4 in 24 with Steph Parke

Steph Parke recently hit a milestone 3000 posts on Instagram, during which she shared she is “obsessed.” So when I saw I had a Mobile Monday post to do, I knew she was the one to ask to do a 4 in 24. You can find her work on her website www.stephparke.com, on Instagram www.instagram.com/stephparke, on her blog www.sparkephoto.blogspot.com, or on flickr www.flickr.com/photos/stephparke.

Here is what she had to share:

I’m a film photog at heart, and when I first got an iPhone years ago, I thought the photos were terrible. I posted a few to my Flickr photostream but to be honest, I hated them. They had no soul. They were just an arrangement of pixels inside a rectangle. Then Instagram came into my life in 2011 and somehow, well let’s just say I fell hard. I just posted my 3000th image on Instagram, so that should be an indication of how much I love my iPhone 4S and VSCO. 

When my phone isn’t glued to my hand, I shoot with my Polaroid SLR680, an SX-70 or two, and my Automatic 104. I’ve also got a Pentax K1000 that I love to use, as well as about 20 other film cameras I’ve collected over the last decade. Many of them are toy cameras because I adore the unpredictability of a poorly-made plastic camera and the telltale blur of the lens.

I chose to share these four photos from a spontaneous and perfect day in San Francisco with a dear friend of mine. She recently moved from up the street from me in Utah to Sacramento, and because I missed her terribly and also love surprises, I planned a top secret visit. Her husband picked me up from the airport and a few screams and hugs later, she and I had the most lovely weekend together. Saturday morning, we decided to take a day trip into San Francisco, specifically to the Ferry Building Marketplace.

Our first stop in the marketplace was Blue Bottle Coffee, where we ordered lattes. Next was lunch. A couple years ago, my friend once said to me “You had me at goat cheese,” so upon seeing the daily grilled cheese on the menu at Cowgirl Creamery’s Sidekick, it only seemed right to order a couple of them. I think we’d be embarrassed to admit how many conversations we’ve had about cheese. We sat at the bar in the middle of the bustling market, Instagramming, smiling, and devouring these sandwiches.

After a couple of hours at the marketplace, with souvenirs bought, dozens of photos snapped, some Humphry Slocombe ice cream in our bellies, and second lattes in our hands, we wandered back to the car, still in awe of how we managed to be in San Francisco together on that perfect day.

The sun was setting quickly on our day, but we stopped to see the Golden Gate from Crissy Field, and the view did not disappoint. We headed over the bridge shortly after and wound up in Tiburon for dinner. Instead of a fancy restaurant, we found a cute market and bought dolmas and spanakopita from the deli and had a picnic in the parking lot. It was too cold outside or else we would have been dining al fresco, but something about a car picnic with Greek food capped off the day that just could not have been any better.

Great storytelling here. Thanks for sharing with us, Steph!

Happy Snapping,

Cara of tumbleweedineden