In graduate school I had a class titled "Aesthetics II". One of the projects I had to do for this class was an oral presentation with twelve slides, to last about 20 minutes. The topic was totally open to me. I was delighted as the National Tattoo Association was coming to town for their annual convention, and it was timed just right for me to use as my project topic. I had never gone to a tattoo convention before, and never shot slides for an oral presentation so I was both excited and nervous. All the images came from a two hour photo session at the opening night Meet and Greet. It was every photographer for themselves, and everyone was out to see and be seen whether they were wielding a camera or not!

I shot three or four 36 exposure rolls of film in two hours, going as fast as I possibly could. In that time I made it around the room once. I used a combination of asking for people's permission to photograph them, and jumping in on gang shoots around someone who was posing for someone who had asked for permission. Every single person I photographed had a unique story. It's amazing the kind of bits you get having a one to two minute exchange with over 100 people in two hours.

For the oral part of the presentation, I just improvised. If there's one thing I can talk about, it's tattooing, especially in a graduate school class where I knew I was the hands-down the expert. I have tattoos on my arms from elbow to elbow, and over 30 body piercings: nobody else in the class even came close to my level of personal involvement, and they all just went nuts over the images. Just a few remarks about the art being shown or the person displaying the tattoo brought tons of questions and emotional reactions. The teacher loved it! I had been somewhat imtimidated that there were so many photo majors in the class, and I was studying fashion textiles, but I'm here to say, if you love it just go be the expert and they'll listen to you without a doubt. I have added commments along the lines of my presentation to each image, and there are some bonus images (see Presentation Outtakes) that were edited from that shoot as well.