You are young, broke and beautiful.
Thus sayeth Broke-Ass Stuart.***
Well, I'm pretty sure I'm broke. And occasionally I've been known to be beautiful but that takes some doing these days. But young? I guess I'll just say I'm as young as I feel and usually that's a good 20 years younger than my driver's license says I am.
I know that I say that each photo shoot I do for i live here: SF is really great and I love meeting new people and seeing what kind of predicaments we will get in and generally getting all excited about the unknown: Will we have any chemistry that will make itself present in the photos? Will these photos be worth sharing? What surprises will I learn about this person?
Basically, a lot of these shoots are like blind dates without the dinner. I often know little to almost nothing about the people I'm going to meet, and I think I really like it that way.
***
Enter Broke-Ass Stuart.
When he contacted me to inquire about being part of i live here:SF, I was really thrilled. I mean, I know who he is. I have a copy of his book. Here I am with a real, live published author.
But the dude in person is a thousand times more interesting to hang out with, and quite funny and playful, as you'll see in our shots. There's a lot less filter with Stuart, which I happen to like, and what you see is what you get. He's a bit of a whirlwind. And then reading the story he wrote to go with his photos... now there's just a whole other side of him.
It was singularly enjoyable to be hanging out with Stuart on a random grey Tuesday in the afternoon, walking all the way from the F-Line streetcar stop in front of the Twin Peaks bar in the Castro, all the way through the Lower Haight, up into Hayes Valley and beyond.
Me in my common unemployedness and him in his professional broke-assness.
I almost felt like a 20-something year-old hipster. It was cool.
***
