My Roommate's Cat and Redondo Beach on Film--February 2026

Home sweet home! Back in LA and with my newly repaired Nikon FM2, I immediately abandoned my intention to shoot a full roll in a single location, and instead shot random pictures at different places, days apart.

My roommate and I found the most perfect cat sitting in the sun at a shelter, and my roommate adopted her that week. She named her Simon. This is her lying in the sun on my rug.

After a few days of being purely adorable, Simon started to become a bit of a menace. She's seen here perched on a box prior to ripping all the paper flowers off my wall. I've since replaced the flowers with wallpaper.

In addition to tearing apart and semi-ingesting all paper products, Simon also loves to watch us wash dishes. When I took this photo, she had fallen asleep after staring at the sink for a while.

After a week or so of my aimless picture-taking, my brother came to town!
He was on a surf trip in Redondo Beach, which is a ways from where I live, but I figured that going over there would be a good excuse to shoot the rest of this roll, and that's what I did.

Initially the joke I imagined for this photo was that there's a sign saying bike route with a surfboard (which is not a bike) directly under it. Once I got this scan back I realized that the surfboard isn't visible enough for the gag to work (and that maybe the gag doesn't make much sense anyways), but the colors came out gorgeous so I'm still a fan.

In my ideal world I'd be bold enough to try street photography, but as of now I'm only willing to take photos of people whose faces aren't visible.

While biking by the beach, I saw this little girl dragging a stick behind her mom, who was mostly ignoring her. The moment I went to take a photo, her little sister picked up the other end of the stick to help her. Even though they were my main focus, I was far away enough that I ended up capturing various other people on the beach, who I didn't notice until I got the scan back.

Similarly to the first construction photo I took, I wanted to take this because I liked the juxtaposition of man-made textures and nature. There's the added bonus here that the construction worker's clothes almost match the colors of the hill. I didn't notice until later that there was a woman on the balcony above talking to him, and that her clothes sort of match the building. If I had noticed her sooner I might've shot this with her in mind.

Leaving the beach, I saw this tree which I thought was so beautiful, especially in the light at that time of day. I don't know what kind of tree it is, so if one of the few people reading this has any idea, let me know.

That concludes my second roll of film! I was much less intentional with the subjects I chose this time around, but I think that's a good step towards being more casual and quick-thinking while shooting. Once again, 36 photos felt like a lot when shooting and then not a lot when getting my scans back.

For my next roll, I have a very specific location/subject in mind (or rather, a specific series). Hopefully that limitation will lead to more creativity in my compositions.