Cigarettes are fucking cool.
Yeah, yeah, I know lung cancer and all that jazz. Don’t smoke them… but if you do, make sure I am there to make a photograph.
Visually, there is nothing quite like smoking. There is something about burning tobacco and inhaling its contents. The way the smoke fills the air. The attitude. The tools. The ritual.
Smoking just looks cool.
And yet, cigarettes are dying. I am seeing less and less people smoking on the street. People are hitting vapes or using Zyns. These are probably better for public health, but, damn, they look lame.
Could you imagine James Dean sucking on a blue razz flavored Geek Bar behind the wheel of a Mustang? Of course not.
Place a cigarette in anyone’s hand and they go from Steve Urkel to David Lynch in an instant. Whether it is excellent brainwashing from Phillip Morris or the such casual embrace of nearly certain premature death, smoking is visually cool.
Loosie
Loosie is a photographic dirge to the act of smoking. A memorial to a changing time. A commemoration of the end of smoking.
As a fairly straight edge dude, I don’t smoke. However, photographically, I am subconsciously drawn to the characters who do. There is something about the “devil may care attitude” that these characters possess that draws me to them. They offer a corollary to our overly health conscious society and embody a live for the moment spirit.
Loosie is a selection of portraits and candid photographs that pays homage to the act of smoking. Whether we like it or not, cigarettes have been there for everything. From soldiers fighting in the trenches, to business executives celebrating a merger, a tobacco filled stick has been in their hands.Smoking has found its way into every crevasse of the human experience. Heck, we even have a band called Cigarettes After Sex.
This is not an endorsement, but an acknowledgement of the impact of smoking has had on our culture. The times are changing, and for the better. Smoking is by no means a healthy activity and I don’t endorse tobacco use. However, we are slowly losing a cultural touchstone that has been here for thousands of years and it feels fitting to document its demise.
Loosie Cigarette Packs
Loosie is a selection of twenty portraits and candid photographs packaged in a satirical cigarette pack. Each photograph is two inches by three inches. Rather than traditional sequencing like in a book, each photograph is a “loosie” and meant to stand on its own.