So today was the first day of working on the 23rd street project; just a walk up and down with my leica to see what I saw, and to try to get a handle on what the project would and could be.



So, as I was walking and talking to Grant, I was also thinking. Grant graciously came along to watch my back. I have this tendency to concentrate so much on what I’m photographing that I walk out into the road to get the right angle, and not notice oncoming cars. So it’s good to have someone along who isn’t trying to line up things visually, much less conceptualize a new project at the same time.



The project as I see it now can go a couple of ways; I can see it happening fairly quickly, couple weeks of work, but the idea, the interesting thing to me thus far, is that 23rd street is the border between two really distinct neighborhoods, and that contrast causes all this crazy activity, lots of bums, shops, empty storefronts, crazy shit. It’s a busy area.



But also there’s the possibility of following the street for a while, six months to a year, to see what happens, because as midtown wraps up to the south and paseo continues to develop to the north, there’s no way all these buildings will stay run down; they’re going to become prime real estate soon; it’s already happening to a few little strips.



I like the idea of this photo essay as a series of intense contrasts; the tension between the neighborhoods from the north and the south, the new shops and their new customers and the old bums and winos and just the plain residents (somehoe nobody has yet targeted the down-and-out demographic, except maybe Byron’s liquor). It’s probably an avenue I’ll pursue (or at least be thinking about while I’m shooting.



Edit to add: Film scanning is a bitch. I think I’m probably going to just shoot this with my canon digi, just to save myself the hassle and the expense of film. OK, croudsource an answer: what do you think? Is the film look in the above pics worth the hassle? (shitty scans, I know; part of the cost would be a new scanner).

Posted by Matt on 2009-02-17T00:00:00Z GMT