Meet the San Diegans telling stories through old-school film
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Developing Stories photos by Angie Huang, Israel Castillo, Blair Alley and Ella Ocean. Photos: Courtesy of Developing Stories
The website Developing Stories lets viewers see San Diego through the lens of photographers — not just their pictures, but the people behind the lens.
The big picture: Photographers become subjects on the site, and the goal is to show lesser-known parts of San Diego while building a feeling of community by featuring professionals and hobbyists' work.
How it works: Writer and photographer Austin Siragusa chooses photographers to feature, interviews them and then creates digital stories and videos about their work.
- The stories create a portrait of San Diego by showing "all the different subcultures and the identities that exist within it," he told Axios.
Case in point: Siragusa's first story was about a photographer documenting mom-and-pop shops in City Heights.
- "These places are always on the edge of going out of business, and they're holding it together," he said.
Among the featured photographers:
🛹 Blair Alley, who photographs San Diego's skateboarding scene
📹 Bella Ross, a journalist who uses old-school VHS cameras
🦜 Merlin Mendoza, a birdwatcher and wildlife photographer
🏞️ Ella Ocean, who documents national parks
📮 Mark Perez, a postal worker and street photographer
⚽ Israel Castillo, who photographs San Diego FC fans
Between the lines: The site is hosted by the Normal Heights business Camera Exposure/Safelight Labs, which sells cameras and develops film.
- Yes, film, meaning actual camera negatives.
Flashback: During the COVID-19 pandemic, the store was swamped with people who wanted a new hobby, owner Rob Cowan told Axios.
- "We noticed there was just a huge amount of really cool photography coming to the shop, and a lot of these people just weren't being highlighted," he said.
- So they worked with the media company Uptown 11 Studios to create the website.
Caveat: These aren't strictly works of journalism. Siragusa works for Uptown 11, which is paid by companies like Camera Exposure to highlight their business.
Behind the scenes: All of the Developing Stories photographers shoot on film.
- "It's a very appealing medium for the younger generation because it's analog, it's tactile, it's something you can hold in your hand," Cowan said.
- Think vinyl records or other old-fashioned technology embraced by Gen Z.
But why? With AI, it feels like you can't tell what's real and what's not, Siragusa said.
- "There's a sense of truth in a film photo. It's not going to lie to you," he said. "So I think that's the beautiful thing."
What's next: Cowan and Siragusa hope to create a quarterly magazine in the future.
- They want their stories to be as lasting as the film they're writing about, "and not be something that's ephemeral like everything else right now," Siragusa said.