I do find it particularly hard to review albums such as Solar Fields 'Random Friday' but it has been my soundtrack to countless hours when I have had the chance to be alone with myself and music.

I fully discovered this album sometime in the summer of 2014. I had been listening to Solar Fields for a couple of years being first introduced to Magnus Bigersson's work on the 2009 video game Mirror's Edge (an excellent album in its own right and also integral to my appreciation of this type of electronic atmospheric ambient trance music) and another Solar Fields album 2011's "Until We Meet The Sky".

There can be as much or as little as you want to unpack with Random Friday's soundscape. On initial playthroughs it is obvious that there is a structured theme throughout grooving the album along as you reach the end and I find the more spins you give this album, the more nuance sounds and themes are dug out and shown.

Light Control opens with a meandering chorus like crescendo that fills up just enough until sighing into the title track of which we start to fully discover the tempo of this album. A driving rhythm starts to develop enough pulse to keep the energy up. Gorgeous moments of flourish in the second half of the song as it settles back down to Earth.

We continue the journey with Cobalt 2.5 an updated HUVA Network track that brilliantly re-shapes and energizes the original.

Through Daydreaming and Swoosh we find ourselves really in the midst of this album and it's themes of vibrant high altitude trance.

Landing Party is aptly named as we are given a spacious intro to come back to sobriety before we are flung to the afrobeat percussion of Lift Off and into the last quarter of the album. Perception gives us eleven and a half minutes of blissed out arrangements that eventually coax you back down but, not before it leaves you with some beautifully layered synths to ponder about.

We arrive to side D track 10, Polarity. A wonderfully soft cushion of drone and synth to cascade us back down from the thriving pulsing highs and chest-thumping bass of "Random Friday".

Hello! I would like to take this time and space to introduce myself! My name is Alex and I find doing self introductions hard to start! 
Ice-breaking aside, I'm happy to have you here and hope you enjoyed a picture or two while you perused around the site. I always liked the idea of starting a blog alongside my work and I plan to use this space to talk about what it's like to do professional photography and share my experiences as I grow and try to find my own place in this world of capturing images. I will also be sharing small personal projects or photo collections that I feel deserve a more permanent place in my portfolio.

When I was in high-school I wanted to pursue a career in photography and through no fault other than my own, it took me about 15 years to start to realize that goal and at the time of posting this I have less than 24 hours before I file taxes for the first time as a sole-proprietor! For some reason that idea comes coupled with a little anxiety. Even though I entered 2024 with the goal of doing things as a legitimate business and set myself for as much success as possible, I still feel like I'm jumping into the deep end blind. It felt like such a huge step to take that is to say, stepping back from a career path into taking all the responsibility for myself. Pretty nerve wracking stuff for me! Having the support system I have has not been taken for granted.

"What made you want to take this route?" You probably didn't ask but, I'm going to answer anyway! Even through the past 15ish years of not doing dedicated photography, I always made having a nice camera on my phone a priority. Loved sharing my landscapes and concert shots on my personal social media and would continue to do so.
Fast forward many, many gigabytes of phone data later sometime in 2023 I fell hard back into photography with a physical DSLR as a hobby. I  was always trying to take pictures to the point where I found myself taking my camera to the local nightclub and small bar shows bands would play. This led to me traveling farther for shows and what initially started out as trying to get my gas money covered at the least, turned into the thought of maybe I could actually create a business and work for myself. Starting in 2024 I decided to take things seriously and establish myself as a working professional freelance photographer with a specialty in low-light action portraiture (AKA concert photography). 

I've had the privilege of being in the photo pit for a lot of great bands, getting to capture a engagement, working some small music festivals, getting images for local establishments, and providing images for town events, and that's just in 2024! As much as I would like to just celebrate the accomplishments it would be amiss to not mention the amount of times I questioned myself. The times I doubted my work for a client and the stress of the slow periods of not being booked. The amount of time I have thought I should be more busy. replaying in my mind that time I got yelled at by a tour manager because I was in the way. This is by no means a complete list of the stressors I personally face. The point is that, there is a lot more that goes into the images I produce and that is why I think it is important to celebrate my wins. Even though at times I feel like I'm gloating or worse, not feeling it's worth celebrating.

As 2025 is underway I can appreciate how much I have accomplished and even though I know I have so much to learn I am looking forward to whatever new experiences come my way!
-A.