Hello! Hi! Hey! Hola! What up! Howzit!

So…working on my first blog…this Juxting thing has been real fun and hope ya’ll have enjoyed it so far …2012 will bring a lot more fun and games…we look forward to continuing the build of this amazing mobile arts community with you all…

With that being said…this blog entry is ALL ABOUT the Dary Shootout Trespassing Series that Ryan Coleman (@rcoleman) and I were able to do…a week ago today…

Hopefully I can cover everything that went down in a fun and informative way…I know for damn sure that it was a pretty cool shoot…by the way…DARY stems from comments that we leave on each others shots in Instagram…DARY is short for Legendary…and boy writing this out sure makes this bromance a lot thicker…so…

Let me preempt this with a BIG shoutout and BIG thanks to Mellow L. (@threetree) who made this journey thus far HELLA fun!…my first shootout with him rivals this one with Coleman…I mean…who gets to shoot the Fremont Solstice Parade (naked folks on bikes and scooters painted up as super heroes/ heroines, sonics bball stars, zombies etc etc) with a complete stranger and build a friendship…so Mellow…if you read this homie…we’ve got lots of things to do my brotha…and since we shoutin out folks…Watson (@smlife) and Bronson (@boohi_bronson)…THASSWASSUP!

And this includes the Igers Seattle (@Igers_Seattle) crew and another couple folks in Max (@liveinawe) and Dave (@dusen) who I’ve had the priviledge of shooting this beautiful city of ours…Seattle makes for a real dope mobile shootout…so now…this leads to Coleman…

Let’s talk about Coleman…great dude, amazing shooter…before a couple photowalks ago I only knew him through his art…blown away by his shit…I mean the guy has an eye for the craziest things and makes amazing art with his edits…he definitely was one of the folks (along with @joanna) who turned me onto black and white and to be honest…it has been real hard to get away…well…this dude is leaving Seattle for Denver in a matter of days…and so we both agreed that we needed to do a shoot together…but where…hmmmm

Seattle and The Moran:  Yup.

Seattle has amazing scenery…amazing skyline, the people are interesting enough to do some dope street photography…Seattle and the surrounding area has both the urban and nature rolled up in one being surrounded by the Cascades and the Olympic mountain ranges…the Puget Sound…Lake Washington…Majestic Mount Rainier…can’t ask for anything more…but of course you can…Coleman found the Moran School on Bainbridge Island…

The Moran has a rich history for the Northwest…it boasts to be one of the West Coast’s first prestigious schools with alumnis who are Nobel Prize winners, City Mayors, and some of the best Navy officers (in the 30’s it turned into a Naval Academy)…it’s the “father” of the Lakeside School in Seattle, which is one of the most expensive private schools in the United States…it’s architecture is the model for the Pacific Northwest with high ceilings, columns, and early Italian influences…in it’s heyday I bet it was one of the most beautiful buildings in the area…still the tallest building on Bainbridge Island at four stories…

The Washington Trust for Historic Preservation has been trying to negotiate with the owners to keep this historical relic in place and possibly renovate in order to have future generations enjoy it and learn its history…currently it is in a holding pattern…the owners have tried to sell it, but the one buyer turned out to not be interested in the asking price of $192K…so the owners want to demolish it…the owners are the folks at Soundcare, which is a nursing home that shares the land the Moran is on…

Enter the Shooters.

In order to get to Bainbridge Island from Seattle…the quickest way is to take a 30 min ferry across the water…the ferry is probably one of the most common shots folks take in Seattle, along with the Space Needle, Pike Place, Smith Tower etc etc…it’s a fun ride and a recommendation for all visitors and even locals who just want to get away from the city for a bit…fast forward to docking and Coleman busts out his iPhone and looks up where to go…Bainbridge Island itself has a long history…the Suquamish tribe is the first nation folks there…the island had a history during the time of Japanese internment…there’s a lot of history…

Well fast forward…Coleman and I get to the school and scope out the lay of the land…the building is fenced up with vegetation covering the south of the building, east of the building is open field and plain sight for the residential houses, and on the west side is also wide open to the nursing home…Coleman and I chose to stay on the south side obviously but couldn’t for the life of us figure out how to get in…there was a door open but it led to a concrete vault…the craziest thing…Coleman tried to go down these stairs that were only halfway down…maybe 6 -8 steps…but it literally was hanging and was real rickety…Coleman was determined…he went down there with his iPhone flashlight app and found a whole in the wall that led to a bathroom or a kitchenette…”shit, we’re here…we gotta get in here” he said to me…I was the lookout…during this time he was trying how to figure out how to get in…I was the “SHHH” man…well…I had to shhh a few times…did I mention it was surrounded by residential homes…and a path that led to a waterfront park…so folks who like to walk their dogs were able to…and to our luck…there were folks who wanted to walk their dogs…off leash…and who smelled us or something and actually came up to the fence and was barking at us…and we were only there for 10-15 minutes…either way…the owners of the dog called the dogs back…and when I turned to tell Coleman we’re good…this ninja of a photographer was inside…knocking on windows…tapping on walls…ended up getting into this huge auditorium theatre…he found a window that wasn’t nailed shut…and we spend freakin 20-25 minutes trying to jack this thing up so I can get in…Coleman is able to fit into the space we were able to push up…but for my sexy ass…I needed a few more inches to get in…once we get there…I skiddadle through the window and as soon as I get up…GLORIOUS shooter paradise…we give each other pounds and a hug and commenced our shooting tirade…

The Moran and For Those With Abandonment Issues.

