With the absolute shitstorm into which this semester has turned, I’ve been waiting for something perfect. Something that makes me remember why I’m passionate about certain things, and something to teach me to rebalance my scale.
Thank god for today.
And it was bred from failure, strangely enough. With yesterday off from class, I ventured out to Everett, Mass., to find some industry landscapes. For my final color project, I’m focusing on working with landscape settings - something that I’ve found to be sort of cheesy and contrived, and that I’ve shied away from as a result. I went into Everett yesterday and found an excellent parking lot bordered by decaying factory buildings. I started in with my Mamiya 6x6 (using Kodak 400VC 120, something with which I’ve never worked), being careful not to turn the shoot into a trite stereotype I was pleased with my result, excited to finish the roll and a subsequent one. Then, eight shots in, the advancing mechanism got jammed. And I couldn’t fix it.
I was frustrated, artistically trumped, and felt like I had wasted my time. Getting the camera unjammed a few hours later, I went back out today to the same parking lot to try some different shots. I started talking to a man standing outside one of the oldest looking buildings, and he invited me inside the factory and around the back.
It was incredible: foundations laid pre-1900s, darkened window panels, decaying wood, aged brick, each scene more vivid than the next. Inside, the palette was perfect, entangled in muted industrial tones and an expanse of machinery that, somehow, played out as an organic installation. It was beautiful. He took me around, showed me some of the history of the company, which has been around about a century. I saw a machine on which Model-T bumpers were manufactures, and one of the first oil-burning generators from around WWII. He allowed me to shoot out back, and I left with his card, another appointment, and an unmistakable excitement to return.
This is the type of passion that is important. These are the type of people who are worth your time, worth allowing yourself to breathe over. And this is what I’ve been missing for a little too long.
M
