i'm really digging my neighborhood

so every semester in photo III we shoot cultures in san francisco. this usually means that we are all forced to go out and shoot stereotypes that we moan and groan about and every friggen person comes back with the same shit every year. it's boring. especially if you've taken the class three times like me and everyone else in the department has.

but this semester is different. sean rocks. this class is one of the best photo classes i've taken at state. it's right up there with acey's lighting class. it's rad. sean is keeping us on task and pushing us to make better pictures. he's not putting up with any bullshit and tells people when they need to make stronger images which is something that most of the professors at state don't do. he knows that we are capable of creating beautiful and telling pictures, and he's helping us to hone our story telling abilities.

brian and darcy and i went out for dinner after class tonight and we were talking a little about how none of us know how to tell stories. for a photojournalist, a story is one of the most difficult things to achieve, and we don't feel that we were every really given the best advice on how to shoot stories. yeah, we've seen great work and seen successful stories by other photographers, but it's not very often that you see a true photo story come out of our department unless your name ends in a mott or a maxon. anyways, we were all really excited because we feel like we are already getting more of how to tell a story from sean then we've gotten out of our entire careers at state.

pretty rad.

anyways, here's some pictures from my neighborhood. i've got the financial district this time around. i've done russian and chinese cultures, but i was drawn to this neighborhood when i saw it on the list in class. i thought it would be an interesting challenge to illustrate a place that basically lacks a community and really only comes alive during daytime hours. i've got some ideas for diptychs to show the contrast between the times of day or even days of the week.

i love how everything on the sidewalk seems so miniature compared to everything around it. people are totally dwarfed by their surroundings. there's a lot of money and power around there and i feel like the buildings definitely mirror that. i've been trying to capture that.



whooooa, a vert!