Updated August 12, 2025

Sony Mavica Photo Dump II

A trip to Portland, the city that reeks of weed and piss

Photography

March 31, 2025

I've been hanging this 40lb (not actually) camera from my neck again lately. It's a fun camera to use, even if it's not the most spectacular digital camera. I get a kick out of seeing people's faces contort in confusion when I swap out disks in my strange camera. For more details on the Sony Mavica itself, I recommend that you check out my previous Mavica Photo Dump post from July of last year.

All of the pictures in this post are from a recent Portland trip that I took with my cousin. This time around I opted to carry 4 floppy disks instead of my usual 2. This allowed me to take more high-quality photos, as I didn't have to worry as much about available storage space. However, I was still limited to 5.76MB. In my previous Mavica post I shot the majority of my pictures at the 640x480 resolution in order to get the most out of my 2.88MB capacity. You won't find any photos at that resolution here. All of the following photos are at 1216x912 or 1024x768. I wanted to provide a better idea of what this digital camera from 1999 is capable of by putting it to the test.

Shortly after arriving at our hotel in Portland, I walked down to the Willamette river to play around with the Mavica. This photo of the Morrison bridge was the first picture that I took.

This docked boat always catches my attention whenever I visit Portland. It's home to the Oregon Maritime Museum. One of these days I'll have to actually check it out. The first time I saw it back in 2020 it was closed (for obvious reasons). I completely forgot about it until I saw it again during this trip. Had I remembered its existence I would have fit it into our trip, but alas it will have to wait for another time.

Right next to the maritime museum was this graffiti-covered control box and meter (or whatever it is). Don't know who Queso is, but I saw that orange stencil in various areas around the downtown Portland area.

This duck couple dive-bombed this massive puddle together. I walked over to take a better picture of them swimming in it, but by the time I got over there they had already gotten out. Still managed to take this picture of them waddling around it though.

I took this picture at the Ground Kontrol arcade on 5th Avenue. Hands down this one of the best arcades I've ever been to. There is a wide selection of cabinets and pinball machines to play with, and the selection is very impressive. It had every cabinet I was hoping to see and more. My favorites among their collection were Sunset Riders, Star Wars Arcade (1983), Raiden Fighters 2, Punchout, Metal Slug, and Bust a Move. They even have weird shit that I didn't expect to see, such as "Baby Pac-Man", a pinball/video game hybrid; and "Lucky & Wild", a co-op driving game by Namco where one player drives with a gun in one hand while the second player solely shoots at other cars. In Lucky & Wild, my cousin and I found the game to be more enjoyable when the driver focused on driving while the passenger dual-wielded the lightguns.

We spent a lot of time at this place. We swung by the arcade both nights that we stayed in Portland. An arcade card loaded with 300 points only cost $10. Most cabinets ranged from only 10-20 points per credit. Very reasonable pricing! There's also a bar in there, and most cabinets had conveniently beer-shaped cupholders mounted atop them.

A picture of my cousin in front of a Dig Dug cabinet. Obviously doctored for the sake of his privacy. His face doesn't actually look like that, believe it or not.

This is a statue of Astrochild, a little guy featured in an indie game called Dreamshark. It was certainly a unique experience strolling through the Portland saturday market and meeting the developer in person. Benjamin seems like a pretty cool dude. He showed genuine passion for this world and character he's created. I wish I took a full picture of his booth, because he had a homemade gameboy kiosk running the game. Sitting next to the kiosk was a gameboy color and an analogue pocket where you could try out the game yourself. He also flashed physical gameboy cartridges of Dreamshark, which comes in an actual box and includes a color manual. It was too awesome to pass up, I had to buy a copy.

Just past the Saturday market was a long stretch of these cherry blossom trees. I managed to take this picture despite how packed with people the area was. Behind the cherry blossoms stands the steel bridge and the Modacenter venue across the river.

Here is the steel bridge behind the cherry blossoms in greater focus.

Our next destination, the "Lan Su Chinese Garden", happened to have a promotion going on where you could get a discount on your pass if you showed the person at the counter a picture that you took of the nearby cherry blossoms at the Saturday market. Now, imagine me whipping out my giant floppy disk camera and trying to show the lady at the counter the photo with the tree in frame on that shitty LCD screen. Amazingly, despite how terrible my picture looked on that display, she gave us the discount! Lucky us.

Tucked within a city block surrounded by tall buildings sits the Lan Su Chinese Garden. It's not a very large garden so there wasn't much ground to cover, but it was a pleasant visit despite how brief the visit was. It certainly feels strange being in a tranquil garden in the middle of a bustling city.

Located in the garden is a very ornate and cozy two-story teahouse. The homemade tea was delicious! The name of the tea escapes me, but my favorite was a somewhat sour tea that contained orange peels.

Be me, pourin' tea. (Also doctored for the sake of privacy)

I enjoyed spending time with my cousin on this trip. We rarely get to hang out one-on-one these days so I highly cherish the time that we do get to spend together. We explored Portland on foot our entire time there. Polishing off our drunken nights walking to Kell's Irish Pub downing bread pudding and fries after dueling in Bust a Move at Ground Kontrol was fuckin awesome.

I listened to "Tourist N.B." by Jun Takayama (speedometer.) on YouTube while writing this page. Pulse Wave is my favorite track on the album. Give it a listen!