Header Image Chris Kindrick Life of a Weekend Art Director

What do I do on the weekend? Tell Stories.

Age-old Monday morning small talk with most friendly folks is “What did you do this weekend?” Casual check-ins are a Monday morning staple for nine-to-fivers colliding while waiting for the elevator. These healthy mini-encounters act as a reminder that we all have a life away from work, that we travel other places, and that we each experience the world differently.

“How was your trip?”

“Did you pop the question yet?” 

or simply,

“Did you catch up on Game of Thrones? Crazy ending right?”

Inane chitchat to some people, but important to those longing for human connection or an opportunity to share good news. A question like this recounts a shareable moment of warmth that you both can glow in for a minute — that little reminder that last weekend was fun, or productive, or even successful. It’s your time — your way. A little show-and-tell with familiar faces only seems natural to share with those that are interested in us. All it takes is an inviting face and one little question to establish a simply wonderful, more personal connection to those around us.

So what does an obsessive and slightly eccentric 80’s art kid do on the weekend? Well…it changes all the time. I use craftiness, creativity, and curiosity to tell stories on the weekend. It’s rarely planned, more of just capturing the world around me as it happens, or molding an idea that strikes at 3 am.

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Since purchasing my fabulous Fujifilm x100t fixed lens mirror-less camera back in December, I’ve used it as my main documentation tool in my “off” time. A task-driven mind, with a promoter personality base and my rampant ADHD allows me to create an interesting world or attempt to modify the world around me to be more exciting.

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Social platforms allow me to share my own ongoing saga for those willing to like, listen, look or follow. It’s a living journal archiving the world the way I see it and what’s going on in it. I am aware of the story I am telling about myself. I evaluate it: am I proud of it? Or am I just proud of my own face? I’ve got selfies galore, but I live alone, so I try to use it as practice for portrait work and experimentation with lighting. I have to be my own subject. As I become more comfortable with my camera in various situations, like extreme low light, found light, sunlight, studio lights, and macro lighting, I am able to push myself as an amateur street photographer and give myself content to use as a designer. Below are a few images from one night to create one piece.

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What about you? What do you do on the weekend? Ask someone. Ask everyone. Find the points of fascination in their story. Find the lesson. And always show love. Because you never know what you’ll find out about your co-workers, or hair stylist, or the weird guy on the bus you see every other day.

If you ask me, I may tell you I took a portrait of a father and daughter, but it looked like this.

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It only takes seconds on a Monday morning elevator ride to connect with one another. Use your eyes, ears and words to wow anyone who will listen to the weird way you live your life. Just stare and smile on Monday morning until they ask, “What did you do this weekend?”

Thanks for reading. Pop over to instagram.com/chris_kindrick to connect and catch more of my weekend wackiness.