And so ends my photographic journey through California. Hope you enjoyed. I was initially trepidatious about going to America on this trip as it was going to be the first time I had visited since Trump came to power and I expected it to be visibly different but it wasn’t. There was no way of knowing. You forget when you watch the news that it isn’t real life. It has nothing to do with the everyday and it does not relate to the folk you meet.
I actually found that everyone seemed even friendlier and more chilled since I was last in California and that possibly had something to do with it now being Legal Weed World ‘n’ all (see wednesday’s post). I actually think it just highlighted the disparity between the perceived notion of a country and its people as fed to you by the media and what it actually is. Not to say that the Trump isn’t totally fucking horrendous on so many levels, he is, but he is not necessarily a reflection of what it is to live and be in America.
Just like Brexit and the shit show that is our Government is not a reflection of a giant chunk of us here in the U.K. Although, you would also presume so if you were watching it on the News from abroad. Not saying it isn’t having an effect, it is, but your day-to-day is the same…you get up, you work, you eat, you hang out with people, what actually makes up our life is not affected at all. I would also, go as far to say that the things that really depress me in the news do not impact me at all and yet it is still difficult to ignore. The disparity between what we see is happening in the world and what we actually experience makes for quite a paradoxical existence.
One of the reasons I am doing this series now is that I just can’t bear to be here at the moment, even mentally. Nothing good is going to come from me losing my shit watching people, who we entrusted to govern, scrabble around to save themselves, with not a single thought for the impact it is having on us or the country. And there is cock all point discussing it because no-one is listening. And so I choose to spend this time ‘being elsewhere’, anywhere but here…
…so next week, Stockholm! A place that actually gives a shit about its residents and their wellbeing…now isn’t that something?