I took the photos in this post yesterday morning while I was out filming a YouTube video. The plan was to film a quick photo adventure through western Iowa in early fall to develop a new jpeg recipe.
Unfortunately, I made the terrible, horrible mistake of listening to the radio. I heard a clip of Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth giddily talking about the United States government livestreaming an execution by firing squad.
The guy interviewing Hegseth at the time, a right-wing Christian Nationalist, Jack Posobiec, called it “Biblical and moral.”
Suddenly, a peaceful drive in the country for some beautiful photos just felt wrong. I kept thinking: this is just another headline now?
We’re all just shrugging our shoulders as if this is all NORMAL??
So my plan shifted: I wanted to make images that might help me work through how I feel living in the heart of Trump country during October of 2026.
I wanted (needed?) to make art.
So I formed a plan:
First, I dialed in a low-contrast, “earthy” JPEG recipe on both of my cameras (the OM SYSTEM PEN and OM-3). I was already thinking ahead to the edit: I knew I’d bring the in-camera JPEGs into Dehancer Desktop for thick grain and another color shift that produces intense contrast.
Next, I also knew I wanted to write down my thoughts on the photos themselves, so I used Procreate on my iPad to build a template for the Polaroid-style borders and found a font that worked.
I was also taking video in the field with both cameras, and I put the whole project together in a big bundle of photos, video and text you can see below.
My goal: to record how I was feeling in the moment, driving through a part of the country that voted overwhelmingly for people in power who believe livestreaming executions for children to view is a great idea.
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Oh - and this post is 100% AI-free. Every title, sentence, misspelling, and mistake is mine, and I love that.
DEATH TO THE ROBOTS.
Comments? Leave them below or email me: jerredz@gmail.com
Thanks for this, Jerred. You put into art the feelings of so many.