Oliver Endahl

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Japan - April 2024

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I recently took a trip to Japan. While there, I spent time in Tokyo, Osaka, Hakone and Kyoto.

The cherry blossoms had bloomed just 1 day before I arrived, so the timing was perfect.

These photos were all shot with the Sony ZV-1

Tokyo

Stills from Hakone

Views from Osaka

Photos from Kyoto

That shot of the bench near the water at dusk is one of my favorites. (After a long day, my brother and I stopped at that bench and just watched the water flowing for an hour. It was serene and ethereal.)

Here’s a bonus shot, featuring the Disney By the Sea theme park.

Till next time,

-Oliver Endahl

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The Mountains Wearing Snow

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Here are some recent photos I took on 2 different ski trips.

All these were snapped with my Sony ZV-1 (which is really a camera made for vlogging, but it takes nice photos too)

See you soon,

-Oliver

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What is counter culture

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I think being counter culture nowadays means creating instead of consuming.

We all know America (and the world) is a culture of consumers. On a large scale, we take the natural resources of the planet and convert them into products that consumers (us) buy. There’s a reason when we talk about the economy, we citizens are called “consumers” because we are literally consuming the resources of the planet that we’ve turned into products.

But consuming not only happens when you buy something. You scroll TikTok, you consume. You scroll IG, you consume. Twitter, Reddit, SnapChat, the internet as a whole. It’s short bits of entertainment meant to be easily consumable that you digest for half a second, forget about, and then move on.

This theme of everyone living their lives by purely consuming and not creating is something we’ve seen in movies like Wall-E and Idiocracy. (And in both those films the citizens had to learn to create again to regain their humanity.)

The system itself, is designed for consuming. So counter culture then, must be creating.

Being counter culture, to me, means creating art. (And not with the intention to become famous or make money.) Making art purely for the sake of making art. You don’t just sit around and think of yourself and what other people will think of you, you get up and create something. You take risks, you experiment. You don’t just spend your days consuming.

Just something to think about.

Till next time,

-Oliver Endahl

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More fleeting than you think

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One of the biggest misconceptions and mistakes I see, is how much the thought of social recognition, the thought of being famous, drives people.

Fame drives some people so much they are blinded by it. It can affect them in a variety of ways, and of course it can affect the work that person produces during their life.

Here’s the thing about fame though, it is extremely fleeting.

In fact, it’s so fleeting, that there is basically no world where the pursuit of fame is worth it.

The pursuit of becoming famous, generally, requires a tremendous amount of energy, work and luck. But even when everything falls into place, the rate that fame disappears is extremely fast.

Let’s look at 90s boy bands. The 90s were 30 years ago now. The Backstreet Boys, N Sync, 98 degrees, etc.. These boy bands had multiple members each, and each band was huge. They were at the top of the music game. Doing world tours and they had fans in various countries around the globe. But now? If you saw any member from any one of these bands, besides Justin Timberlake, would you recognize them? Probably not. And that was only 30 years ago.

Fleeting like snow

Let’s go back further and look at Hollywood.

Here is the wikipedia description for the actor “Clark Gable”

“William Clark Gable (February 1, 1901 – November 16, 1960) was an American film actor. Often referred to as the "King of Hollywood"he had roles in more than 60 motion pictures in a variety of genres during a career that lasted 37 years, three decades of which was as a leading man. He was named the seventh greatest male movie star of classic American cinema by the American Film Institute.” (Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clark_Gable )

The KING OF HOLLYWOOD. Does it get more famous than that? And now just a few decades later, the vast majority of people haven’t even heard of him. He was the fucking king of Hollywood. So it’s just comical to me that there are so many people constantly striving for fame, when even if they achieve it, even if they become a star so big they earn an awesome nickname like the king of Hollywood, they’ll be forgotten just a short while later.

You’ll eventually pass a mountain range as you drive by.

This post isn’t meant to bum you out, it’s just an observation. It’s a good thing to keep in mind.

Till next time,

-Oliver Endahl

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Ariana Emnace in SoCal

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Ariana Emnace is a dancer and model. We’ve been shooting for nearly a decade, and it’s always a blast.

For these photos, Ariana and I created at Santa Monica Beach, a photo studio that had built a set resembling the inside of a private jet, a white cyc-wall, and also an indoor photoshoot pool.

Loved the golden light we got here and how it backlit her hair.

Love the ethereal nature of these ones with her in the dress in the water.

Ariana is captivating to photograph. She always brings a unique and intriguing energy to the photos.

You can follow Ariana on Instagram here, and keep an eye on this website for more photos from our shoots.

-Oliver