Mike Ritter Photo

I'll be doing a session at the Green Street Photo Collective (186 Green St.) during JP Open Studios from 6-9PM. Come on out and take part. I'm at roughly 125 of 250 portraits and need your help getting to 250.

Since starting Who Are We?, I've enjoyed looking over other art projects using the American flag as a canvas.⁠

Photographer Jimell Greene's ongoing Department of Government Waste "features portraits and personal stories of the former federal employees and contractors whose livelihoods have been dismissed as 'waste' in the name of politics."

One look at the former civil servants in these portraits and their words leaves me with the powerful conviction the wrong people are being kicked out of our government. Through it all, the American flag serves as background.

Like Who Are We?, I find the Department of Government Waste beautiful and disturbing. We can choose and work towards what we want the American flag to mean to us.

My recent Mass Art job had me thinking about the muscle memory of craft. The students are learning so many interesting skills through repetition to become one with the material and the machine. You can see it in how they hold the roller, wield the blowtorch, interlock the wood pieces and so much more.

I relate on some level with my cameras in how I hold them when I'm photographing and even when I'm not. There's a gratification that comes from seeing how the camera sees and knowing where buttons are without looking for them. Building this into my subconscious allows me focus more on who and what I'm photographing rather than fiddling with buttons and k***s.

Here's to all of us losing ourselves in building some skill, and I'd argue there's an art to most any skill. All the better if it's in the real world with something tangible in this digital make believe world.

I photographed the Greater Ashmont Hair Symposium Showcase last Sunday. It's always a treat to photograph the work Great Ashmont Main Streets does in my neighborhood and seeing the resources it lines up for the small businesses in its district. Structure Beauty Salon and Noir Essence Studios were the two salons where classes were led Alexia Malcolm and Kai Lopes-Stovell.

The City of Boston Economic Opportunity and Inclusion Cabinet, Square, and Boston Main Streets Foundation all helped make it happen.