Camera Roll with Ethaney Lee
Camera Roll is an interview series where we glimpse into the current moment via the mundane and the ordinary — the life documented and forgotten, lived through our phones and beyond.
Ethaney Lee is a vibrant, compelling content creator on Instagram, where as @tenderherbs, she cooks and shares meals that look as beautiful as they seem delicious. Her captions are moving works on their own: under a recent meal of macaroni with sautéed yellow tomatoes, shallot, Aleppo pepper, spinach, labneh, feta, dill and sumac, she shared a favorite Clarice Lispector quote, “one day you’ll have whatever it is you’re now so confusedly seeking.” With a vulnerable, hopeful earnestness, Ethaney is a moment of soothing respite on a frenetic feed, but in real life, you’re likely to bump into her eating a cup of soup outside on a random bench in the Bay Area, or maybe she’ll bump into you while scrambling to navigate the tight and crowded aisles at Monterey Market with an overly-full grocery basket. We spoke to Ethaney about her procrastination problems, why she doesn’t take food pics on dates, her everlasting devotion to tumblr, and much more.
What kind of phone do you have and how many images are on it?
I have an iPhone 14 (I don’t know if it’s the pro or regular, I just know it has two cameras, not three) and I have 43,266 photos on it.
Where are you right now?
I’m in my bed.
What's your morning routine like?
I don’t sleep with my blinds closed because I like waking up naturally as daylight makes her presence known. Sometimes, that means I wake up at 6:30 AM, sometimes at eight. I shamelessly check my phone first thing in the morning: text messages, email, Twitter, then Instagram. Then, I open the windows because I love the cool morning air, water my plants while I brew the worst coffee in the world, pour myself a cup with too much milk and two sugar cubes, light my cedar incense, get back into bed and send my routine good morning audio messages to my best friend and a “good morning” in my family’s group chat before starting my day for real.
How long do you typically spend on your phone in a day?
I spend about five hours a day on my phone. Sometimes more. I try to not keep track because the amount of time I spend on my phone is unhinged and embarrassing.
What was your upbringing like?
I was born and raised in the Bay Area. There were parts of my childhood that were idyllic and those are the memories I really treasure. I didn’t think much of it when I was younger but my mom really introduced a lot of beauty into our lives as kids. She was the one who took us camping for a week every summer, she was the one who took us to creeks and ponds and taught us how to catch tadpoles and spot catfish, she was the one who took us to Santa Cruz to see what the fisherman caught that day, she was the one who would take us to the beach and disappear for a little bit, coming back with all these sand crabs and starfish to show us.
My mom was our sole caretaker and provider and she was the one who raised us, and although she had some traditional ideals, she never really pushed me to be someone I wasn’t. Even so, I was a bit impulsive and reckless when I was younger, and I made some decisions that ended up being really tough lessons for me to learn. I appreciate that my mom has always pretty much accepted that I do things my own way, and she knows I'll be okay even if I suffer a bit when learning hard lessons. I’m a carefree person who doesn’t put a lot of emphasis on monetary success. I’d rather live a life that is more authentic and true to me, meaning romanticized and freeing, even if that means I get a little bruised up sometimes.
what do your days look like?
Most days see me procrastinating either a little or a lot, having random whirls of focus, drinking too much coffee, driving to the grocery store to pick up just one single ingredient, making a mess of my kitchen while cooking and struggling to find the energy to clean it up, trying not to succumb to melancholia hours which, for me, are between three and six in the afternoon, and always ending the day with a super long, hot shower. A couple of days out of the week, dinner, or coffee with a friend finds its way into my schedule. Occasionally, in the evenings, I love taking myself to a movie and getting a pre-movie cheeseburger with large fries and Diet Coke.
How do you strike a balance between work and free time?
Freelance has its benefits, like no strict nine-to-five, but for someone who really struggles with time management, I feel like that makes it even harder to have a balance between work and free time. On a day that I don't have a deadline, or I feel somewhat ‘caught up’, I experience intense pressure to do more because I feel like I am always falling behind. I really try to pay attention to how I'm feeling – am I feeling tired? Am I feeling super uninspired? Do I need a day to do absolutely nothing? I find that being really in tune with how I'm doing mentally or emotionally allows me to have a better balance between work and my personal life.
How do you use your phone or other tools to mark, store, and remember moments?
I use a Moleskine (black, unlined — I love blank pages. Sometimes lines/dots/squares make me a little nervous for some reason!) for things that require more thought and planning, but my phone is my main way of recording, and remembering the special and mundane moments. When I’m with my family, I love taking silly little clips and photos of our family interactions. I feel like it gets more rare that my mom, my brother, and I are all able to be together so when we are, I want to remember the little random things. I love taking photos of people I love, beautiful produce, the comforts of my small apartment, a lipstick-stained wine glass, and my dog, Cleo.
