Naturally by Bertil Nilsson

Being the art/design/social media obsessed person I am, I spend a good deal of my time on the internet and come across hundreds and hundreds of photos everyday. Most of them interest me but those that I find super duper interesting of course catch my attention a lot more than others. A lot of times I'll see a photo I like and ask myself questions like, "who designed those shoes?"… "what's this model's name?" … "does this person have an Instagram?" and so on and so forth. But, as a photographer first, and a social media fiend second, the question I ask myself most frequently is the "who shot this?" question. 80% of the time the answer to that is not hard to find and little work needs to be done to figure out the source or artist behind a photograph. However, every once in a while when it isn't as easy; I've found myself googling key words, clicking links that lead to more links and going through different processes just to find an artist's name. Once I discovered Google Image Search, my life got a lot easier. I saw the image on the upper right on Tumblr and unfortunately because it was a reposted photograph (meaning it lacked the original basic information such as who the artist was or a link to their website), I had to look through notes and blogs to try and find more of this artist's work and ultimately just searched the image on Google.

Simply put, I find these images absolutely breathtaking. They're the work of artist Bertil Nilsson and a reminder that contemporary photography doesn't need much editing or manipulation to be appealing, but if one focuses on the core concepts like tonal range and contrast, you can produce some beautiful photographs. These photos don't look very edited at all but the creative concept behind it make them so powerful. Enjoy.

Tribe (feat. Jesse Boykins III)

I have this bad habit of obsessively listening to a new song when I really like it. Let's say I'm on Pandora and come across something I really fuck with; I'll pause Pandora, go to Youtube and play that song over and over and over, literally sometimes it'll be all I listen to for like two or three hours. I mean, now that I think about it, it's not so much a bad habit as it is a weird fun fact, but it's really like the song becomes embedded in my head. I imagine myself dancing to it, and I play it on my way to class, to my dorm, when I'm eating and kind of just have a party in my head. So that happened to me the other day with one of the new songs on Theophilus London's album Vibes! and while googling the song to send my brother a link, I found out there was a video that'd come out literally the day before. So obviously I watched it and got excited cause it was such a testament to the power of creativity, it was pretty simple in terms of production but the concept was so cool. (I also kind of fell in love with TL from like 1:11-1:23, this part is so hot to me idk, I need to find a boy that can dance like him). The song "Tribe" features artist Jesse Boykins III whose voice is no doubt what gives the song that extra something, it's personally my favorite off the album. So click here to watch the video and below I put a link to another one of my favorites from the album.

Have Shades: Will Travel

Ahh, the beauty of accessories. That one item that'll liven up your entire outfit, the one you know people will give you an endless amount of compliments for whenever you wear it, that you'll look at every once in a while and think "wow, i'm happy I bought these". That signature pair of shoes, earrings, sunglasses… the one your friends or siblings ask to borrow but you're like, nahhh, hands off. I love accessories, I always tell myself I should invest in more rather than just buying clothes but still forget too, one of my favorite kinds are sunglasses so I decided to put together a little visual ode to them.

 

the thirst.

old episode that i came across on who wants to be a millionaire, this is just funny as fuck.

So the main reason for this post is for documentation, I know I'm gonna forget about it if I don't write it down… On the first day of the New Year, I woke up from a dream about my dad for the first time in a long time, and it was only the second dream I've had about him since he passed five years ago. It was super realistic and I started crying a couple minutes after I woke up. It wasn't a bad dream, but I got really angry that I couldn't remember most of the dream once I woke up. So I was at my aunt's house (who I saw recently and spent Christmas with for the first time in years), we were at the dinner table and he was acting very father-like, that may sound redundant but, well, I'm not sure how to put it exactly. He was just being really cool and social especially with my younger cousins. I remember him going into the kitchen cause something fell and he wanted to make sure everyone was ok. At the dinner table I started singing this song and he was the only one who knew the words to it and I just looked at him almost in awe.

I really miss him yo and I tried to look up dream interpretations about dead family members but the results varied and didn't seem very credible. Nevertheless, I love him to infinity and beyond so of course having a positive dream about him on the first day of the New Year is dope. I hope you all have a great year and do everything you plan to, stay safe, healthy, and blessed. love wtfloflo.

Michael Nguie

Being a Photographer is sort of a curse. It's almost like when your brain has become so accustomed to capturing intriguing and peculiar subjects, whether you have your camera on you or not, you can't just turn off that ability. Therefore, side effects include: abruptly stopping to photograph random shit and staring at objects, patterns, or people for long periods of time. I came up with this term "photographer's guilt", which basically means seeing something that deserves to be photographed but because one may not have their camera on them, they can't and therefore regret or feel guilty about not bringing out their camera because they realize they probably can't capture that moment in the same way they saw it ever again. You may be thinking, it's not like you have to take pictures of everything Flo, geez. This is true but one of the thrills of photography as an art form is the spontaneity and skill that it takes to get a good photograph at any given moment. Not only is that a combination of right place, right time and just pure luck, but being able to have an eye for good shit. That was a long ass introduction but Michael Nguie's work beautifully embodies all the great things about photography, and his "eye for good shit" is absolutely impeccable. It's photographers like these that encourage me to never forget to bring my camera out when I leave home. I once recognized Ricky Powell in Soho and he told me the same thing, you really are losing nothing just by putting it around your neck and going about your day, speaking of which, Ricky followed me on Instagram yesterday that was fucking awesome. Ok, now all that being said, check out Michael's work.