive his old pickup truck through the river, and when he drove past my mother and sister standing by a puddle, he sped up and soaked them with icy mud water. He took us to an old cabin that the Alaskan pioneer, John Busia, lived in alone and was buried next to then helped us convince our mother let us stay a night in the cabin. We slept well until my mother convinced him we were dead and to go check on us early in the morning. I suspected he was proud that we stayed in the cabin the entire night (not a big feat since the sun is up well into the night anyway), but I knew he was proud when he secretly told the entire staff of the resort that we stayed in the haunted cabin. For the rest of the trip, young men asked us how two teenage girls could dare stay in a place so creepy, they wouldn't dare go there at night. We just smiled and shrugged, then proceeded to mock them mercilessly, since after all, we are our mother's daughters.

The one thing we refused to do was canoe. My uncle will never understand why.

On my birthday, my family created the most humble sixteenth birthday itinerary ever. My sister made me cupcakes and my aunt made cheesy hashbrowns. My uncle planned a trip in the Kantishna Air Taxi, which was a beautiful airplane ride that overviewed Alaska's glaciers on Mount McKinley. We went hiking and ate cake. The resort staff told me stories about them at age 16 and we laughed at their foolishness while I secretly hoped I wouldn't look back on myself and laugh (I do). After loyally playing Yahtzee for a decade, I got my first Yahtzee. Then shortly after, my second and third Yahtzees. My uncle didn't try to make us canoe. The day was humble, beautiful, simple. It was everything Alaska is.

Four men play cards in a gas station in the middle of Alaskan Wilderness. Much to my surprise, I was spotted while taking my picture.

My father stops the car to look at the mountains up close.

It was an ominous drive, but beautiful anyways.

The mountains and clouds kiss and make mist.

My uncle's yard is decorated with some old toys.

The wonder in looking at Alaska on your belly.

The Kantishna Air Taxi overlooks misty mountains.

The mudroom of John Busia's haunted cabin.

My uncle and his Kantishna Air Taxi baseball cap (my father would later buy one in a rust color).

Harmless vandalism makes nearby grizzly bear families hilarious.

A woman tells her near death experience over drinks as the sun finally sets.