Portrait of the VW Driver as an Artist
It's wonderful to become friendly with people over the interwebs and seem to connect with someone you've never met face to face. But Nix falls into a small category with a few others - as if we'd be instant friends if we got to meet but now it will never work because I write these types of things about him.
Nix has a skill that has been flourishing that you should know about. That skill is telling stories. He uses photos as his way of telling those stories. And it's been fun to see him get his sea legs and go for shot after shot. Each week he seems to go deeper and gain more courage to find the truth.
He pushes himself deep into the spectrum of others - something he and I communicated about early on. He was resistant to get take shots of random people on the streets. I encouraged him to get over it. And then he blew right past me. While I shoot people from a distance, Nix engages. He get's right into the commute of the person, right into the moment. And the viewer is better off for it. Here are a few examples (remember, this is copyright Jeremy Nix):
And my personal favorite (which I purchased from Nix and just had framed this week):
Why should you care? Because one of these days he is likely to get stabbed by one of his subjects and then you'll wish you had paid attention to the transformation. But until that happens, he is churning out an awesome docu-study of the average-everyday street walking human being. Something we all often overlook.
Oh, that and the fact that he often shoots his 1976 bus, "The Pig", which is why I am writing this post here on a VW website. He sent me a copy of a photo that was included in a show recently. Here it is coming in, and it's final spot (until framed) in my office. Thanks, Nix. Keep up the solid work.