Michael David Friberg

I’m currently training to get my ass kicked run the Salt Lake half marathon with my dad in a couple weeks. Today was my easy slow run. I am really not a big fan of running but I need to exercise because I drink a lot of beer and I hear that catches up with you around my age. In an effort to entertain myself on todays run. I put my cell phone camera on double exposure mode and made a series of random pictures. Here they are. A long with my GPS tracked route of my run. 

and finally…the cool down.

It’s funny how life hands you things sometimes. I was on my way back from bowling with my roommate/bff nick niehart and david williams (both esteemed musicians but terrible bowlers) and I was thinking to myself “I haven’t shot a photo of a total stranger in a while”. By a while I mean like a week or so but the other day I sat down and tried to think about what parts of photography really get me juiced up and the number one thing I kept coming back to was this weird human interaction that goes on when I photograph a total stranger. It’s like a fastpass to some sort of weird intimacy that you can’t get any other way. It’s a awkward beautiful thing and I have learned to embrace it. 

When I first started shooting photos I was always terrified of walking up to somebody and ask them if I could shoot a photo of them. It’s something you never really get used to but if you do it over and over it gets easier and it is always rewarding. Anyways, I digress. We roll up to our house at 12:30 or so in a total winter wonderland and it is totally silent save for the occasional snowplow in the distance and the dripping sound of the wet spring snow falling off of every surface, running in to the gutters. All the trees are feeling the strain of the heavy spring snow and drooping low so I go get my camera and start to shoot some photos of the scenery and I hear the quiet scraping of a snow shovel a few houses down. I walk down that way, pretending to shoot photos of the trees trying to feel out the situation. Would this person be weirded out if I approach them for a portrait in the middle of the night? Hell, it seemed weird to me. it was a strange scene.

As I got closer I saw a lady who looked to be in her 50’s really struggling to clear the sloppy slush out of her driveway. I felt guilty for wanting to photograph her so I offered to help. Her name was Gayle and I am really glad I offered to help because it turns out she has chronic fatigue and fibromialgia (sp?). She asked me how the hell I was shooting photos in the dark and I tried to explain the technology to her. I asked her if I could take a portrait of her and she argued with me for a minute but then finally consented. I shot for about 10 minutes and she was really posing a lot and it was hard to get an honest moment out of it. I have two pictures shown here and thats about all that were honest (and in focus). I don’t even care that her eyes are closed in the full body one, it seems a bit more true than all the others. Somehow in the conversation, it came up that it was my birthday now that it was after midnight and she sang me happy birthday and gave me a big hug. It’s funny because it was such a weird interaction on paper (weird 25 year old watching older lady shoveling snow at 1am in a totally silent neighborhood, photographs her, gets sung to and hugged) but it was a really nice interaction and even if they portraits aren’t particularly  good (it was really dark, cut me some slack) I am glad I continue to force interaction with human beings through these weird devices that take pictures.

I have decided to call my “transitioning from a bachelor to married man” project “standards of living”. Here is an update in which I show three views of Josh sleeping in the living room (where he sleeps all the time). In one you may note that he is wearing a leopard snuggie sleeping upright in a chair. This is a common occurrence. I also show two views of Levi smoking in the backyard and one unflattering picture of Nick’s face through a window. enjoy.