Something I've decided to do in order to keep taking pictures, but ALSO, I wanted a way into the lives of people. REAL people. Doing REAL shit.
We've all got a life story and we all have things going on in it. My idea was to see people on the job, whatever it may be. They might be friends, but we know what they're like in a personal sense. What are people like when they're in a work place. What does that look like? Do they enjoy it? Are they much different from their every day, 'normal' selves? The interactions, down time, discussions, etc.
To get the ball rolling I thought I'd hit up a good friend of mine who is a tattoo artist. Man... Where does one begin? As a tattoo artist, the stakes are high. That shit's for life, unless you have the coin to have them removed, of course.
To my understanding that's as painful and just as expensive (if not more) to have done, so you'd better have a REALLY good idea of what you want, where you want it and be sure you want to go through with it. I mean, they're tattoo artists after all, not mind readers.
Although I had set out to take pictures, I got a little caught up listening to the conversations. People watching, in those moments when they're having second thoughts. The last minute decisions and contemplations, wondering if they're comfortable with the choice they're making, and BANG - confirmation's in, and although they might not say it, their body language says "fuck it, lets go."
Let me just say, I was impressed with watching people get tattoos. Not only by the people having work done, but the tattoo artists themselves. The levels of concentration, and accuracy was phenomenal to watch. I was shooting in a relatively small space, and although I was their for myself, I did NOT want to bump, interrupt, or fuck up the flow of what was going on.
That has the potential to be seriously awkward, if I bumped the tattoo artist. I even felt the need to be quiet. You know how you're driving around trying to find an address, and you turn the radio down, trying to keep all distractions to a minimum? Yea, that was me. Of course, I was the only one that felt this way. Everyone else was cool with it. Conversations, laughter, music blasting.
Anyway, as the day wore on and everyone was finished getting their work done, it was time to head off for dinner and a couple of beers. Thinking about what I'd spent a number of hours around and looking at various photos I'd taken during the day, I thought to myself that this had to be one of the most interesting things I'd seen go down, as an occupation. I dont have any tattoos myself, which made it all the more interesting to me. Turns out the day was a great way of giving myself a heads up on what I'm in for if I decided to get a tattoo, or two... or three, lol. Yea, right!
A thank you to everyone who let me hang out and do my thing whilst you were doing yours. Super grateful for the opportunity, and look forward to maybe doing it all again soon.
This was a great way to start the series. There are others planned, which hopefully I'll get to share them with you as well. Keep an eye out for them.
A Day In The Life.
All images and content © JDHQ 2013.
