In your bag No: 1618 – Daniel Valencia

Daniel is an analog purist and who can argue with these basic essentials for hitting the streets.

Hey everyone, my name is Daniel Valencia. I shoot photographs and use alternative wet lab processes to create the final piece. Based in San Francisco, CA.

The setup I use for my work is pretty constant. Here’s a look into the tool shed/medicinal cabinet:

  • – Yashica T4
  • – 2 Swisher Sweets
  • – Extra battery (CR123A)
  • – 1/4 of Organic Animal Cookies (Indica Dominant)
  • – Leica M6
  • – Summicron 50mm f/2 V.3
  • – Pen
  • – Book & Job Gallery hat

My primary focus with my work is human interaction, creating a photograph and turning it into a more interactive piece. Be it with installations, layering or demolishing and recreating the piece. It revolves around the ever changing landscape of my home and the people in it. Showing the subject matter in a true and honest way. But that is up for grabs, the photographer is the director in a play that never ends and the play doesn’t care if you end. The Bay Area is a crazy place, always has been, but change is inevitable. What matters is how you choose to deal with it, how you see yourself impacting your community, your peers, the younger generation.

The technology age that we are in is so fast paced, we are being fed hundreds of images, news headlines, celebrity gossip, and its all bullshit in an hours worth of time. That is why my generation has a hard time giving a f*ck about much. A professor of mine, Bill Mattick, once said, “Being an artist is the most selfish thing you could ever do.” I understand that now, the approval of others shouldn’t be what carries you on through the day. What carries you on through the day should be the love and joy of even producing something and the interactions you have with your work. Being able to feel a feeling through something you have produced is a hard thing to explain, you have to just do it.

I have a friend who says, “people take pictures all the time, but few make photographs”. Images are being created everyday be it via instagram, vsco, or any other application but the difference is making a photograph. Taking everything into thought, subject and light. Anyone can take a picture, almost everyone takes pictures but to have something tangible, that is different. I like to stay hopeful about traditional wet lab processes. But the way things are going, specifically in San Francisco and the Bay Area as a whole, with the tech boom and everything being catered to you. I see traditional photography disintegrating more so in the next five years, look at the newspaper. But, it is the artist’s job to make you feel like we need this practice in our world. That is why I feel there has never been a more crucial time for making prints in a darkroom than now, helping understand the art form, the complexity, and need for this. Being an artist is a selfish thing to do, but in that process you have the ability to have someone experience this ever fading tangible world we live in.

If you are interested in some of the Bay Area happenings there is a page on my online portfolio where I put up different events gong on all over the Bay. Ranging from photography, painting, mixed-media, poetry, performance dance, music etc. I try to update it weekly. Also, if you’d like to keep up with my daily work flow follow the Instagram handle:

www.danielgvalencia.com

IG: @le_sapo

Thanks Bellamy and thanks guys for giving it a read! Appreciate it. Film Por Vida.

Thanks for sending us your bag shot Daniel. Be selfish away!

Keep them coming folks, we need more submissions, so get your bag on Japancamerahunter.com

Send me a high resolution image of the bag. Optimum size is 1500px across. Please ensure there is a bag in the shot, unless you don’t use one. The more you can write about yourself the better, make it appealing and tell us a story. Snapshots of your gear with a camera phone and no words will not be featured.
Oh and don’t forget your contact details (twitter, flickr, tumbler et al). Send the bag shots here. Please understand that there is a long wait now as there is a backlog of submissions. Not all make the cut, so make sure yours is funny/interesting/quirky. And please make sure the shot is of good quality, as the ones that are not do not go up.

Cheers
Japancamerahunter