3lektron Male • 29 • Cleveland, OH  • United States
offline Views: 242
Status... Single
Orientation... Straight
I'm into... Writing Photography Music Film Love Mind Japanese DJing Alan Warner novels Running Cooking
My sites... http://www.myspace.com/4x4eyes
Polysomnographic Technologist or Fingerpainter or EFL Teacher or Drum and Bass
Last On: 09/03/08 PST

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Mar 27, 2008 - 09:25 AM PST
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tHE HAND: artie
I wonder if that would be considered a HANDicap. lol.

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[ view all ]My Unauthorized Biography

tHe HAND

The hand was a foto project that I and my sister and friends came up with one boring day in Akron, OH.

The players and their locations:
Artie: public gym
Britt: Boarders
Kris: strip mall/parking lot
Noah: shopping mall

My friend Kris was visiting for the weekend in Akron. I had just come home from Japan, where I teach as an EFL teacher, and I was road tripping Ohio. My sister, Britt, and her boyfriend Artie live around Akron. The day before we went out to shoot the fotos we planned out our locations and some strategies for getting around security guards and the like. These fotos you see are from a digital camera that I had, you can see that I had a SLR with us also. I'm not entirely sure what happened to that film, but I think there are some more interesting shots on those rolls. This being the first project I've put up on quarter life, I feel obligated to update it, if only infrequently, so If I can find those fotos I'll scan and post them.

The team was a bit timid to go out and take fotos in public. Add the fact that we had an artist's hand with us and that meant that I had to go first as the subject matter. We got to the shopping mall purchased some new batteries for the digital camera, ran into an old university friend who lives in the area, then got down to business. Our first location was the food court, a nice safe common area of the shopping mall. I posed, Kris and Artie whipped out the cameras and Britt was the look out. Thus was our M.O. Two camera men, one person in front of the camera, and one look out. We went around to some other spots, in and outside of some of the shops at the mall and then finished up with the "shaking hands" shot in this huge atrium in the middle of the mall.

The next location was the strip mall, Kris's location. We milled around the parking lot and then went into a toy store. The toy store was fun to be in because the artist's hand already looks kind of like a toy, so it was a bit easier to sneak around and take pictures. Eventually we just asked the staff if we could take pictures, they said yes and joined in on the fun. We took some pictures with the staff and some hand puppets. A lot of those photos were shot on the SLR camera so I still haven't seen them. In one of the behind the scenes fotos you can see Kris (brown shirt) holding up a finger puppet and Me (Noah, blue shirt) taking the foto. We shot some more with the shopping cart and with some pumpkins that were in front of an organic food shop.

Next was Boarders. I'd have to say that this was my favorite location, due simply to the fact that we got kicked out by some guy working as a manager. We had a few close calls at the mall with security guards, and this guy was giving me the stink eye because his girlfriend was digging the flash mob aspect of what we were doing and well let's face it, he didn't think of it first so I guess he felt threatened for some reason. Or it's just that we came off as freaks. So it goes. But lots of people were freaking out at Boarders. Staff and costumers alike. The shoot at Boarders was a quick one, we had to constantly cycle between the various sections of the store to avoid detection. The shot with Britt and Dick Channey was done on the second floor near a balcony. With the whole first floor watching this scene unfold above it. It was great to look down and see all these people turn into question marks as they entered the store, looked up, and then saw us taking pictures. Finally we had over stayed our welcome and the Boarder's fuzz came to bust us. Here's, from my memory, the way it went down.

Staff: What are you guys doing?
Me: Oh, we're just taking pictures.
Staff: Why?
Me: oh, just to have fun, for a class project...
Staff: You can't take pictures in the store.
Me: Why?
Staff: It's private property

I wasn't quick enough to just ask the guy if we could have permission to take fotos in the store. Oh well, we milled around for another ten minutes just to appear casual then left the store. As we left the Boarders parking lot I flipped off the store in a useless gesture of protest to our being censured and the car next to us in traffic thought I was flipping them off and took offence.

Our last stop was the gym, Artie's location. The gym is part of the apartment complex that my sister and Artie live in. The place was quite small but it had a lot of good props. The foose ball table is one of my favorite shots. Unfortunately by this time we were running out of film/memory and it was getting later in the day and everyone's comfort levels had already been stretched enough for the day, so the gym was probably the quickest shoot for the entire day. The last shot taken was the one of Artie ordering a Hawaiian Punch from the vending machine at the gym.


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tHE HAND: noah
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03/25/08 07:39 PST
     

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