06 - 13 - 2025
Tomorrow is my graduation from Mt Hood Community College. It's bittersweet. On one hand, I am doing something I never thought I'd be able to accomplish, and I truly am proud of myself, but in the other hand, my journey with my classmates in the program is coming to an end. I really did love my time at MHCC.
05 - 21 - 2025
My business cards came in! I got the raised UV Spot Gloss cards from Moo.com and they look really cool. I'm happy with em.
05 - 15 - 2025
Only a few weeks left... That's crazy.
I'm going to re-organize my galleries on here pretty soon...
And I made a portfolio website! You can visit it at AAAcker.com
05 - 07 - 2025
I'm currently re-processing all of my concert photography for my upcoming portfolio! I'll be updating my concert galleries with the new edits really soon!
04 - 29 - 2025
As I left school I was lucky enough to find a couple of molting deer.
04 - 27 - 2025
Last night I completed my first 48-hour fast. It felt amazing. It feels so good to have that kind of self-control and fortitude. Next Friday I will do it again. My plan is to try a 72-hour fast in a few weeks.
I've also completed my Photography class assignment to create a cooking/recipe video! I chose to make a sandwich inspired by the Youtube creator Steve Wallis at @CampingWithSteve. It turned out really nice, and the sandwich itself was the best sandwich I've ever made! Music by The Rope. Filmed on a Canon R5 II w/ Canon EF 24-105mm and a Sony a7iii w/ Canon FD 50mm 1.4. Enjoy!
04 - 26 - 2025
In class, we were assigned to create videos expressing the feeling of springtime. Here's my edit. I think my team captured the essence the best; bright, sunny, full of life, and the beauty of Spring blossoms. I decided to include archival footage of old Portland to enhance the dreamy and nostalgic feelings I associate with the season. Enjoy!
04 - 25 - 2025
I've written a new poem that you can find on my 'Writing' page. Click Here.
I've also uploaded another professional shoot I did with a personal trainer. Click Here.
03 - 29 - 2025
03 - 24 - 2025
03 - 14 - 2025
I've put together some old footage into some new videos. Enjoy!
03 - 01 - 2025
You were a really amazing little Squirrel. You brought me more joy than most people ever could.
02 - 23 - 2025
This weekend I went outside to photograph the squirrels and made a chilling discovery when I spotted one of them on the ground in pain and its brother sitting by him. I think one of the local outdoor cats chased him around and he may have fallen from the tree. I took him in and made him comfortable, but he didn't make it through the night. I love these beautiful little creatures so much and they've brought me so much joy the entire time I have lived here. Their mother used to eat from my hand many years ago. I will mourn the loss of this little family member for a long time and I feel for its siblings and friends.
02 - 14 - 2025
Today has been a really hard day. I'm so depressed. So tired. So lonely. It doesn't matter though. And nobody will ever read this. I left someone who I thought was the love of my life on Valentine's Day. I wasn't doing well then either. Maybe I'm just feeling that pain. I wish I had someone to talk to though. I'm not disposable.
02 - 13 - 2025
I got myself a new vintage Canon FD 200mm f2.8 lense for my birthday. It's replacing the Canon FD 200m f4 I dropped into a creek last year. I think I will really enjoy this lens a lot!
02 - 09 - 2025
In my classes, we’ve been focusing more on video projects and assignments. I’ve been dabbling in video editing since the mid-2000s, but in just the past few months, I’ve learned so much more. It’s been a really fun experience, giving me new opportunities to grow and develop my skills in ways I hadn’t expected.
1-Minute Documentary
I had to pivot at the last minute to get this assignment done, so I took it in a direction that aligns with where I want to take some of my artwork. I’m developing the vision for a story I want to tell eventually.
Framed as an interrogation, this piece serves as a brief introduction to myself. I recorded about 30 minutes of partially-scripted and unscripted rambling—maybe I’ll cut more of it up into something later. It's all truth though.
10-Minute Documentary
This is a preview of where I am taking my next assignment.
I struggled to find a direction until my teacher loaned me Chuck Palahniuk’s Fugitives and Refugees. That book wasn’t just a collection of stories; it was a map of a city that no longer exists. It made me realize what I wanted to do.
