Ethical Montage

A guy leans across a couple empty seats on a Muni J train and asks me if I am a professional photographer. I nondescriptly nod and say yes.

He asks if my digital camera falsifies images automatically and says he can't trust pictures since digital photography. I tell him no and I try to explain to him that photo manipulation isn't anything new. I explain, photomontages were being created as early as 1857 and that the only thing that has changed is the technology has become more accessible and much more precise. I add that ethics are taught and the person behind the camera is ultimately the one responsible, not the technology or medium.

Unfortunately, he then begins to tell me a story about how the City of San Francisco is screwing him out of a patent and has contracted someone else to build his invention. He accuses practically every city official of being corrupt and out to get him. I try listening politely and when it's my stop I wish him good luck and he says "Good luck to you too." I wonder why I’m the one that needs luck.

The Angry Ambulance Chasers

So I meet some trial attorneys on a deserted road on the outskirts of Fairfield. Their client, driving down this empty road was suddenly struck by a vehicle careening across Interstate 80, crashing through a flimsy fence separating the frontage road from the interstate highway.

One of them curses Caltrans, theatrically kicking the ground, for just replacing the fence and not putting in a guard rail and he quickly follows that he doesn't want to stand here too long because a car could crash through at any moment.

I shoot some photos and they keep asking if I am getting the road in. I am yelling "YES!" over the top of the roar from the interstate. I finish the shoot and start to break down my equipment while they climb back in their shinny, silver BWM with the license plate "9 Jurors" and peel out.