TEDx PORTLAND 2017.
"Most designers forget that their work must talk to human beings."
- George Lois, rule no.79
In winter of 2017 I teamed up with Enjoy the Weather and long-time colleague, Jacob Hinmon, to photograph these stunning billboards for TEDx Portland–The biggest TEDx franchise in the world. I'd never worked on billboards before and it was an exciting and unique experience, a chance to see the fruits of my craft in an entirely different and yet wholly ephemeral way.
We've all seen (Ok, I'll admit it: ignored) mediocre billboards, and Jacob and I wanted to make a statement. These human centered pieces invite the viewer into a world of ideas and face-to-face emotional connection.
What stays with me from this experience? While these boards were live, not a single one of them was ever graffitied. I can't help but think we earned the respect of Portland's numerous underground street artists. Beautiful images with captivating, distinctive aesthetic value have a place in the landscape, and just because it's advertising doesn't mean it can't be artful.
Psychogeography and media saturation are symbiotic. We are immersed in an attention ecosystem and there is far too much clutter, in our collective experience of cities. Those of us fortunate enough to borrow part of the landscape to communicate visually have a duty to be tasteful, to offer some value beyond the product itself. Advertising absolutely should grab the attention, but it should also contribute something to the environment in which it lives.
China Forbes
Whether Pink Martini is your jam or not, you can’t deny the dynamism of China Forbes. Her sheer gravitas is matched only by an ability to make performing look second nature. Jacob and I managed to capture an image of her that is direct, striking and non-confrontational. She invites you into her universe for a time through a magnetic haul directly at the part of you that wants to crank up the volume, drinking up every audile nuance.
We didn’t curate the placement of the images–that was up to the Agency. In the weeks after the initial photo shoots, I made a game of walking all over Portland trying to find our billboards. I found China’s rising above NE Everett St, in between Grand and MLK above what had once again become Skid Row in miniature; a detritus of the dispossessed wherein the homeless had once again taken over the corner, busking traffic as it crawled along well worn rat-race tracks.
One homeless man approached me as I snapped a shot of the Billboard for posterity, China gazing down on us like some postmodern madonna.
“Why’re ya shootin’ that billboard?” he asked, chewing on a toothpick so well-loved it must have been the last one on Earth .
“I worked on these,” I returned, flashing an apologetic grin. We stood there awhile, shoulder-to-shoulder studying her eyes. I forgot my discomfort in that moment, my feeling of being utterly out of place slipping from my awareness.
“I like it. She’s seems like a nice lady,” his authoritative declaration hanging aloft, I watched him saunter back to his tarp, leaving me with a singular tumbleweed thought rolling through my mind: art is everywhere, and everyone’s.
PHAME
A stone’s throw from the China Forbes Billboard, just across NE Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd.–which can’t be a coincidence–Another billboard stands at one of the most crowded spots on Portland’s east side. Clad smartly in black, their faces as diverse as their stories, the performers who comprise the choir group PHAME embody cool.
Founded in 1984, PHAME are a group of artists and performers with disabilities supported by a statewide coalition that believes art is a fundamental right. I was both moved and struck by the presence of these unique performers. At times it was as if I could see into something behind the eyes, pure of spirit, brimming with potential.
Group shots are always challenging, with a single key light especially. To maintain continuity of the hyper-present look we were aiming for, the throw of the key and its resulting skin-tone gradient should feel consistent across the shot as if we were shooting the entire group at once–we only had 8 x 8 background. Throw in the added challenge of different heights requiring adjustment of the key, and you have a recipe for visual tail-chasing. The solution was simple: organise everyone by height, placed on T-marks, shoot four pairs and three singles, only taking up the key once to grab the taller talent.
voilà!
Benjamin Dehen-Artaiz
Thor Drake
Ragini Dindukurthi
When I got the call from Jacob that the billboards had gone live the great hunt to spot them around town immediately began in earnest; like those eager trainspotters I used to see in the ‘80s and ‘90s rain or shine staking out railways in the British countryside, I was watched buses and MAX trains for signs of our work. In once instance I didn’t need to go far. It had become habit for me to bring a camera along on my mid-day walks, my dogs Huckleberry Finn and Luna trotting alongside as we combed our neighbourhood in Kerns around NE Sandy Blvd.
On one particular day, I turned the corner at NE Davis and there it was: a three shot of Ben Artaiz, easygoing Ragini, and Thor Drake–who I’d known casually a few years being both a motorcycle and coffee enthusiast–smiling back at me from this gorgeous spot on NE Sandy and Davis. It hadn’t been a mere dream after all. Again, I was moved and delighted at the perfect placement of this billboard;
Thor’s shop See See Motor Coffee Co., being a mere two blocks up the road. To me, that was part of the magic of portland. One could build, even become something of a local celebrity and still be a “townie,” one of us. How many driving past at that instant knew the very same Lemmy Kilmeister lookin’ dude pointing at them could be encountered within their midst? As much as we were producing works of high production value, it remained in some capacity democratic, the art of the people. One of those who worked on them lived a stone’s throw away while one of those in the very ad itself worked even closer. This was not a product in the abstract, advertising detached from the community in which it served and celebrated. I could feel the effect of our work right there, on the ground, in the moment; could touch it, see others appreciating it, stopping the endless hustle of their lives just for one priceless moment to take it in.
