theycallhertyler

[theycallhertyler]

Soft & Hazy

When I was 14 or 15 years old, I’d spend restless nights listening to music on Pandora and scrolling through photography blogs. Considering myself a student of the burgeoning Lomography movement, I would bum around the Lomo store on Santa Monica Blvd after summer school, renting cameras I couldn’t afford, flipping through their photo books and even participating in their learning courses and…

[theycallhertyler]

New York, New York

Wow it’s been almost four years since I published my last blog post. I started this blog 10 years ago, when I was 19 years young, but now that I’m on the edge of 30, I feel like it’s my duty to recommit myself to my expression. Too often I get swept up in the instagram tide and think that it’s the only avenue of expressing myself, my art, my story. There are many avenues of expression and this is…

[theycallhertyler]

Lovejam #6: I'd Like to Walk Around In Your Mind Someday

Lovejam #6: I’d Like to Walk Around In Your Mind Someday

When you show up on my feed, it spreads a smile. I think I’d like to stay with you here, at least for awhile. I brought my surfboard to bob on your shore— My blanket is now your ocean drawer. Remember when we sang this song? I laughed and laughed along! I had giggles for days When you pushed play. I wipe the funny tears away from my eyes, To count the stars in your night skies. There! Above! A…

[theycallhertyler]

Reading "Cane"

Reading “Cane”

Wind is in the cane. Come along. Cane leaves swaying, rusty with talk, Scratching chorused above the guinea’s squawk, Wind is in the cane. Come along. Jean Toomer’s Cane is his poet song of the American South. Written in 1923, it’s like a Harlem Renaissance painting speckled with colorful Black characters decorated in the glow of a Georgia sunset. Told through a series of vignettes, Cane…

[theycallhertyler]

Pittsburgh, PA

https://open.spotify.com/track/2P3gWTmmStZrKJIR0sU6jH?si=BuX8G2_ZScKnAT8GR9p3wQ When I landed at the Pittsburgh airport earlier this spring, my phone glowed with paragraphs of notifications. The first was Twitter saying Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson tested positive for the novel coronavirus. The second was that the NBA had cancelled its 2020 in-person game season due to coronavirus fears. The rest…

[theycallhertyler]

Joshua Tree

Joshua Tree on #35mm film photo series. Wishing I could time warp to winter in the desert.

Joshua Tree

If you’ve ever been to Joshua Tree, you know the beauty. You’ve experienced the strange sensation of looking out into the distance and seeing Joshua Trees of all sizes and shapes as far as the eye can see. You’ve felt the chaotic stillness emanating from the rock formations, the eeriness of human presence in contrast to the…

[theycallhertyler]

Lovejam #4: Uncloudy Day

Lovejam #4: Uncloudy Day Wrote this lovejam in honor of my Grandmother, one of the pillars in my life. I also recently learned that it’s Mavis Staples’ 80th birthday this year. Happy birthday Mavis and thank you for this gift.

https://open.spotify.com/track/6ZNz2aaMwy8yaQzlnT9507?si=QnuDY9lnQji7udWRko4IDg

His name was Steve, but everyone in the family called him Lil. To some he was Lil Stevie. 

The baby boy of eight siblings in Lake Providence, Louisiana, Lil was the skinny, airy, neat as a pin brother that kept you laughing. When he got a couple swigs of jockey juice in him, he transformed into the family’s crooner.

T…

[theycallhertyler]

Cali & Cartagena, Colombia

The sensations of Cali & Cartagena, Colombia

The air was thick and sweet when we walked outside of the Santiago de Cali airport. Kristie and her divine mother Claudia, embraced us weary travelers with hugs, welcoming us to their homeland. After years of seeing, hearing, and feeling Colombia through Kristie, here I was — cradled in her country and experiencing it with my own senses.

The vast fields of Cali filled my eyes with green. Lush…

[theycallhertyler]

Long Live Nipsey

Crenshaw & Slauson                                                                                                    April 11, 2019

Nipsey when the balloons popped and people panicked that it was gunshots, it felt like a wave hit and everyone fell. The barricade for your memorial was down and some folks next to me got cut from shattered candles or burned from flame or blue wax. I…

[theycallhertyler]

LOVEJAM #3: New Familiar

LOVEJAM #3: New Familiar

https://open.spotify.com/track/6qvKBMX2pN6eE9imxpKQfZ?si=VpMiW0EPQF6tXfhFUOEK1A

An old stranger,

Newly familiar,

Introduced me to the Old Wind.

  She thought if I knew

The touch of His howl,

His voice would unlock

The language of all Winds.

  One night in winter, we gathered on the edge of the Colorado Desert,

And stared at the starlit sky, until the moon was the only thing we could see,

And the…

[theycallhertyler]

Tulum, Quintana Roo, Mexico

Check out my photoseries from my anniversary trip to Tulum, a spectacular corner of the world.

Tulum is the first place to see the dawn in Mexico. The sun crowns the horizon at 7:30am, and splashes gold into the sea, the trees, and the people. Each morning of our trip, the Yucatán Peninsula would welcome with a warm breeze that smelled so sweet. We’d wake to the birds tweeting outside our hut on the beach. Whether we’d spend the day reading next to the waves, or touring sacred Mayan…

[theycallhertyler]

You

You know your feelings best—

https://open.spotify.com/track/02ipL0e9BEimHGn3k4HOBl You know your feelings best— trust them, follow them. They are guided by the deeper chemistry of intuition. – Tyler https://open.spotify.com/track/470GRgn0wzQWq5EBTqEQ9R

[theycallhertyler]

Soft Sand

That unforgettable time we got stuck in soft sand chasing wildflowers.

Back in March, Michael and I left the county in a fever for the wildflowers. The El Nino storms created the perfect conditions for what is known throughout Southern California as the very rare Superbloom. https://play.spotify.com/track/1wOxTOMMt5N7aw6kBItAW4 We packed the camper shell, and set out for Anza Borrega State Park in his brother’s pickup truck. All along the side of the highways,…

[theycallhertyler]

Sweet & Dandy

Sweet & Dandy photo series from some of this year's adventures.

My desk is cluttered with rolls of undeveloped film, chapters of my life framed in 35mm format. Here are some special exposures from Coachella to FYF to Santa Barbara taken on my Canon point-and-shoot with Lomo 200 slide film. Cross-processing is a natural way to obtain saturated and high contrast photos without any editing. https://play.spotify.com/track/43VGpsNJKyJJ7oAiSGkwKJ Little Dragon.…

[theycallhertyler]

Notes From TwentySeventeen

Read about some reflections from the new year, and going forward.

It’s 2017, and the Obama Years are over. The luxury many Americans felt in the previous administration vanished, and has now been replaced with crippling anxiety and despair. The gravity that once held this country together, has collapsed into a blackhole called Amerikkka. Nationalism is spreading globally, sweeping a number of important national elections to the far right. Donald J. Trump is the…

[theycallhertyler]

Aretha Awakening

With Aretha retiring soon, read my new column and check out some of my favorite performances.

It was in the early dawn when I first felt the power of Aretha Franklin’s voice. It came trembling out from my fingertips and shaking through my knees. It washed over my sins like faith. Her mighty vocals possessed such strength, her gospel seemed to lift the weight of God into my headphones. So I listened with complete absorption, on a westbound train to a day’s work, far from the comfort of my…

[theycallhertyler]