My Name Is Smith, And I'm A Workist...

About twenty years ago, I had the once in a lifetime beautiful experience of watching a building I used to work in get demolished. From the comfort of my new office, but still. I loved the show. I have a series of documentary photos taken using my old 3 megapixel digicam. 

For many years, I was a committed workist. Work = me. Man, I've got to live with that tattoo for the rest of my life! Thankfully, the scales did ultimately fall from my eyes, and I never turned into a cockroach, but still. They got their pound of flesh!

Good light this weekend, fellow traveler.

The Great Curve

At the time I made this photograph, I was working for someone else, a thing I did too much of for far too long. Which meant that the plan for the day was to spend a significant number of hours indoors, sitting in a windowless room, listening to a group of assholes wearing tight golf shirts gassing on about some topic or other. While also looking at their overstuffed powerpoint slides. All senses engaged. Luckily my ass was getting kind of sore, and plus, I was not really looking forward to either the curried tilapia or the smothered chicken breast options for lunch. So, I called an audible and went for a long bathroom break and wander. The observation that the two building shadows were intersecting with the curve on the wall at one unique point in the space-time continuum was the most interesting thing that happened to me that day.   

 

Coffee And Cigarettes

Over the years, it seems that I have collected quite a few photographs of places where folks like to take their 15 minute coffee breaks. Turns out that images of these places pepper my photo archive across the decades. Some were photographed while on walks, others while on a break myself. Back doors, alleyways, and loading docks. Nothing special, a place to flick your butts without starting a fire, I reckon. Not being a smoker, I go for the fresh air, but others need that jolt of nicotine or caffeine, or maybe they're just hoping for an email or a text.

Tasting notes: Olympus 35 SP, Ortho 80 film.

Dining out

When I was in high school, I wanted to build a darkroom in the garage, and I was kind of surprised when my father said it would be okay to do so. I spent a good deal of time learning my craft in that cramped space. One of my favorite prints from that period of time was done on a paper that had greenish tint to it, and that was the look I was going for in the post production of this photograph. I sure wish I could remember the name of the paper, but I’m going entirely from old memories. At any rate, I came upon this scene on a recent walk. On the right, just out of frame, is a group of anonymous office buildings, and this looks like the most pleasant place around to have lunch, certainly preferable to the loading dock. Hopefully the work is important. 

Give me a break

I'm not a smoker, but there is something familiar and vaguely comforting about the places we go for our breaks, even if we choose to spend the time alone with our thoughts. Our ten minutes of peace and solitude in the (fingers crossed) fresh air and away from the helter skelter of work. As an outside observer, these places often look pretty shabby, but who among us wouldn't choose to sit in a rickety chair or pace around a loading dock if given the chance to escape the drudgery of work for a few minutes? I wonder what the architect had in mind for this little space. I don't think it was a planned smoking zone. I'm pretty sure folks smoked in their offices when this building was constructed.