My project will take a look at some of Portland’s lost landmarks—places that once shaped the city I knew but have now faded into memory. The legendary Satyricon concert venue, where chaos and music merged into something primal, and which I never had the chance to experience. Tom Peterson’s store and commercials, his face once omnipresent, now just a relic of a different time. Even the movie theater I went to for over 20 years, where I sat in the dark and watched worlds end, now sits silent, the screens forever black.
I’m taking inspiration from Werner Herzog’s melancholic, existential storytelling, the deadpan surrealism of Limmy, and the raw, stripped-down approach of Dogme 95. This will be a documentary about disappearance, about things that once mattered and now simply… don’t.
02 - 05 - 2025
I have updated many of my sidebar pages that were lacking navigation thumbnails to galleries and deeper pages. So now navigation of my website should be much nicer and more intuitive. My website is far more fleshed out and organized. Enjoy!
02 - 01 - 2025
Today is really tough.
It's my 40th birthday today.
I woke up and cried for a few hours. It's a lonesome feeling.
By now, I thought I'd have a wife and children. Five years ago, I walked away from a woman I loved dearly.
I thought I'd have a stable career with a decent paycheck. Five years ago, I left the Postal Service.
I thought I’d have more friends. My old buddies have faded away over the past five years, and I haven’t made many new ones since.
But I never thought I’d be where I am now. Despite everything, I’m about to earn my Associate’s Degree, and soon, I’ll be heading to a university. And I have a couple really good friends. That’s something.
Right now, I’m watching Sean Astin in the 1995 adaptation of Harrison Bergeron and smoking up.
Just another Saturday.
01 - 25 - 2025
"If dreams are the royal road to the unconscious, as Freud claimed, then that route may be a highway full of tortuous twists and turns—leading nowhere. But it affords some spectacular vistas along the way. "
01 - 14 - 2025
Well, I have some exciting news! I have been accepted to a few Universities! While, I'm still exploring my University options and haven't determined where I'll go just yet, I'm looking forward to what the future holds. It’s wild to think about how much my future has transformed from what I envisioned just five years ago. I'm lucky, blessed, and so proud of myself.
12 - 08 - 2024
It’s hard to believe it’s Finals week already for my Fall term! With just a few terms left until graduation, I feel an overwhelming sense of accomplishment. I’m incredibly proud of how far I’ve come, and I’m so excited for what the future holds!
5 - 29 - 2024
This term has been filled with incredible opportunities, keeping me constantly engaged and pushing me beyond my comfort zone. I’ve had the privilege to photograph a variety of really cool locations, each with a unique charm; a modern apartment building in St. Johns, a beautiful home in Southeast Portland, and a spectacular fish house in Seal Rock. Each project has been a rewarding experience, allowing me to refine my skills and capture the essence of these wonderful spaces.
Cathedral Village St. Johns
A home in SE Portland
Luna Sea Fish House at Seal Rock
5 - 07 - 2024
Spring term has been busy!
I received three awards from the Oregon Newspaper Publishing Association for my writing with The Advocate News. I won 2nd place for Best Writing, 3rd Place for Best Columnist, and 3rd Place for Best Spot News Story. I'm super proud of myself for what I have been able to achieve. It has been an endless struggle to get to where I am now but it has always been worth every moment of pain.
Classes are going really well this term and I am feeling really healthy and strong. I've been reading a lot more lately, recently finishing Be Useful by Arnold Schwarzenegger (which I published a review of), and Blindsight by Peter Watts, and I started Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics.
This term we are focused on location and outdoor lighting technique and are spending a lot of time outside our comfort zones.
I have also continued my journey into DCS World flight simulator and I have been playing online, finding my flight sim communities, and I am eagerly awaiting the release of the F-4 Phantom which should prove to be an exciting and challenging plane to learn and fly.
Here are some photos from this Sping term!
And here are some photos from Winter term!
04 - 04 - 2024
Spring Term just started!
1 - 08 - 2024
Today is the first day of Winter Term. It's been a pretty good day but it's been a lot to take in and I am ready to just be alone, take the masks off, and enjoy some quiet.
