I started BORED Zine out of restlessness — Austin felt too quiet, New York felt too loud, and in between those places is where I see best. I’m drawn to faces that look like stories and corners that carry ghosts. The streets don’t pose; they just exist, and I’m there to catch them off guard. BORED isn’t about being idle — it’s about the kind of boredom that forces you to move, to look harder, to turn noise into something human. Every frame is a small rebellion against stillness — a way to remember that even nothing days deserve to be seen.
-Mingo Velasco, @grainrott
For me, BORED started as a joke between two people who couldn’t sit still. We weren’t chasing beauty — we were chasing honesty. New York’s chaos and Austin’s heat both press on you the same way; they make you look closer at the spaces people forget. I photograph the quiet moments between motion — a glance, a reflection, a rhythm in the streetlight. The zine is a mirror for that impulse — to escape, to feel alive, to turn boredom into creation. These photos are proof that wandering without a plan is still a kind of purpose.
-Gala Steele, @la_luminara
What comes to mind when trying to describe this project is a quote from legendary psychoanalyst, Carl Jung: Life really does begin at 40. Up until then you are just doing research.
More than anything else what you can gather from this body of work is that sometimes the greatest impetus of change is something as simple as boredom itself. What Gala Steele and Mingo Velasco are experiencing now is a true artistic renaissance, and in less than 2 years they have quickly asserted themselves as Texas’ most prolific couple in photography by simply embracing this lack of fervor.
Everything before now, all the paintings, body art, and procreation were small roads that bring us to the present, a great gift that boredom has spurred. Aesthetically, what I found from rummaging through the phonebook thick pile of outtakes where golden ratios and sacred geometries that express to me that while many of these photos where captured in an instant, they were not done so in haste.
From dirty 6th lifers to New York City street vagabonds this work isn’t a homage to the work before it but a retaliation against it. This is New York City street (the 2025 remix) packaged to you by two of Austin’s most adored practitioners of the photographic arts.
-paz, @mephaustino
I started BORED Zine out of restlessness — Austin felt too quiet, New York felt too loud, and in between those places is where I see best. I’m drawn to faces that look like stories and corners that carry ghosts. The streets don’t pose; they just exist, and I’m there to catch them off guard. BORED isn’t about being idle — it’s about the kind of boredom that forces you to move, to look harder, to turn noise into something human. Every frame is a small rebellion against stillness — a way to remember that even nothing days deserve to be seen.
-Mingo Velasco, @grainrott
For me, BORED started as a joke between two people who couldn’t sit still. We weren’t chasing beauty — we were chasing honesty. New York’s chaos and Austin’s heat both press on you the same way; they make you look closer at the spaces people forget. I photograph the quiet moments between motion — a glance, a reflection, a rhythm in the streetlight. The zine is a mirror for that impulse — to escape, to feel alive, to turn boredom into creation. These photos are proof that wandering without a plan is still a kind of purpose.
-Gala Steele, @la_luminara
What comes to mind when trying to describe this project is a quote from legendary psychoanalyst, Carl Jung: Life really does begin at 40. Up until then you are just doing research.
More than anything else what you can gather from this body of work is that sometimes the greatest impetus of change is something as simple as boredom itself. What Gala Steele and Mingo Velasco are experiencing now is a true artistic renaissance, and in less than 2 years they have quickly asserted themselves as Texas’ most prolific couple in photography by simply embracing this lack of fervor.
Everything before now, all the paintings, body art, and procreation were small roads that bring us to the present, a great gift that boredom has spurred. Aesthetically, what I found from rummaging through the phonebook thick pile of outtakes where golden ratios and sacred geometries that express to me that while many of these photos where captured in an instant, they were not done so in haste.
From dirty 6th lifers to New York City street vagabonds this work isn’t a homage to the work before it but a retaliation against it. This is New York City street (the 2025 remix) packaged to you by two of Austin’s most adored practitioners of the photographic arts.
-paz, @mephaustino
