So, it’s been a long ass day. I got up and I was sore from a fall last night, I’m still stiff, actually, but that’s another story.<br /><br />I got up and went to work, and for once I was pretty on time, or at least I was there earlier than the other two people in my office. I go back to the processor to turn it on, and there were a couple pieces out of it, so I opened the lid and took a look at the tanks, and the rinse baths were a bit frothy. If you know anything about processors, or about photography in general, It’s not a good thing for your rinse baths to be opaque, and also not a good thing for them to be frothy. The froth turned out to be rinse aid, which is strange and unnecessary, but whatever. I digress. <br /><br />So, I see the processor in this state and I’m a little upset. You’ve got to understand, this is a quarter of a mil sitting there let to rot. Not only that, but the utility of it, its ability to make prints, was seriously degraded. Maybe I’m crazy. But I was a little pissed. So, I tell everyone we really need to drain and clean the machine, and then we can get back to printing, it’ll take a day, but the prints will be better and the machine won’t in danger of breaking down imminently. <br /><br />As background, I’ve worked on these machines before, and I have a pretty intimate understanding of the chemistry involved. If you want, you can look it up, I’m not in the mood to explain it here. There’s no need for the rinse aid in the final baths, because the prints are dired with hot air right away. Which I tried to explain to the office manager (or whatever keith is), but he wasn’t having any of it. By this time I’d been to get cleaning supplies, pulled the rinse bath rollers, and cleaned the first set. I put the machine back together and went outside for a smoke. <br /><br />I’m outside, then, with one of the other people I work with, Haley (not Luna). Keith, the office manager, comes over and starts talking about the machine, and I try to explain to him that really the machine should be thouroughly cleaned once a month, and he goes off on me. Says he just got off the phone with some so-and so from tech support who told him it only needed it every six months, and moreover my experience didn’t matter because I’d never worked on this machine, and I said to him, fine, let’s just let it drop, no reason to be angry. So he yells at me some more, and I tell him to let it go some more, and seemed like about ten times we went back and fourth like that, and finally I tell him, fine, find another photographer. And I turned on my heel and grabbed my shit and I was gone. <br /><br />Since then, I’ve had a pretty chill day. I went to sauced and had some coffee, shot some photos for the 23rd st project (coming soon, next post, I swear), and built a bike for a pretty girl. The girl is attached to a guy, but sometimes it’s nice to build something just because you can, because it’s something positive in an otherwise shit day. Maybe the photos are good though. <br /><br />Also, if you know anyone looking for an experienced photographer, photo assistant, fine printer, entry-level web programmer, locksmith, or portugese translator, I’m available.
Posted by matt on 2009-02-19T00:00:00Z GMT
So today was the first day of working on the 23rd street project; just a walk up and down with my leica to see what I saw, and to try to get a handle on what the project would and could be. <br /><br /><img src=”https://images.matt.pictures/first_day_of_23rd_st._project/1242/0001.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><br />So, as I was walking and talking to Grant, I was also thinking. Grant graciously came along to watch my back. I have this tendency to concentrate so much on what I’m photographing that I walk out into the road to get the right angle, and not notice oncoming cars. So it’s good to have someone along who isn’t trying to line up things visually, much less conceptualize a new project at the same time. <br /><br /><img src=”https://images.matt.pictures/first_day_of_23rd_st._project/1242/0002.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><br />The project as I see it now can go a couple of ways; I can see it happening fairly quickly, couple weeks of work, but the idea, the interesting thing to me thus far, is that 23rd street is the border between two really distinct neighborhoods, and that contrast causes all this crazy activity, lots of bums, shops, empty storefronts, crazy shit. It’s a busy area. <br /><br /><img src=”https://images.matt.pictures/first_day_of_23rd_st._project/1242/0003.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><br />But also there’s the possibility of following the street for a while, six months to a year, to see what happens, because as midtown wraps up to the south and paseo continues to develop to the north, there’s no way all these buildings will stay run down; they’re going to become prime real estate soon; it’s already happening to a few little strips. <br /><br /><img src=”https://images.matt.pictures/first_day_of_23rd_st._project/1242/0004.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><br />I like the idea of this photo essay as a series of intense contrasts; the tension between the neighborhoods from the north and the south, the new shops and their new customers and the old bums and winos and just the plain residents (somehoe nobody has yet targeted the down-and-out demographic, except maybe Byron’s liquor). It’s probably an avenue I’ll pursue (or at least be thinking about while I’m shooting.<br /><br /><img src=”https://images.matt.pictures/first_day_of_23rd_st._project/1242/0005.jpg” alt=”Photos” /><br /><br />Edit to add: Film scanning is a bitch. I think I’m probably going to just shoot this with my canon digi, just to save myself the hassle and the expense of film. OK, croudsource an answer: what do you think? Is the film look in the above pics worth the hassle? (shitty scans, I know; part of the cost would be a new scanner).
