Michael David Friberg

I have a natural aversion to anything touristy or kitschy. I have always felt like these things somehow cheapen the experience. Like they are perversions of the original landscape or place. Not authentic things, just the lowest common denominator boiled down for the masses to digest and crap out.Sometimes I take my hatred of tourism too far. I am the guy who didn’t want to go on a safari while I was in Africa, just out of principal ( I did, and it was awesome). 

Montana is a cursed place for me. I have gone up there two years in a row to work on a project documenting the issue of the last wild bison being hazed and slaughtered and the struggle that ensues between environmental activists and the government every may. Long story short, two years ago when I went up there two of my three cameras broke and this year, immediately upon reaching the “city limits” of West Yellowstone, my car decided to blow up. I hitched a ride out to the Buffalo Field Campaign headquarters and tried to forget about it and just shot for a 4 or 5 days before I tried to get it fixed. When I returned to the town to get it fixed, I needed to stay there for a few days while we were waiting for parts to come in or out and I literally had NOTHING to do. I didn’t feel like anything in the town fit in to the narrative of the story so I wasn’t really photographing seriously. Instead, I just wandered shooting photos of the souvenir  shops and tourist traps. Looking at these photos now, I think they actually are a cohesive edit on their own. It is almost laughable the way they advertise their wildlife on a t-shirt next to a switch blade while at the very same time the government, is essentially engaged in a campaign to exterminate the Bison not 15 miles down the road. Anyways, enough of my cynicism, some of these photos are actually kind of funny.

finally working my way through last years Montana take. The whole trip was such a debacle that I just couldn’t bring myself to edit it. This one is from a while back but more to come soon. Also a new website is on its way.

For the last five or six years of my life I have generally had a “non traditional” living situation. When I moved to Salt Lake City for college at the age of 19 my only concern was snowboarding and occasionally going to class. Naturally then, this took precedent over that thing many people refer to as a “standard of living”. Lucky for me, I found a group of guys who subsequently became my best friends that pretty much felt the same way about life. We had a house that had 9 dudes in a three bedroom house. Our rent was insanely cheap (like 150 bucks or something). It was perfect. It allowed all of us to work as little as possible and shred as much as possible. Well fast forward a few years and nothing much has changed, although I don’t really snowboard anymore. Photography took the place of snowboarding and in order to be able to afford to make a run at becoming a professional photographer, my living situation has stayed largely the same. When I lived in NYC last year, it was the only time I have had my own room in the last 5 years. Pretty crazy. 

In June I am getting married to my amazing girlfriend of 4 years. It has had me thinking about the transitions that I am going to go through. Not any of that emotional or relational crap, but just purely practical transitions. I mean have you ever seen 7 dudes in a 4 bedroom house? I can imagine it is a hell of a lot different than living with a woman. I am excited about the future with Dani but I am definitely going to miss the camaraderie and shenanigans. I have decided to spend the next 6 months documenting the last three months living like an animal and the first 3 months of married life. I don’t really have a project title yet but I am sure it will hash itself out. I will be posting sporadic updates here with snippets from life at the Danger Manger (our house name).  At the end of the project, I will coalesce everything down into a tighter edit and put it up. The goal of the first part of this project is to really document the fun, weird, smelly, bizarre existence that happens with 7 guys live together. It’s a beautiful thing.

WARNING: SOME OF THESE IMAGES MAY BE SLIGHTLY OFFENSIVE TO YOU IF YOU ARE MY MOM. THERE IS ALSO SOME SLIGHT MALE NUDITY BUT NOTHING FULL FRONTAL OR ANYTHING

the danger manger

pantry

pick 7

dying flowers

splinter removal

discovering penisland.com is neither a pen island or a penisland. disappointed.

waking up

safety first

toilet bowl detail

just for the record, this bathroom was cleaned almost immediately after taking this photograph. 

One of my photographic goals this year is to always have a camera with me. To that end, I dug up my old olympus XA2 and have been trying to keep it in my coat pocket. My main obstacle has been keeping film in the damn thing. These photos are from a particularly snowy commute last week.