Uniquely Established

        I have always had a deep seeded interest in successful small businesses, especially in that where I live. Louisville, Ky is a very different city, it is comprised of about a million people, but it is small enough for me to have regular serendipitous situations where I meet someone who knows about half of my family and or friends. Louisvillians as consumers are pretty picky, and in the area of merchandise your store has to provide something that we cannot get for half price in a department store or online. I chose to document two very different small boutiques, one of which was just coming in to its own, and the in the stage of buying products to stock.  I wanted to know what the root in their success was, and why they felt that they could do this and be successful at it. Everything has to have a purpose, and I found that individually the shop owners had pretty different purposes overall.

Established Premium Goods

Upon inception after a unsuccessful clothing line store owner's Ronel, Desmond, and Lance discovered a gap in the urban street wear business. They wanted to create a store that was able to sell the most premium of clothing brands such as Stussy and Billionare Boys Club.  Through multiple visits to a local skate shop Ronel picked the brains of shop owners and found a daunting reality in the market.  They found that most shop owners wanted to know two things before they sell you anything: "Whats your shop look like and what other brands do you carry?" 

Shop owners Ronel and Desmond (behind register)

Upon entering Established it is easy to tell that the place is about the grass roots mentality that comes with the urban culture.  Stylistically there is a blend between large modern glass window pane to the dark particle board hardwood floors.  Even more interesting is that the design and re-model was done all by their hands.  

Ronel and company quickly found that the success of their competitors was due to the rise in interest of consignment or limited quantity sneakers.  If getting clothing brands to bite wasn't hard enough, sneakers were even more difficult in that the large conglomerates like Nike and others already had deals with local shop who had a private lock or non-compete contracts set, leaving no barrier to entry for reseller of any others for their limited collection shoes.  What usually brings people in and makes the most money for retail places like this are shoes.  It's that thing that gets people walking in the door, and maybe leaving with a few extra items.  Ronel solved this problem by reaching out to "sneaker heads" in the area who wanted to get rid of some of their limited quantity sneakers on consignment.

Jerseys & Tanks (summer time)

The first big distribution deal that allowed Established Premium to create some distance between competing consignment stores and boutiques alike was when Stussy gave them permission to buy from them.  Stussy is a high end clothing line that retails its T-Shirts in the $30 to $50 dollar range.

The store might seem very skimp on inventory when first arriving, but like the times when department stores kept everything but display items in the back, Established wants reinvent that customer interaction that is missing in modern consumerism.  The idea is sort of daunting to people like me who are so used to going into a store and sheepishly picking something out and paying for it up front. We have lost that harmless "hello how are you doing" in the big box stores.

Shop owner Ronel Brown and Jalin Roze

Established is a shop that really reflects the culture of the surrounding area. Two blocks west of Muhammad Ali on 4th street once was the Galleria, where it was common for people to spend a day shopping and eating. Now the Galleria is gone, but a series of tourist friendly, yet not local friendly stores lie. The hopes of Established is to bring the area that once was full of vibrant lights and attractions, the real heart of the city, back to life again. The resurgence of locally owned retail business, may drive the cost of the goods up a little higher, but the price you pay is worth every penny in the event of real human contact.

Unique Gifts

Founded by Trina Smith, Unique Gifts is a place were artists pay a monthly fee to house their products on consignments.  For the most part the business model is simple, when someone walks in they want to be able to walk out with some customized item.  Trina by trade is a vinyl sign maker and has the ability to customize plates, artisan wine glasses, really anything.  Unique Gifts takes the approach that when you someone comes in and finds a nicely decorated modern dinner she can customize that piece to the customer's liking. 

Front Facade

I was just getting a taste of her shop as she was moving things in and getting the remodel work done.  It was largely different in almost every way from Established in term of style.  The building was originally used as an old diner, and the aqua blue walls and lightly stained wood floors spoke that.

Like with the guys of Established I made a point to ask Trina Smith why she wanted to embark on such a difficult endeavor while she had a fairly stable business of her own already. She said simply, just to do something different.  A friend knew she was looking for knew jobs and said that She had a shop she could rent from her for free for 3 months if she fixed it up. This opportunity sort of inspired her to embark on such a anxious journey.

American Legion Analysis

American Legion Convention  Dallas, Texas 1964

Busyness, is the first word that comes to mind upon initial viewing of the "American Legion Convention".  The photograph has a sort of surreal quality to it. It is a perfect moment frozen in time, it almost evokes the feeling of watching something happen in intense slow motion.  Two things that stick out immediately to validate this idea are the stepping man in the far left corner, and the man gazing upward to the far right hand corner.  The man in the left is in the act of putting his left foot down while the man on the right has head fixated toward the sky.  Our eyes travel in a circle starting at the amputee in center focus of the frame, to the "stepping man" on the left then clockwise through the line of people waiting alongside of the wall, to the gazing man on the right and finally back to the center amputee veteran.  Another aspect pointing in favor of surrealism is the amputee's eyes, they are locked into ours. We see his pain and maybe even a little frustration. The taller man in the foreground to the "gazing man's" left is also gawking back at us, reinforcing a sort of reverse voyeuristic quality in such instances in movies where everyone seems to be staring at the main character.  The print is actually quite cinematic and expresses vibes of an alternate reality.  The attire of the elderly woman standing just above the amputee's right shoulder is a signifier that the photograph was taken in the 1950' to 1960's.  The hats on the soldiers heads is also a signifier of the ending of the second World War.

Creating To Cope

This is my wonderful mother. I documented her for many reasons other than practicality. My father passed away no more than a week ago and I wanted to convey our turmoil. Creation is a coping method, it is a way for us to muffle the inner commentary that is so prevalent in times of sadness. I recognized that just as she was manufacturing this for her solitude, I was developing images for my own cognitive therapy.

I shot this photo above with a speedlight tucked inside of a 50 in. soft box. I am really trying to master off-camera flash photography, but many reasons I couldn't think clearly enough to get my ratios right, so I had to keep using trail and error. I finally came out with something of a decent exposure but I am not very happy with the way it turned out. I really wanted to direct the light to get a good even highlight on her forehead and the tip of her nose. Her grey shirt didn't really help to set her apart from the chair either. 

Bias or No Bias

In modern photo-journalism, and all journalism for that matter, there is a professional staple attached to keeping an unbiased approach in order to maintain the historical integrity of the information. I believe that before you are to represent someone through visual imagery, one must inform themselves of the context in which they are shooting, and most importantly a clear message to direct. I think the disconnect apparent in the Feature Group's work was that people were seeing it as work, and shooting the things that seemed interesting to them visually but didn't really align with focus of the whole campaign. They failed to view their work from the perspective of the indigent black people they were representing. They didn't seem to realize that the work they were exhibiting was just further the ill-perceptions of the community in mainstream media.