The auditorium seats about 250 folks…there are chairs and sofas laid out all over the place…an organ against the wall…TV kicked in, sits in the middle of the room…despite the garbage and trash strewn out…the auditorium is pretty awesome…high ceilings, exposed rafters, ceiling high windows…you can really feel the history as I’m sure there were spirits that were watching over us…thinking to themselves…look at these fools…anyways…after the pounds and hugs…Coleman is shooting…I barely caught my breath and he was already taking a shot of a recliner on the stage…and he’s in Coleman fashion…angles, angles, angles…me on the other hand…I was still trying to figure out where I was, gather my bearings and load up the weaponry… Native camera on, check. Horizontal tilt, check. Escape route, YIKES.  One way in, one way out…I remember telling myself…if something/ someone was to come down these halls and it wasn’t Coleman…I would do like the cartoons and bust through the walls…no matter what floor…so I told myself this…and proceeded through the hallways…first hallway led to a stairwell that was pretty rickety…the railing was definitely not stable and if leaned upon would have given way…the walls were falling apart…the walls were rotted out and after 50 years of neglect…you can imagine that this building was ready to be torn down…sad to say…but it just wasn’t safe…at all…so what the hell…

Coleman and I ran through this MFer like it was our own little playground…each floor had its own character…2^nd floor had a loft that over looked the auditorium which was cool, but wasn’t really something that I think Coleman and I really cared for…3^rd floor and it got much better…if ya’ll read through some of our captions on the shots on IG…you would have read…”lots of windows, awesome light, wheelchair graveyard, dilapidated walls, broken windows, boarded up bathrooms…well that’s the 3^rd floor…I’d say there were a lot of our shots taken here, as it just had a lot of things to shoot…there was a room on this floor, where there seemed to have a past inhabitant…a wheelchair sat in the middle of this huge room…sleeping bags on top of each other, and on top of those bags…dozens of motorcycle magazines…with bare skinned, lace ridden women…some who were obviously meant to grace the pages of a men’s magazine…then others…eh not so much…but I wasn’t looking…too much…hahaha…either way…I hear Coleman and he wasn’t as happy with this floor as me…at the end of the hallway was a room FULL of wheelchairs…like…storage unit style…but it looked to have newer ones…well new ones like the 70’s and other chairs that weren’t so new…I loved it because I read about it in some of the articles I ran across…the nursing home next door would put these chairs of folks who got real sick and/or passed away in this building…now why they have brought it up to the 3^rd floor I have no clue…there weren’t no elevators…so I didn’t know how they got all of those wheelchairs up without someone having to be real pissed off at their bosses…move to the 4^th floor…the top floor…Coleman is already up here and he tells me that to be weary because maybe the inhabitant didn’t really care for women…but left some rude graffiti all over the rooms up on this floor…some real sexual messed up-ness…one room had a door that read, “this is the room where I rape, knock before entering”…yup…told you real rude…and the graffiti and drawings were real effed up…but…this floor had the hallway that Coleman really wanted to shoot…on his feed you can see the shot…amazing…and he did the hallway real justice…

The Return.

The one thing I forgot to mention up top is that we actually was on a timeline…I had to be back to pick up the kiddo…and Coleman had to make sure that his parking was paid off…even had a homie of his go and check and maybe add more money in…as in a lot of the metropolitan cities in the US…parking is expensive…but even more expensive are the tickets that come…so in our rush back to the city…Coleman and I got to spend some quality bromance time…which was good…which is some of the reason why Juxt is in place…the getting to know the artist/ photographer is just as important as the getting to know and admiring the art…the beauty of what we are able to do in these social networks is share a piece of ourselves in hopes that folks who are like-minded and even those who are not like-minded get to communicate and dialogue despite language, culture and any other social barriers that may be placed before us…

Mr. Ryan Coleman and I got to share in story, in art process, in crime…literally…and the best part of it all…we got to share it with you all…so my new found bro is moving to Denver…Seattle is going to lose one of its amazing mobile artists…Denver gets to add Coleman and his boss to their citizenship…which means if ever I’m in Denver…I’ve got someone to shoot with…and someone who I can shoot the shit with…

Sending you off bro…at least the money you make at the gallery show next week can go to my pocket…WORD UP!!! =) ALSO…still gotta set you up with Mikey and Rich…upon your return brother!

Adios. Bye. Bam. Salud. Cheers.

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Brad Puet

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