I have this not so secret but rather unrealistic dream of going into space. I went to Space Camp, subscribed to a NASA photo service, watched and rewatched Apollo 13, went to rocket launches, and was going to be an astronaut… a long time ago.

The reasons for my space romance are a few, but now I am mostly seduced by poetic sensations like looking back at the earth to see it globular, hanging in a void and by traversing the untrodden, barren landscape of another planet. The infinite solitariness, unfathomable vastness, and life-threatening distance from the known are godly fascinations that remind me of my humanity.

Since the likelihood of my space voyage continues to be nonexistent, however, I seek out experiences that mimic the high. Hence why this unpopulated, unvegetated lava field in the middle of an active volcano sucked me in. It’s the closest I’ve ever been to the sensation of moonwalking. Also moonrunning, moonlaughing, and mooncontemplating.

I took these photos in black and white, but I didn’t need to. The landscape is naturally, freakishly monochromatic. As if you’re on a faraway planet that has all the properties of earthly physical things like form and matter…except for color.

In the middle of trekking this lonely rock surface (so far from crowds, cities, cars, and the rest of man’s byproducts), my mother turned and whispered urgently to me, “Shhh, if we’re completely still, we won’t hear any humans.” We froze, and stood bug-eyed on the vast volcanic crater, listening. No humans. I loved us for that.

Row near.

The literary drama was traditionally divided into 5 acts with the climax occurring precisely in the middle of the narrative timeline.

The human life, a traditional drama lived by each of us, is similarly constructed but with a disproportionately long denouement. 

I like the above model much better… Trying to structure my own personal drama — my life — such that it’s always leading up to something.

It never hurts to stretch the way you think of yourself.

Within the weekends, we are most ourselves.

My unassuming sidekick: the Canon SD630. It goes with me almost everywhere, lying in wait without a case or cover as it gets bashed by keys, coins, and other odd metal instruments that I plunge into my bag. There’s also a nasty fissure down the glass viewing screen — from when the camera strap slipped off my wrist during a desert hike and the camera hit rock bottom, literally. It’s a three year old brick of beat up amateur technology, but it gives me more opportunity for reflection and introspection than anything else ever has.

Another shot of Nyugati train station in Budapest (previously). This is the ‘inland’ ticket counter for domestic trains. The international counter is just to the right, tucked away in a dark room. And then just to the right of that counter is one of the classiest McDonald’s I’ve ever been in. Like I said: old and new…

This is one of my favorite photos from Budapest. Just some graffiti on a tunnel: It’s placeless.

And, actually, it looks a lot like another photo I took of a drainage ditch in California two years ago. 

Forlorn urban throughways.

On the Buda side, looking over to Pest. Someone wrote on the wall in English: “GET BACK THE RIVER.”

Nyugati train station in Budapest. You walk in there and lose decades. Outside the station are the latest fast food chains and a multi-story mall, but inside are Soviet era trains, scurrying older folk, and barely-of-this-century signage. You have to turn on your heel and snap your head back to make sure you’re still in the present. And who knows, you might not be.