ephemera: a definition

Hello to everyone who is reading this. I'd like to welcome you to this space, hiding in some server, probably sitting at the bottom of the ocean (it keeps the computers nice and cold). In this great new year of 2026, I'm trying my best to find a new place to post things that matter to me. I got sick of dealing with Meta's algorithm and feeling limited on how I interacted with people that I "share" with. There is also just too much digital yelling on those platforms for my liking. People upset about 15-second-long nothings. No conversations, just comments. I am completely over it. Anyways, this is a new place that I'm going to use to share photos I've found, photos I've taken myself, poetry that I've written, or as the title says, my STASH of EPHEMERA.

What is "ephemera" you ask?

As of 2026, Mirriam Webster's Online Dictionary defines ephemera as "items (such as posters, broadsides, and tickets) originally meant to be discarded after use but that later become collectibles". So like when you get dragged to the antique store with your Aunt Sylvia when you go to visit her, and there are all those old pieces of paper like old found photos for $5 apiece (outrageous) and old trading cards and postcards and pages of stamps and all that dusty old paper junk? Yeah. That's it. That's the good stuff. That's what "ephemera" means.

I've got my own stash, and this is where it's going to live digitally. Maybe I'll write about it when I post something, or maybe I'll just let you figure it out. Nice.

Here is my first photo that I'm going to share here. I took it myself on my parents' old film camera, and Olympus Infinity Zoom 105. It was at Edwin Warner Park and Nature Center. It was the beginning of Spring in Tennessee and the clouds were magnificent that day. Take your kid or your partner (or both) there and just walk the hell around until you feel way better. It seems to usually work that way for me.

I had prints made of this entire roll of film. It was a little overexposed (I might have hit the latch trying to figure out how to use it for the first time and exposed the film just a tad) but the majority of the roll turned out pretty well. There were a few shots of clouds from that day as well as telephone poles/wires, street lights, the usual stuff that I like to shoot. But I kept going back to this one...I remember looking up at the sky and feeling so glad to be alive that day. Do you ever feel like that for no particular reason? Like a kid on summer break? I hope you do.

Until next time...