i've been slowly making my way through around 50 rolls of undeveloped film. it's strange to look through a bunch of images you weren't expecting to see and even stranger to see pictures of yourself from so long ago. i was 24 years old, living in oregon, and a complete hippie (see photos below) when i took my first trip to australia. after a non-stop eighteen hour flight trapped in a window seat, the stamp in my passport says i landed in sydney on october 3rd, 2002. i remember feeling confused and elated as i wandered through customs at six o'clock in the morning, and i'll never forget the weird tasting coffee i had once outside the airport terminal or the yummy coffee milk i was introduced to while over there. i'll also never forget the random run in with a documentary filmmaker by the name of ken burns who happened to be visiting the same zoo on the same day as me, and who made it possible for me to hold a koala in my arms even though it was illegal to do so. i spent three weeks in australia and traveled from tathra, new south wales (three hours south of sydney), to just shy of the great barrier reef. i was about two hundred miles from the reef when i turned my car around and began the trek back to sydney in order to make the flight out. in hindsight i don't think it would have been so bad if i had missed that flight.
here are a few photos from that amazing trip.
