Wandering with wonder

My fellow wanderers,

Hello from the other side of a very travel-heavy April. How have you all been? Has spring sprung on your side of the globe? Does the added sunshine do wonders for your mental health like it does for mine? Save the incidental hay fever flare-ups, of course.

I have been working on lifting my head from the clouds that tend to engulf my immediate surroundings if I don’t take active ownership over my life and as a result have been precariously shifting my focus for the upcoming months, I need to figure out what I want to direct my attention towards. You know, figuring out what makes me happy. What does a perfect day look like? The thoughts you have when you sit in a plane by yourself for ten hours straight can be equally daunting as they can be thrilling. The only way to work through them is to start, somewhere.

Today, I’d like to share a few things with you. My main take aways from the places I’ve visited: Porto, NYC, Boise, and Portland—as well as the launch of another newsletter. One that has been landing in your inboxes for the past five weeks already.

Porto

Hands up from the people that have been to, or are from, Portugal. Now put them down if you went to either Lisbon, Porto, or the Algarve. Who has their hand still up? Please reply to this email and tell me more, for you must be a Portugal aficionado that ventures beyond the obvious highlights and must have valuable insights to share. For me, it was the first time visiting the country. Odd, because of its relative proximity to where I live, but I also never had much reason to go to there as well.

That changed when we made a new friend on our trip to Thailand last year that lives in Portugal. A quick flight to explore new lands, with the comfort of a local to show you around? Yes, please! Plus Porto usually has very nice weather in April already, so we were told. Some early-spring sunshine to sneak in before everybody in the Netherlands gets it? I’ll take it!

The jacket I carried in my hands through the airport has to be worn again the moment we set foot outside. A cool breeze sends shivers down our spines. The ground is wet but, thankfully, there’s no water falling out of the sky right now. Everybody carries around tiny umbrellas. Some firmly clenched in fists, others nonchalantly dangling from wrists by the straps attached. It took a shower or two to realize the necessity for them. Porto rain is brief, relatively intense, and intermittently frequent. The umbrellas in the city come up as soon as the drops come down, and the reverse. Like an expressionist dance between humans and the elements.

The streets are steep and on day two my legs start hurting. A familiar pain I experienced in other hillside destinations, where the muscles around my shins suddenly remind me they are, in fact, also there. Usually hidden from underuse in the flatlands of the Netherlands but now letting out small complaints on each step I take: please... take... it... easy... you... are... not... used... to... this... the rhythm goes as we shuffle up and down the alleys.

I ignore the pain and focus instead on the endless gems hidden around every corner. This city is a maze filled with treasures that are best discovered on foot. It matters not which way you look, there is always something to point the camera at. Having acquired similar umbrellas as the locals, the rain doesn’t bother us anymore. The steep streets is something you grow accustomed to over time as well. What else is there to do but to enjoy our time in this beautiful city? I’m excited to revisit Portugal soon so if you do have recommendations outside of the obvious highlights mentioned earlier, do please let me know.

NYC

A single day between the Porto trip and my flight to the States is all I had. Unpacking, laundry, packing, millions of pets for the cats and kisses for Charlotte and I’m off again. All alone I sit on the plane for eight hours, trying to tune out the shrieks of the unmanaged children next to me. I briefly peek up when even one of the ever-polite flight attendants notifies the parents that the kids should not put fists on the inflight screen each time Peppa Pig gets interrupted by announcements from the captain but when that ends up an argument, quickly up the volume through my noise cancellation AirPods. Confrontation makes me extreme uncomfortable. I feel it deeply and internalize it as if it was my own. Something I have not found a way to manage properly and I need to save my energy for the busy day still to come. We land at JFK airport a little past noon, not much later than the time we set off in AMS.

I’m thrilled to my core about being in New York City. A place with so much aura and allure it’s surreal to walk those famous streets myself now. A mere two days is not even enough to make a dent in the air surrounding the shell protecting the inner core of this place. All I can do is wander with wonder, aiming to make my limited time here as full as it can be. I’m not one for FOMO but New York constantly makes you feel like you are missing out on something, no, everything, all at once, all the time.

In between my obligations I manage to squeeze in a quick 15KM walk, crossing the Williamsburg Bridge, into Manhattan, through China Town, left on Broadway, over the Brooklyn Bridge back into Brooklyn, via Dumbo to take that one famous image of said first bridge, back to the Hotel on Bedford Ave. I considered renting a bike to cover more ground but a qualitatively rich experience means more to me than the amount of ground covered. Walking beats any form of transportation to achieve that, still. Plus making images is better done when traversing at slower speeds anyway. Sometimes it takes a beat to see a composition unfold in front of you and if you’re zipping by, those moments are missed out on much more easily. I take basic images of boring stuff but that’s a trait of first visits no matter where you go. Albeit that effect is greatly enhanced when short on time, even more in places as rich as this.

