So! What do you do if you decide to enter Artomatic on a whim, don’t want to show old work buthave nothing prepared and have no time to do it? You figure a way to produce a cohesive body ofnew work as quickly as possible, preferably in a single day!That's how I came up with ’24 on 14

’, a project during which I stood on the same block of 14Street Washington DC for twenty four hours straight and took portraits of willing passers-by.‘I’m going to meet so many interesting people," I thought. "The exposure generated for Artomaticwill be great; I’m going to get a fantastic selection of images and my show will be a realattraction’…Then the misery began. After just one hour I wanted to pack up or at least sit down on thesidewalk and cry. Soon after that my throat started to hurt, probably from the stress of askingcomplete strangers in the street if I could ‘invade’ their lives and have them pose for me. Inaddition to this, I was ‘slightly’ hung-over.Luckily I’d picked a good day. It was sunny but there was a reasonable amount of light cloudcover. The temperature was a respectable 70 degrees – more than warm enough for my peeliewallie

Scottish constitution.By 12 noon, after only 3 hours, I was feeling like it would be impossible to hold out for the full 24.It seemed a never ending cycle of highs and lows. Just as soon as I’d met and shot a warm andinteresting person, I would get an ice cold rejection that wiped the smile off my face faster thanthe 1/1000

of a second I was shooting at.By mid afternoon, 14

Street was a busy and lively as ever. More and more people were willing tobe photographed. The variety and diversity of people walking in the area was one of the mainreasons for choosing that particular block. But by 6pm, I was getting tired. The thought of a longnight ahead terrified me. On the plus side, the early evening light was becoming really sweet.Another reason for choosing that block had been these ‘golden hours,' where the sun sets abovethe low rise buildings on the other side of the street and allows about as much light as you canget in the city.The people kept coming. As soon as I decided to take a break and sit down on my camping chairanother eager member of the public read my sandwich board and offered to be the next subject.Some of the best stuff was shot during these few hours.

peelie-wallie adj (Scot) urban dialect. Pale, sick and unhealthy such as "He's lookin awfy peely wally. Heneeds a good holiday".

By 9, darkness had arrived and the glory hours were a distant memory. The grim reality -- that Ihad only completed half the task -- began to set in. What would lie in store for me over the next 12hours? Being accosted by endless drunks from the clubs and bars nearby? Falling asleep in mychair and getting arrested for vagrancy? Or worse still, being mugged and having my camera andimages stolen?I had intended to use an off-camera flash for the night work, but this soon proved restrictive, andresults were--at best--mediocre. It was time for an executive decision. Bump up the ISO to 1600,open up the aperture and shoot at as slow a speed as I could get away with. After some testshots of my friend Ryan, I decided that the streetlight above gave off a realistic night time lookand that the color balance, although not perfect, was decidedly nocturnal and usable.As the night progressed, a constant stream of slightly inebriated Black Cat patrons--fresh fromtheir Bhangra dance night--provided me with plenty of interesting shooting opportunities. By 3amthe last of the clubbers had gone home and I was left sitting on the street alone, nervous, tired,sweaty and cold. I now longed for a police officer to move me on and end this now.At 4am my girlfriend Misha and friend Jodi turned up for the ‘early shift’ just in time for the rain tostart. They had offered to hang out during the wee small hours when we deemed it to be mostdangerous. In the end we needn’t have worried. A local cop who knew the staff of the pizza jointnext to us parked outside it and stayed there until 6:15am.I was feeling pretty tired and I had about as little interest in asking anyone else to bephotographed as I could imagine. Jodi then offered to ask the cop and 2 of the pizza guys if Icould take a few shots of them. Amazingly enough they said yes and I managed to pick thecamera up, focus it and press the shutter a few more times. It was then time for my minders tohead home and leave me alone again.Soon there would be no more pizza based activity and 14 Street was deserted. I was feeling like itwould now be possible to make it through to 9am although I hadn’t realized just how slow timepasses when you are just sitting there. Waiting.By 7am another volunteer showed up. It was my friend Ryan again; on his way to cover thePope’s visit to DC (he's a sound engineer). He seemed almost as miserable as I was. At least Ionly had 2 hours of torture to go.8am was slowly crawling up. Just before it arrived, a couple of friendly faces appeared on thehorizon: Kevin and his golden retriever Flapjack. I had spoken to Kevin the previous day and hehad agreed to come back later to allow me to photograph him. I guess I hadn’t realized just howmuch later he meant. The Flapster was on top form as ever and I fought off the tiredness to get acouple of shots before they said their goodbyes and got out of the now-heavier rain.