I’ve always been quite shit at actually titling my works, and instead I just list the city and state where I actually shot the work. Well, guess what? That continues today! It just so coincidentally happens that part of the work involves some really good graffiti saying as such.

I have always loved photographing graffitoes, and a question that constantly pops up in my mind is, “at what point am I making work, and at what point am I simply recording the work of others?” That line is a seamless continuum, and I hope this one, and the other two in the series coming out later today give context and background about what I shot.

Essentially, I shot graffiti because it’s cool. I like it. I’m bad at artists statements.

That said, I was once photographing a giant throw-up on the underside of the Marquam Bridge, using a telephoto and a tripod, just outside of OMSI. I was working on carefully framing, showing the graffito in context, and all of a sudden an older jabroni comes up on a bike. He asks me, “you like shooting that stuff, yeah?” I responded in kind, I do, I shoot this stuff a lot. He made a fuss about how he leads the city’s graffiti removal team, and I said “I think you’re making Portland less interesting to look at.” He made a huff about me disrespecting his job and he left. I doubt that was actually his job. I think he was just a weirdo.

Anyway, two more like this later today. I like these a lot. If you ever wanted to, you could drift back through my catalog, graffiti is always a recurring theme. Goddamn artists out there in the world, everywhere you’d look.

Thanks for seeing my work, altering the work of others!