Thursday, April 11, 2013

An Internationally Known and Locally Respected Fotographer



Last summer/fall while I was on the waiting list to get into St.Vinny's to partake of their so called RESIDENTIAL REHAB PROGRAM**  (remember,I'm court ordered to go into residential rehab),I was living downtown at the world famous Baltic Inn. Perhaps you've driven by it and took some pics from the outside or maybe you heard that one of your fav hiphop/gangsta-rap celebrity idols was staying there. Well, I was there too. They let me stay there because I'm the Popular Hobo.

One night I was walking around downtown and  I saw a young guy shooting photos.He looked like a tourist to me (I'm not sure why since I myself do the same thing and I damn sure ain't no tourist.) and so I walked over to him and started talking to him about photography. His name is Mike and he's from Germany and yes he was a "tourist" staying downtown for a few days and heavy into his photography. I gave him some tips on places to go to snap some classic postcard-quality photos of San Diego's downtown scenes etc. We exchanged contact info and then went our separate ways.

You know how that goes when you meet some nice friendly person from out of town (overseas) whom you share a common interest with but then later, due to the daily grind of your job/school/life's bullshit etc. etc., you just never seem to find the time to maintain a long distance friendship.

Well, I'm not too busy to spend some of my quality hobo time with anyone whom loves photography as much as my friend Mike from Germany does. We swapped email a few times and he sent me some of his stuff he shot while he was here in San Diego. He's an avid student of the craft and an amateur who would like to make money with his artwork.The shots he sent to me were absolutely stunning. While I enjoy shooting San Diego's downtown scenes from an architectural perspective, Mike shot the pedestrians/people…emotions…their very thoughts it seems …the beauty as well as the anguish…and also the raw heart wrenching despair of those filthy downtown hobos. He stopped some of the most amazing expressions/emotions and situations that you always see while you walk around in any city which occur in the blink of an eye. Expressions that cannot be posed nor replicated by models. Surreal artwork…true urban scenic art that is, IMO, gallery quality.

Apparently there's a lot of politics within the print publishing industry in Germany and Mike tells me that his stuff would be rejected out of hand simply because he doesn't have a college degree or some other prerequisite certification to be qualified to have the talent to shoot such compelling quality artwork as he has demonstrated to me. (I thought their socialist system has free market capitalism built into it...I dunno.)


Anyway, if you enjoy urban scenic photo-artwork then take a look at Mikes stuff on flickr.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/metal_mike/
 
Be friendly, say 'Hi' and tell him that Scott sent ya! ; )



 **I waited for 8 weeks to get into Vinny's only to discover that they LIED through their teeth about having a real rehab program.Of course all that they told me verball;y was not in writing.


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