Aesthete and Derive

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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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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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Sarah Bella in Pepsi

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A few shots from my time with model Sarah Bella sporting Pepsi attire

Sarah brought the A game and really crushed the retro Pepsi vibe.

Sarah’s makeup was done by the talented Sommer Anzaldo.

Till next time,

-Oliver Endahl