So I'm looking at a couple different projects to shoot. One's pretty easy, the other's pretty intimidating. It's funny...I spent the last two years shooting my portfolio, and for about two weeks I was all up onz, but suddenly I was all "I need to reshoot the whole thing". I mean, it's fine for today, but it's not fine for a year from now, and at the rate I've been going, I need to get rolling on new stuff. And then: the easy project is pictures of shopping bags. As I found out when I went to Union Square with my girl, I've got a good start on shopping bags so far. Some shopping bags are easier to acquire than others. I was after luxury store bags, and these corporations seem to have a you-get-a-bag-if-you-make-a-purchase policy in place. At one shop, the saleswomans eyes darted side-to-side before she quietly exclaimed "Oh sure why not you can have one here you go have fun!". At the next, it was, seriously, a long look down a long nose and something like "Oh....no....we.....couldn't allow that." Floor two in one store would not give me a bag, but floor three would. It was a fun afternoon.
It's strange at first that these high-end brands would have a policy, but as I think about it, it makes sense. Somehow, it's all they have - this brand, which is maybe nothing more than a weird relationship between the company and the public. And like most of us, they want to control the thing they have, resist having it cheapened by any old joe putting his lunch in the brand at home, and taking it out of the brand at the cafeteria, avoid having the 'wrong kind of people' pretending that they went shopping for high-end items when really they bought a used paperback.
Low end bags are much easier to come by. I just carry my purchases home in them.
(Hard project later).