Everything I've posted so far was shot in 2015 on a canon. I wanted to use that folder to see where we measured in a global space, I wanted to try and develop a style that wasn't targeted at future sales, I wanted something I couldn't show our clients. I'm happy with what developed, despite no one really reading it, seems.
So I want to write about how we developed what we've got. In reality we have a couple old cameras, an ancient lighting system, a couple grand in cash and a used minivan. In 2014 we had the exact same gear (minus one lens), and somehow everything is different?
I am willing to suggest that it is.
Around the first of february I got a phone call from an old friend. Turned out they needed a chemist to figure out the best system to develop some product. I offered to write them a feasibility study for 10K and they accepted. They wanted to meet. In Canada.
Over the last two years we had toured 400 architects, dropped off super fancy printed cards, and sold one job. it didn't even pay for the cards. Those two years evaporated every dime we had saved, literally everything was gone. Bankrupt, broke, we were demoralized.
Then Larry called. He needed to meet me in Canada and wouldn't really say why, other than that he was willing to pay me $10K. So he wired me half, we bought the minivan, and headed to the BC border. Cheryl stayed on the US side, we had everything we owned in that van and didn't want to have customs appraise our gear each way. It would only take an hour or so I figured, so off I went, US immigration approval form in hand and got nothing but trouble from the Canadians. They needed to interrogate me--a Canadian citizen--and were just complete assholes about it all.
Hours later I got through. Larry told me the guy beside him had a means to get extracts into some east coast chain of pharmacies, and didn't want to bother growing it. They wanted a continuous process of synthetic.
After finishing a chemistry degree, then realizing that newspaper photography was as unlikely as a white guy getting an entry level STEM job in 1993, construction found me. That became food manufacturing and acres of industrial hemp.
Turns out I'm a better chemist than agricultural speculator because I turned 100K into 0 pretty quick. Learned lots about droughts and combine fires, but also commercial process, drum driers, shaker tables, dimple vats and government.
At that table I knew the plan had no chance. But we really needed the other $5000 they had promised to pay. Somehow I kept the gig alive, headed back to the US customs and found out about the I535 (unfiled) that was about to cancel my entire immigration account. Seems I was supposed to give the INS sufficient notice that I was planning to leave the region.
After an hour, they agreed to let me through on a 30 day pass. They let me call Cheryl to say I was coming, then an hour later I actually made it out with a pile of new forms. What could have been about an hour and a half was actually about 6 hours with everyone waiting at least 2 hours for me on each side.
It was crystal clear to me that the Canadians were trying to bust me, and the Americans were trying to help me get my paperwork straight. The attitudes were night and day.
We must have gotten a hotel that night, I remember driving a long way away from the border.
I needed a library.
Evergreen College in Olympia has an excellent 'visiting scholar' program. Effectively you can use the library and all resources for free. Printed obscure journal entries, complied a cost benefit analysis including a materials list and equipment specs. They didn't like the chiral chromatography part very much. The moment I realized what they were doing I knew it was a stupid idea, but Larry played it out so I actually got paid.
Near the college is a campground.
It was open.
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