Went to the artwalk with my buddy Squared. Flag's First Friday usually blows, so you have to create your own chaos. I brought my Canon AE-1 and Squared tugged along his Pentax K-1000.
These big ancient cameras attract attention; everyone wants their picture taken, or on the other hand, they want you to put it down. There's the strange guy who demanded we take a picture of his dog (Squared did; I took a snap of the owner) and there's the grumpy gallery curators who don't want us selling prints of their precious art on eBay (a creepy old woman kept watching us take a picture of a shop window).
We ran into some handicapped people who admired our cameras. We ran into a man dressed as Bigfoot (it was really a bad Chewbacca costume) who ran into traffic and scared a bunch of drivers. We ran into police and breakdancers and drunks and small town poets and terrible art.
We were walking with our equipment hanging out (I know how that sounds) and a drunken Navajo wrapped in a blanket asked us to take his picture:
"Actually," Squared beamed. "I would love to take your picture." He raised the lens to his eye.
"What if I die?" The Navajo asked.
"Uh . . . well, we all will . . . some day. . ."
The Navajo pursed up his fist. "I could use some change. . ."
"Well, okay, we'll give you a dollar if you let us take your picture."
"Deal." He said. Then he raised his arms like a hawk and shouted "FREE!"
"Dude, you're not a freak. Don't worry."
Drunk Navajo Guy raised his arms again and we snapped two pictures.
"What's your name, anyway?" Squared asked.
"David." He said. "And I'm not a giving you any last names either. Just David."
"...Right."
A young college girl walked by and patted Dave on the shoulder and said, "Night, David." How sweet, she knew him and was being friendly.
David growled and said, "Don't touch me."
Later, we walked by a beerpong tournament outside the Mad I. Squared wanted to take a picture of the players, he raised his camera but a bouncer talking on his cellphone told us no pictures. We argued with him, that the sidewalk was a public space and we had the right.
"I know it's legal, but it's not cool."
Frustrated, we left and Squared muttered something about how we shoulda taken it anyway.
So we went to the corner gas station, I pissed and we came back. The bouncer was inside, not paying attention and Squared got the shot, easy. But I wanted to provoke the bouncer, so I turned on my flash and pushed the test button. Flash.
We walked on, but the bouncer ran after us, cursing. He stopped us and told us to delete the picture.
"We're shooting film." And I didn't want him ripping out the entire roll, because of the other great shots we had gotten that night. Bigfoot, the poets, the guitar-hero wannabes, everyone.
"We have two options, because I told you not to take a picture and you did," The bouncer said. "You delete that picture, one way or another."
I was shaking for some reason. I always get nervous in these situations.
"Let's compromise," I said, biting my tongue. "Why don't we just apologize and promise we won't use the picture, because it's film and we can't delete it."
"I don't care."
We argued for a few minutes, trying to tell him what we did wasn't illegal and it wasn't hurting anyone, etc. He tried to tell us he was a business law major and that our First Amendment Rights suddenly didn't matter.
Finally, he agreed to an alternative; we go into the bar and apologize to the manager, playing beer pong. Well, seems like a good idea, but as he led us into the bar I couldn't help thinking this was a trap. He was going to lead us into some dark backroom, beat the shit out of us and destroy the film AND the cameras.
But he didn't. He brought us to some random guy who looked bored and didn't care, we apologized and promised we wouldn't use the photos in a newspaper. That distinction should be emphasized. Everyone was happy. In the end, my first solution became the final one and I really think the bouncer only dragged us inside to embarrass us.
Squared is going to use the photograph, on his flickr, but that's about it. Victory or not, it was fun. Here it is:
Later, we went to NAU's carnival night a little Friday night program to keep Freshmen dying from alcohol poisoning. Yeah, it's a way to control everyone on campus and they tempt you with a raffle that serves as a reminder you are poor and never win anything.
Squared and I waited in line for an hour to get cotton candy with friends Angie and Katie. After waiting, Squared and I decided to take pictures of worker's reactions to strange things. I popped a few balloons next to them and then screamed as loud as I could.
We waited in line for another two hours to get balloon animals because Gean wanted an owl. But by the time we got to the front of the line, the balloon lady quit. Balls. However, a girl wearing a cap and a red Robin Hood hat also had a peacock balloon hat. She gave it to us and then disappeared into the crowd. As if her sole purpose was to give us a balloon and disappear. But we ended up passing the peacock hat off to someone else.
I collected as many balloons as I could and then some asshat tried to hit them out of my hand. Later, I saw him get into an argument with a stranger, who socked him in the face and ran out the fire escape door (which set off an alarm). I tried to get the shot and whipped out my camera, but he was gone and I let go of my balloons. . .which got stuck. What a disappointment.
Whatever. After that I went home and watched lame VHS tapes.
Three of the photos are by Squared.
You can read Angie's account of the weekend here:
http://angieonie.wordpress.com/2009/03/09/this-past-weekend/
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