Posted by matt on 2009-02-17T00:00:00Z GMT
So yesterday was a fucker of a day. After I said all that about loving life on the road and how I’d rather be doing my job than carousing and womanizing and drinking (still basically true), I had a fucker of an afternoon. <br /><br />It was made worse by the fact that I had a great morning- I was shooting really well, not too tired or too sore in the shoulders. Well, there was a bit of technical difficulty at the beginning (I had changed my manual ip to try to get my comp working on their network, and voila, it worked, but then the guys out front couldn’t connect to me. Never mind they could’ve found me in the network browser). But being a little pissed just sharpened me up, and I hit all the marks just right. That I also have to make up the marks as I go, or rather intuit them (an important philosophical difference, but we have to many parentheticals already) makes no difference.<br /> <br /><img src=”https://images.matt.pictures/fucker/1243/leonardsign.jpg” alt=”Photos”/><br /><br />Then the afternoon came. Groups of dancers, first duo/trios, and then gradually increasing until there were 30 on the floor. So, just as we were getting into the groups of 6-8, one of the pins bent in on my card reader and I was in trouble. So, I sent the guys out front, my boss, an IM asking for help. I get no response, and in short order I had worked through my extra cards. So, I ran out to their area, and in the process, missed a dance routine. Threw me off the rest of the afternoon. Got heated there for a second and I was tempeted to walk off from the whole thing, but my better nature prevailed, and I’m still employed. that is, they didn’t fire me for a mistake, and I didn’t walk off mad. <br /><br />Then dinner, and my boss was in hot water for us leaving “early.” Early being maybe 15 minutes to beat the crowd. Oh well, now nobody in the whole crew gives a shit, we’re only doing this job for the money anyway. Why won’t people figure out that giving subordinates shit just pisses them off and gets you less work, of lower quality? Foster a good work environment, and good things happen. Positive reinforcement. When your buisiness depends on creative people, all that bad emotion can really fuck up their day, which in turn screws your product. <br /><br />Enough rambling, back to work for me.
Posted by matt on 2009-02-15T00:00:00Z GMT
Why am I awake at this ungodly hour? It’s saturday morning. I should be drunk, passed out with my arms around some beautiful woman I don’t deserve. I should have partied all night with my friends.<br /><br />Instead, I’m here in a town in north carolina in a town who’s name I can’t spell right (albamarle? albermar? something). Today, I’m going to go and sit in a chair for hours on end, and take pictures. This instead of waking up with said woman, making breakfast and nursing a hangover all day, orange juice, eggs, coffee, maybe a mid-afternoon bike ride. <br /><br />No, today I’ll shoot more than 10,000 pictures. I’ll hear the same 50 songs repeated about twice, some more than others, and some more annoyingly than others (I never did like Annie). I’ll hold up the 5 pound camera setup for most of that time, a 12-13 hour day, with a short break for lunch. I’ll be exhausted and ache at the end and probably have one dinner choice, because everything else in town shuts down at 8. <br /><br />The strangest part? I prefer this to staying at home. I’d rather be out here on the edge of what I can do, busting my ass, trying to do something nearly impossible (produce good art on demand, several hundred times in a day? that’s so absurd it’s beyond consideration, but here we are). This is difficult, but it’s the life I’ve been missing out on in a lot of ways, going different places, doing photography, a little suffering but much joy. <br /><br />Other than the people in what I’m already thinking of as my old life, there’s nothing I miss. With the exception of the hypothetical pretty lady, who 9/10ths of the time I’m texting from the road anyway. What’s wrong with me?
Posted by matt on 2009-02-14T00:00:00Z GMT