Sitting in the hotel lobby of the Moxy hotel in Brooklyn, a mixture of melancholy and excitement overwhelms me. A feeling not unfamiliar to me on journeys far away from home. A feeling I’ve come to appreciate for it signals there’s still things out there that excite me, that make me feel alive. If ‘melting pot’ wasn’t such a cliché, I would’ve overused the word on every turn I made in this great city. My senses tickled by everything I was able to lay my eyes on, stick my nose in, tune my ears to. I must go back to this place. There’s too much to discover still. I’ll bring Charlotte and we’ll have to roam around this city, just the two of us, for at least a week or something. We’ll figure something out.

Boise

The smell is what I noticed first. A beautiful blend of flowers, grass, and, strangely enough for a desert town, water. I later realized that was due to the river floating through town, feeding the citizens the much-needed fluid to irrigate their lawns. The entire city is a speck of green in an otherwise arid landscape as a result. It’s truly wonderful to bask and roam around in. A welcome change after the noise and pollution of NYC. The inherently attached boatload of pollen catching me off guard, inducing everlasting sneezes, is something we shan’t discuss.

The Boise River Greenbelt traces the river’s path through the city, its trails and parks lined with tall trees. I start at Garden City and make my way up the rivers towards downtown Boise. I photograph the glimmering of the sunlight on the fast-flowing river. I briefly watch an all-female soccer team during practice. I spill coffee on my white shirt and wash it out with river water. I enjoy being alone with my thoughts, whilst moving my legs enough to make it qualify as exercise. I snap this photo of an electrical substation hut that might make it into my portfolio and the end of the year if I still like it enough by then.

Boise feels like what I assume is the ‘real’ America. It’s what I imagine most places feel like between the hyperboles mostly situated on the coasts. This is where normal people have normal jobs, do normal things, go to normal stores, and eat normal food. Perhaps I’m misjudging what I’ve seen, because the craziness of New York is America too, but even people that live in NYC and are used to its energy will call the city crazy as well. Nobody says that about Boise. A city offering anything you might need, although in a much more low key kind of way, with the great outdoors on your doorstep. It’s nice out here.

Portland

After a week in Idaho, the flight to Portland, Oregon, luckily only takes about an hour. Delta flights are routed through either Seattle or Salt Lake City so I find myself cramped into a small plane from Alaska Airlines. Not a big issue because I’m on my way to one of my favorite cities in the US of the ones I’ve seen so far.

The last time I was here is only six months ago and lasted for a full week. We’re in town for five days only this time, but that gives enough room to do the job I’m here to do (product photography for the company I work for) as well as some exploration in and around the city. I love it here. Portland feels almost like a European city in some ways. Probably because of the weather and the Victorian style craftsman homes found abundantly across the city. Perhaps the progressive social climate reminds me of my home country of the Netherlands as well. Or whatever progressiveness we have left these days, that is. Still, Portland is unequivocally American with its car-centric urban design and frontier-like individualism.

Prices for the car rental are surprisingly favorable so I’m lucky enough to whip a 2024 5-series BMW around the block for a few days. Driving that thing to a little lookout point, fittingly called Mitchell Point, an hour outside of the city is probably a top-tier experience that I won’t soon forget. The setting sun, leaving impressive shadows along the cliffs towering over the road that follows the meandering Columbia River Gorge, makes for some beautiful sights along the drive and some interesting photographs at the lookout point. This is probably the best way to end this two-week long trip from East to West.

Weekly newsletter: Closer

If you enjoy this monthly newsletter then I’ve taken the liberty to sign you up to my new weekly newsletter too. That wasn’t the original plan as I prefer enthusiastic manual opt-ins from readers instead but Ghost, the platform this newsletter runs on, makes it difficult for people to subscribe to individual newsletters. I therefore hope to find your understanding for my executive decision to opt in everybody, betting your enjoyment of this monthly missive to spill over to the weekly dispatch too. I also make it easy to simply opt out of either newsletter from any subscriber’s account page.

Whatever you decide to do, I’m having a lot of fun writing Closer. Weekly updates where I take one of my photos, ask AI to describe it, then see what kind of image it can generate from its own description—an ongoing experiment in the capabilities of AI, and what that means for humans. I can go into great lengths about my motivations to start this newsletter here, but instead I’d like to direct you to the opening essay I wrote to outline my thoughts.

I certainly hope you continue following along while this experiment takes on different shapes over time as the technology progresses. It’s an interesting time for us artists and creatives and I think it has value to actively wonder about our place in society and our relationship with the tools that could replace us for certain tasks. The real question always being: should we fight it or embrace it?

That being said, this story has been much longer than they have been recently and I do apologize for hogging your time like that. A lot had to be processed, recorded and shared this month, for a lot has happened. I hope to chat with y’all next Wednesday, when the a new edition of Closer releases. Otherwise, we’ll talk at the end of May with edition #046 of this newsletter.

The kindest of regards,

Mitch