I used to be a VSCO girl all the way. I could not take a photo without adding a sepia-toned/Wes Anderson-esque filter to it. But now, I love taking more random and candid photos that don’t require much thought or care. I love zooming in so it’s a little grainy. I love taking photos that are a little skewed or lower in exposure. With my food photos, it’s a little different and I try to take more care in framing and angles because of the textures and colors. I don’t use any filters anymore, but I adjust sharpness and contrast a little bit before posting.
When I'm dating someone new, I intentionally try not to capture any moments with my phone. I was recently dating someone, and he introduced me to new restaurants that had beautiful dishes, but I never felt the desire to take out my phone to remember it. I don’t know why. It’s almost like I wanted to enjoy the fleetingness of it all, like I knew it was going to be short-lived and there was something romantic about not having any real proof of it all. I rarely delete anything intentionally, but sometimes when I come across a photo from a time in my life that feels so, so far in the past, I’ll delete it.
what’s been inspiring you?
I find inspiration in daydreams, in envisioning a life that I want to create somehow, in some way. I find inspiration in memories of places I've traveled, art, and in reading things that resonate. I find inspiration in colors and feelings that I want to experience over and over again.
As for Instagram accounts, here are a few that inspire me: @vivthemole is my best friend. She’s in the fashion space, but her aesthetic is so full of whimsy and charm that it appeals to the girls who aren’t really fashion-forward, like me. I’m a huge sucker for film IG, so I love @cinemamonamourpage, @asiancinemaarchive and @differ.tv. I also love @aredotna — I always end up reading or learning something that resonates very deeply with me.
What apps on your phone do you use most?
I avoid downloading apps at all costs. I really only like using my phone to take photos, text, and mindlessly scroll social media. I recently told someone I refuse to use Apple Pay, and they looked sick to their stomach about it. My ex forced me to download Google Calendar last year, which I had been avoiding forever for no real reason, except that I hate downloading apps. The number of apps on my phone is very minimal and the majority of them are practical ones like my banking app, Lyft, Venmo, Gmail. I do love reading Co-Star every day, and I also love the tumblr app (the real tumblr girlies never left!!!) when I need a break from social media and just want to mindlessly reblog beautiful, nonsensical images. As someone who is so bad at math that it’s a literal personality trait, I use the calculator app more than I care to admit. She is very important to me!
What are you watching right now?
For six months straight, all I wanted to watch were horror films of all types. It’s the only thing I had patience for and interest in. I guess that’s what a breakup does to you. My favorites are Possession and The Wailing. Now, I think I need a little bit of a pause from horror films so I am decompressing with the 90 Day Fiancé franchise.
What’s in your podcast queue?
Truthfully, I'm not really a podcast girl. I used to love listening to This Is Love by Phoebe Judge on long car rides, but now, the only podcast I faithfully listen to is How Long Gone with Jason Stewart and Chris Black.
What are you reading?
I have a stack of new books I've been trying to read for the last six months. A friend sent me Heaven by Mieko Kawakami because it’s one of his favorite books, so I've been making my way through that. I always re-read snippets of Bluets by Maggie Nelson for comfort. I've been doing that since I was in my mid-twenties. I love reading anything by Anne Carson, Richard Siken, Mary Oliver, Clarice Lispector, or Simone Weil at least once a day.
My two favorite newsletters are The Molehill by Viv, Roulette by Megan Nolan and No One Asked by Arianna. All three are so authentically written, vulnerable in different ways, and most importantly, have a lot of heart.
last thing you googled on your phone?
“Is Viggo Mortensen married?” [editor’s note: not currently!]
favorite new possession over the past year?
I found this ornate antique shelf on Facebook marketplace for $40. Viv says it looks like an altar and it kind of does. It’s not practical enough to hold books or anything of substance, but I love it anyway. It’s extra meaningful to me because it was the first thing I bought for my apartment after I moved out of the home I shared with my ex-fiancé. Now, it holds the little things that make my home feel like me: a painting someone did of one of my food photos, my incense, antique brass teapots from my grandmother, candles, a Moomin print, and always, fresh flowers.
Can you describe your lock screen and what made you pick it?
My lock screen is this random photo I found on tumblr of all of these beautiful and misshapen baroque pearls. I’m going through a big baroque pearl phase because I find their imperfections so charming, and strangely, really comforting. It reminds me that a little ‘ugliness’ is special and more mesmerizing than perfection.
images provided by ethaney lee, edited by em seely-katz