Sink Florida Sink
Photographs made on a 0.5-megapixel Motorola flip phone in Florida circa 2005.
– Forthcoming artist book published by Nighted –
It’s hard to describe the excitement of having a phone that could take pictures in the early aughts to anyone who wasn’t there — it felt like the future had arrived on a two-inch screen. Recently, I’ve been thinking about how it’s too bad my generation switched from the quality of 35mm film to the convenience of low-res phones and digital cameras—that nearly a decade of our lives would be stuck forever in pixelated Facebook albums. But in hindsight, Brandon’s grainy photos captured the moment perfectly. If you want to know what 2006 felt like for kids in Florida just getting their lives started, it felt like this: hot, sticky, and grainy.
I often felt like a fly on the wall at 17, a shy newcomer to a group of friends who brought out a rebelliousness I didn’t even know I had. I nursed Smirnoff Ices while sweating on porches, breathing in everyone’s cigarette and weed smoke, singing along to “Sink, Florida, Sink.” I bounced around on a mattress in the back of a van and watched our friends’ bands play coke bars and skate parks. I had a 4-megapixel Canon PowerShot that lived in my purse, my own personal selfie machine. Before long, “MJ, let me borrow your camera,” became Brandon’s regular request—sweetly annoying at times, but I welcomed it. I watched as he became our personal event photographer, documenting all of it with a mix of curiosity and carefree energy.
Eventually he got his own camera, showing it to me excitedly in the back of that van, sitting on that shitty mattress. I felt a twinge of sadness, knowing my camera was old news and our little dynamic was over. I said, “Wow! 7 megapixels.”
– Marie O'Neil
(pictured, left)