Over break I spent much of my time learning DCS Combat Flight Simulator, playing Battlebit Remastered, and uploading to my site. It was a great break but I am really happy to be back to class.
I hope everyone had a great holiday and got something nice from someone they care about. My besty Bri got me the perfect gifts.
Fall term is just about over! And I am finally done with my final assignment. I chose to make ten photographs of nice looking knive presentations.
11 - 25 - 2023
Took my airsoft kit out for some time in the forest.
11 - 23 - 23
Happy Thanksgiving everyone. I'm thankful and grateful to have my friends, my health, and some stability. I hope everyone has a good day with their families.
I acknowledge that Thanksgiving has a tainted history and is based in lies, war, and theft, however it's still perfectly fine excuse to share and show gratitude. I am privileged and grateful to be an American.
In 1621 the first Thanksgiving was actually held on February 21, when a ship loaded with food from Dublin, Ireland landed at Plymouth Rock, saving the starving townsfolk during a nasty winter. It is not a story of heroic Christians sharing what they had with the poor and hungry Natives. Chief Massasoit and The Wampanoag tribe were in fact not poor and were sustaining the new comers, and teaching them to grow new foods, until they were saved by the daughter of a Dublin merchant who chartered the vessel to Plymouth Rock. My family came from Ireland, during social upheaval, plight, and famine as immigrants.
11 - 17 - 23
Winter term is nearly over already; my final projects are starting and thanksgiving break is next week. This term absolutely flew by for me. I have been so busy writing articles for the school paper, making photos for my class, spending time in the forest, and playing airsoft, that I haven't had a lot of time for much else. It's been kinda nice, albeit kinda lonesome.
11 - 3 - 23
10 - 31 - 23
Happy Halloween!
10 - 20 - 2023
I have now had 3 articles published in my school newspaper. 8 photos of mine in total have been published as well. That's pretty awesome.
This coming issues at school has a piece where I ask the mayoral candidates of Portland Oregon what they will be doing to help the homelessness crisis within our communities and how they plan to heal the city. Durrell Kinsey Bey got back to me first, and Mingus Mapps is in correspondence with me now as well, so I will be writing a continuation piece. Pretty exciting stuff.
It feels like I may finally be able to achieve something good for the community.
9 - 23 - 2023
My friend Bri and I went to see Calabrese, Haunt Me, and Dead Animal Assembly Plant a couple nights ago on the 21st of Semptember. It was a wonderful experience to finally see Calabrese in the flesh! I have photographs and a review of the show here.
I will upload Dead Animal Assembly Plant photos and the final paragraphs of my review tomorrow.
9 - 15 - 2023
My friend Bri found this cool Mantis outside in our plants. By the time I got there with my camera she was scurrying away back to her flying saucer. Her mission to observe was over, it was time to relay the new information back to Mars HQ.
The humans are retarded.
8 - 26 - 2023
I don't know where to go from here.
I feel lost adrift a sea of ignorant naivety once more.
Lost sight of everything I had hoped for,
drowning and starving, I will die upon these waves
a million times before I find my paradise.
7 - 23 - 2023
Spending time with my bestfriend Bri in the forest with my rifle, pistol, and drone. We had a great day.
7 - 02 - 2023
Nick Cave and Debbie Harry did a song together ❤️
6 - 29 - 2023
My friend Bri and I went on a hike the other day up by Wildcat Mt.
We brought my DJI air2s drone with us on our trek so I made a little film out of some of the video I shot that day. We also got a lot of really cool photos of each other.
6 - 26 -2023
Summer classes start tomorrow! Woot!
6 - 22 - 2023
When I dream of a home, it's always the house I grew up in in Long Beach California.
Whenever I dreamt of home, it was under an emerald sky.
I could never understand why.
More often than not, I run up to and through the backyard gate.
I am usually chasing someone or running away from something.
It took me no effort at all to scale that fence as a kid.
Splinters and torn up hands be damned.
It was four years ago yesterday that I was last in that house. No wonder I had that dream last night. But what did it mean?
5 - 29 - 2023
Spring term at Mt. Hood Community College is already almost over! It went by fast! Our garden and house plants are growing so well! And I have felt so great being able to ride my bike and sit outside in the sun almost every day. I need to consider moving somewhere that offers sun and warmth on a more regular basis.
