Hamburger Eyes

Friday 11:00 am---Jessica Beach, Sarah Kim, and I leave for the Hamburger Eyes Epicenter fieldtrip.

Our day started with a very interesting BART ride in to the city. This short, squirrelly-looking man and his short, squirrelly-looking girlfriend got on and immediately separated from each other. The man sat right next to Sarah across from Jessica and I while the woman sat across the train car. The man muttered something to Sarah and then moved over to another seat. The woman saw him move so she followed him over there which triggered a loud series of incoherent outbursts from the man which were replied by the woman with some awkward cupcaking; She gave him a lot of "cuchee-koo" sounding "i love 

you's" and sounded as if she were speaking lovingly  to one of her hundreds of cats.

The man wasn't having any of it so he moved again to another seat across the car. She of course followed him again which started another incoherent argument. The woman shortly after got off the train and the man got off at a later station shortly after. All in all, a very interesting BART ride.

Later on the ride over an Asian couple got on the train with their little boy. They were both talking about something important and didn't pay a whole lot of attention to the boy. I had been reviewing pictures on my camera which attracted the boy's attention. He looked over at me so I smiled and waved at him. Instead of waving back he just pointed at my camera. He immediately lost interest so I took his picture.

We got off the train in the Mission district to the sound of a woman evangelizing to the public in Spanish over a bullhorn. The only words that I heard that I could make out above the sound of San Francisco traffic and the BART pulling away under the street  were "...Jesucristo nuestro salvador" which means Jesus Christ our  Savior. She was on a mission in the mission. 

We weren't quite sure where we were going. We only knew 

the name of the street so we started walking. Less than a block from the BART station we found the street, or rather shady alleyway. The alley was covered in graffiti on either side. We were approached by a latino man pushing  a shopping cart. He started asking Jessica for a little money to get some coffee but he was asking her in spanish and she didn't understand him so I pulled a couple bucks out of my wallet for him. The door to Hamburger Eyes blended in to the wall and we nearly missed it. We rang the bell and went up.

The walls were white. The floors were just bare wood. The space reminded me of when my aunt used to live in Emeryville in her studio. The art on the walls was very thought-provoking; a lot of images that would offend the non-artfully inclined. The tour of the space didn't last very long but it did inspire me to get some work together and submit to small galleries like Hamburger Eyes.

       

Once we were done with the Hamburger Eyes tour we set off in the streets of San Francisco to see other art galleries. We visited Jack Hanley Gallery, SF Camerawork Gallery, and Rayko camera, The most memorable was the video artist at the SF Camerawork gallery who dressed in drag in a chandelier and walked around the slums of South Africa. The Rayko photo booth was pretty fun too even though it wasn't working properly. Something had been bothering my classmate Patrick throughout most of the trip. I don't know him that well so I didn't ask him what was up...but I did take pictures of him. I'd like to get to know him a little better. He seems like an interesting person.

When we were done visiting all the art galleries, Jessie took us up to the top of the Marriot hotel. It was a good end to a tiresome day full of bickering squirrelly-folk, grandmotherly latino evangelists, and drag queens wearing chandeliers in South African slums.

The Decisive Moment: The Photographs

12:15am (7 minutes until the last train out of San Francisco)

"Yo, wait up!"
"Yeah?"
"You got yo credentials?"
"Huh?"
"You a professional? Where's yo credentials?"
"No I'm a student. I don't have credentials."
"You got balls?"
"Yep."
"Those yo credentials."
"Gotcha."
"You respect that clit?"
"Huh? I'm going to miss my train."
"Alright. You go catch that BART."
"Cool. One love, man. (One Love? What the hell was I thinking? Too much Bob Marley.)"

This was the conversation that occurred after I took this photograph (slightly abridged). At the beginning of this conversation he shook my hand which was cool, but he would not let go of my hand throughout the duration of the conversation (which wasn't so much a conversation as it was drunken verbal dribble from both of us). He had hands that were big enough to grab my entire hand and they felt like the bottom of a foot, smooth, calloused but solid. When I finally broke away from his crackhead-fu grip, I ran as fast as I could down the steps of the BART station and as I was running, I could hear the guy mutter to himself, "Square-ass motherfucker." A little scary but overall a great experience. This was the image that I showed as my Decisive Moment photograph.

The night that picture was taken seemed like it would have just been our typical Saturday night bout of drunken debauchery but turned in to a night of broken feet, boulder rolling, Jameson and gingers, strange blue-shirted drunkards playing grab-ass while listening to a bad wannabe grunge band, meeting middle-aged cougars and unstable crackheads with pink amps, enhancing pot highs by soaking in a hot tub in our underwear and strange gyro-operated ceiling fans that spin vertically instead of horizontally.

Here are some other photos that I took for this Decisive Moment project.

The Decisive Moment Pt. 2

For me, it's harder to begin a good habit than it is to break a bad one. My girlfriend will constantly be slapping my hands to keep me from biting my nails but no matter how many times I tell myself to keep my camera ready to shoot for this assignment I just can't seem to pick up that habit. I have been getting better at trying to uphold this habit but only because I missed a really good opportunity for a photograph.
I was in Berkeley driving up Ashby avenue. I was stopped at a light when I saw a man who looked like Jesus if Jesus had all white body hair and wore a sweatsuit riding on a bicycle. He was riding the bike through the intersection with his arms above his head (a la Richard Nixon). Of course my camera was sitting in the back seat in the "off" position with the lens cap on and my windows were all rolled up. I scrambled like a rush hour soccer mom to simultaneously grab my camera, turn it on, roll down the window, get my light reading, and snap the picture but since I'm not The Flash, I missed the shot. That shot would have been perfect for this project.
Instead I got this shot of an antique shop which is a nice image but not what I was looking for.

The Decisive Moment Pt. 1

Henri Cartier-Bresson said, "Aim well, shoot fast, and scram!", when referring to his style of shooting photographs. Much of his photography is about capturing a short instance in time. Even in his portrait photography, no matter how planned the subject's pose, there is an element of unexpectedness that occurs as if he was some sort lightning rod for random events. Considering the time it took to take a photograph back in those days---adjusting your tripod, adjusting the camera's bellows, releasing the shutter, changing your flash bulb, etc.---It may not have been just pure coincidence that Cartier-Bresson captures his images even though he says in the documentary "The Impassioned Eye" that some of the images he captured were captured by pure luck.

Shooting for me has always been very deliberate. I have always been very planned and meticulous about keeping a schedule for my shooting and I have always had a reason for doing a particular project other than getting a grade. I have never just sat and waited for something to happen. My current assignment, capturing a decisive moment in time, whether it be before, during or after a particular event, will challenge my patience. It's hard for me to do anything when I don't know what to expect much less try to produce a body of work.

I can tell already though that this class is going to be quite interesting. I'm looking forward to seeing what kinds of images I can produce when I relinquish any boundaries that I would normally set for myself while I am shooting.

Photos by Henri Cartier-Bresson and Breandan Tondu