Phil Brown

First work post-ICP: my esteemed mentor gave me a cardboard pinhole camera last week, so after spending about three hours assembling it instead of preparing for career day, I finally tried it out today.

ICP is done. Graduation tomorrow and final exhibition opening night was on Friday. To celebrate, here’s a flat rat I saw outside on 43rd Street when I went to buy an iced coffee just before it all started.

This camera is great. And it makes square photos, which are also a good thing if you’ve just spent weeks wondering how to make horizontal and vertical frames work nicely together on your website and then concluding that it’s impossible.
What is also good is that you can scan medium format negatives well enough for web usage on a $150 all-in-one printer/scanner/fax/copier that doesn’t have a transparency adapter.

Trying out Boogie’s newly acquired Sinar last Friday.

My small business assignment from the first term of school. Sometimes it feels like I’m not learning anything at school, sometimes it feels overwhelming with too much to think about and clutter the mind – both equally unproductive. However, when looking back at work done only a few months ago it definitely feels like I could do it better now, which is somewhat encouraging.

This assignment was to find and photograph a small business. I found Centre Firearms, which is an armoury that rents guns to the movie and theatre industry. The place is a dusty workshop several floors up in a commercial building on 37th Street. They stock over 1000 guns in every imaginable shape and size, along with replica rocket launchers, grenades and dynamite stick bombs.

Joe, one of the two owners, was super helpful letting me shoot my assignment there over several visits. Usually they charge $400/hour for people to shoot films or photos – it’s a good location for anyone needing an authentic looking gunshop. Anyway he could see me for what I was – a broke student – and was kind enough to let me shoot for free. I took some prints in a few days later.