4 - 20 - 2023
Just an old photo I took a year or so ago, while I was driving into Portland.
3 - 28 - 2023
Winter term is over and I did really well. I am so proud of myself for finally finding my way back to college. It took a while, but it was worth it.
2 - 27 - 2023
Balloons, UFOs, derailments, chemical and uranium fires, and then the sky took a huge white dump all over America. It's been a really hard weekend. My ADHD has been really bad. I was super restless already because of the snow. But then my ex cancelled our joint cell phone plan so my cell service was cut. Without internet or phone I haven't been able to research for my homework. What a week. I'm over it.
2 - 13 - 23
In the whistling winds I can still hear your laughter
My tears remind me of the taste of the salty morning air
That billowed the curtains so gently
And in that misty morning
Our souls drifted out to sea
And never returned
2 - 1 - 2013
It was my birthday. I didn't make a big deal out of it. I have had mixed experiences celebrating my birthday. Memories of my mother forgetting, friends forgetting or being too busy, and never having the means to celebrate like most people do, have kept me from planning big get togethers or going out. Thankfully my friend Bri was amazing and took me out to dinner for sushi. It was amazing and I got totally stuffed. My friend Brandy had me a couple nice and thoughtful gifts from her trip to see her mom. And overall it was very peaceful.
1 - 1 - 2023
I spent 2018 healing from the effects of 2017.
I spent 2019 healing from the effects of 2018.
I spent 2020 healing from the effects of 2019.
I spent 2021 healing from the effects of 2020.
I spent 2022 healing from the effects of 2021.
Perhaps 2023 will be the year I heal and move on to a better future.
Update in 2024: I made it through a year of school. Great job Tony.
12 - 20 - 2022
How a city can carry so much ugliness.
Breathing air thick of piss and putrid meat.
Walking over trash piled up under our feet.
Listening to mean things yelled from across a busy street.
Watching a motherly Heron fall from the sky.
Imagining such terrible sights so way up high.
I'm thinking she must have wanted to die.
How can a city carry so much ugliness?
12/19/2022
Thanks to the flu virus I was taken out of commission for a few days. But I'm back at it. Getting things squared away for school most importantly.
12 - 13 - 2022
I was finally able to re-enroll in college! I had to drop out in 2010 when I had to leave my home during a dangerous and traumatic situation. It's been a huge struggle to get back in school, but I finally did it!
Here's an old shoot with a girl named Taylor I was shanging out with a few years back. I had just come home from my trip to Hollywood Calirfornia to shoot Cancerslug at the Whiskey A Go Go on June 20th 2019.
12/9/2022
My car has been out of service over the past couple weeks. I have been low on work and really scrammbling to get my car fixed. I ordered a radiator and it came yesterday. Hoping to get it in my little Civic tomorrow morning. I need to make some money in the next couple days some how to get insurance in my car. I don't know what I'm going to do but I'm doing my best.
Living with ADHD is so tough. Every day is effected by this cognitive disorder. Every aspect of my life is impacted by it. It's so difficult to explain myself, and get people to even believe I have anything wrong with me. I'm tired.
12/8/2022
Here's my new website! It'll grow so stay tuned to see how I change things up and see what I'm into. Maybe I'll blog some stuff or something.
I'm currently working on getting registered for college classes again. I had to drop out in 2010 when there was a violent situation with my family and I, and I was forced to become homeless for a while. It's been one of my biggest goals to go back to school and continue my education. So I am super proud of that. I am also proud of myself for advocating for my disabilities, and continuing to learn about and manage my ADHD.
Also working on looking for work, and finding new opportunities for advancement in my creative aspirations.
Be sure to check out my Youtube and Instagram! I have some really old projects on my YT page as well as new stuff!
Thank you for enjoying my photography
If you are reading this, then you are supremely awesome. You scrolled through all that so you deserve something special. I dunno what it is, but you deserve it lol. But seriously. I love what I do, and I really am grateful for anyone who makes it to the bottom of my page. If you did make it to the bottom shoot me an email and tell me! I'd really love to hear from you! And let me know what you think of my site and photography.
