Normally, a photographer in search of a subject finds something interesting—a place, a person, a subculture—and trains their lens on them. The result is often revealing, even beautiful, but incomplete. What if you don't want photos of interesting people, but photos of what the world looks like to those people?Welcome to First-Person Shooter, a photo essay series that aims to offer a brief vantage into the lives of compelling and strange subjects from all over. Each Friday, we'll give two disposable cameras to one person to document their evening. The majority will not be trained photographers, and we're not expecting the shots to look "good." Rather, we want them to be an honest depiction of what each subject found interesting during one night of their week—hopefully inspiring that Being John Malkovich sensation we're going for.
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For this first installment, we gave a camera to Carlos Porras, a tattoo artist at Brooklyn's famed Greenpoint Tattoo Co. Here's what Carlos had to say about the night he photographed.VICE: Can you tell us about what went down on Friday night? Where did it start? What'd you get up to?
Carlos Porras: The night started around 9 PM after me, some friends, and some coworkers left work. We went to the bar Matchless first and had a few drinks and started a foosball tournament. From Matchless we went to the bars Enid's, No Name, and then back to the shop.What are Friday nights typically like at the tattoo shop? Was this night any different?
Friday night is usually a busy time. There are a lot of clients who want to get tattooed. As the shop gets closer to shutting its doors, friends starts to show up and we start brainstorming what we should do with our nights. This night was no different.There are some people getting inked in the photos? What did they get tattoos of and who tattooed them?
We all tattooed each other: Jason, Carlos, Mike, Rachel, Richie, Ashley. We all got matching smiley faces.How did you spend the next morning?
Everyone was pretty hungover the next morning, but we got back to work and settled in pretty quickly.See more of the photos below.Visit Greenpoint Tattoo Co.'s website to learn more about their awesome shop and check out Julian Master's website for more of his photo work.
Carlos Porras: The night started around 9 PM after me, some friends, and some coworkers left work. We went to the bar Matchless first and had a few drinks and started a foosball tournament. From Matchless we went to the bars Enid's, No Name, and then back to the shop.What are Friday nights typically like at the tattoo shop? Was this night any different?
Friday night is usually a busy time. There are a lot of clients who want to get tattooed. As the shop gets closer to shutting its doors, friends starts to show up and we start brainstorming what we should do with our nights. This night was no different.There are some people getting inked in the photos? What did they get tattoos of and who tattooed them?
We all tattooed each other: Jason, Carlos, Mike, Rachel, Richie, Ashley. We all got matching smiley faces.How did you spend the next morning?
Everyone was pretty hungover the next morning, but we got back to work and settled in pretty quickly.See more of the photos below.Visit Greenpoint Tattoo Co.'s website to learn more about their awesome shop and check out Julian Master's website for more of his photo work.
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