Patrick McBride was our guest speaker today at school. I might want to inform you now that is my all time FAVORITE photographer. He is one of the people that got me into photography. He was very well spoken & his stage presence was amazing...keep that in mind, 'stage presence'. His art work was also to die for but I already knew that since I've been diggin' his work since I was 15. He talked for about 3 hours since his time went longer than it should have, but who cares; he's an amazing artist! The whole 3 hours I was listening to him speak was also about the time when my stomach flipped by the thought of me possibly growing a pair & talking to him afterwards.
In the time it took him to finish talking I did, in fact, grow a pair. I walked up on stage to meet him & of course there were a swarm of my class mates asking for picture & complimenting him. I waited patiently for my turn since I wanted to have an actual conversation with him. I wanted to tell him how much his work meant to me. I want to tell him about how when I came to Hallmark I was going to water down my photography to be more pleasing to the eye rather than the peculiar, not so sociably acceptable photography that I usually do but then he showed me that it's okay to be different & that my (as my mom calls it) freakish art work will catch the eyes of people who actually matter. All was not lost during his lecture by the way; I got 3 new ideas for a photo shoot from it. Anyways, I did meet him & get a hug but he was a big ball of awkward, self richeousness with a wapping punch of ego. He is worse than Alaska is when ever the subject of sex comes up. I also got picture with him which was nice, i'm not going to lie. He barley gave me so much as a sideways glance so I said good-bye & thank you then left.
We walked out to Maine's car but as soon as I sat down I remembered that I forgot to scan out. So, I bolted back inside where I ran back into Massachusetts. I told him about how I wanted to talk to him but I didn't get the chance to since there were so many other people. He convinced me to go talk to him so I said 'okay'. I walked over to the stage where we was talking to some guy (surprise, surprise). When he saw me walking towards him I waved & he smiled, might I also throw in there that he has by far the best smile. I then kind heartedly asked him if I could talk to him after he was done talking with the dudes, he said yes just to meet him out in the lobby. So I leaned up against the lobby wall & waited. I waited a good 20 mins for him to walk a whole 30 steps to where I was. He was (of course) walking & talking with another guy. When I saw him & shot him a sarcastic wave that said 'hurry the hell up you jerk'. But he lingered over to the restrooms & then to get coffee. FINALLY, he walked in my direction with the same guy from before. I thought the guy was just walking with him so I started to walk too. I started to talk, saying "Hey, so I wanted to..." no more than 2 seconds after I started to talk he chimed in saying "uhh, yeah 2 seconds. I'm in a conversation here but I'll be back in after my smoke." then under his breather I heard him whisper ''...Jesus...". My reply was "Kay". Texting or not the latter 'K' is everyones most hated letter. I then proceeded to walk outside where it was to look like I was following him but when he went left, I made a sharp right. I saw him look back at me from the corner of my eye but I just kept on walking. I got to Abi's car & we drove off. He wasn't the person I spent the last 3 hours listening to, not the person I spent the last 5 years looking up to. It was all stage presence.
He was the one that inspired me from the beginning & still is, but for totally different reasons. When I was 15 I wanted to BE like him. Now at 20, I want to be anyone BUT him.
Awwh man, I'm so sorry to hear it went like that!
ReplyDeleteI know how much you were looking forward to that, even having not known he was your favorite for so long.
That's not cool of him at all. =/
Unfortunately it seems like a lot of the people we look up to end up like that once you get past the aura they cast out and close enough to really see them.
But at least you've still got the inspiration and connection to his work, you can still use that to go far, maybe one day even farther than him to where you can look back down and show him what he passed up on. :]