Order Women Like Pizza 2014 Las Vegas, NV
The backstory...
This is the world record for how close you can get to a person and shoot a candid. (And if it is not the world record, I have many others going down to a few inches that are candid.)
I shot this same thing maybe 30 to 40 times with different people. (all candid) I was caught maybe 2 or 3 times, but just kept walking. If camera was silent, then would not have been caught. It was shot with a noisy Leica M240. When I speak of camera ergonomics that allow specialized candid work this is a good example. Very hard to shoot like this with a giant dslr. A mini M43 would have been better, if one existed and was Leica-like and took a circle fish.
This was shot about a foot way if measured by bodies or few inches if measured by hands. I had no idea what I was getting into. If it is on the street I just shoot. When I got home I researched the cards they hand out and then put it all together.
Very hard to post process. I shot into the sun. Close to 30 versions to get something doable. It is hard to print, requires 3 passes through the printer. The border was shot at 2 in the morning with a little 16mp handheld Fuji camera by incandescent light. It was off color, so I did some color work on it. I have mentioned my hate for shooting still life's, commercial work etc. Still the border came out good enough for me. This is a quick shot of the final print and the original looks better.
In this day and age a photog would have to be careful about producing Order Women Like Pizza with all the 'me too' crap. (or even calling 'me too' crap) But if you are underground, as I am, you have no worries. You can do as you like, you are not worried about boycotts or sale losses. You can name your photo as you like, as long as legal, you got nothing to lose...you are true to your vision. In fact as an underground artist you would welcome the attention any controversy would bring you. But attention is not why I did it. I use photography to make sense of the world plain and simple.
A 13 x 19 archival pigment print was offered as a donation to 53 museums. 1 museum accepted the print, 4 or 5 replied with 'no thanks' and the rest were no replies. None of the photo curators were museum quality photogs themselves. (or even photogs) Curators are generally art history majors and have no idea what goes into getting this type of work. When dealing with museums you learn to just suck it up and move on to the next project.
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