Present Day Analog

I'm a stubborn person, I'll admit it. Especially when it comes to letting go of old technology. Finding a purpose for old analog formats is something I always find myself doing. While digging through vinyl at a thrift store a few years ago I saw a stack of old cassette tapes. I found a few albums I owned as a kid and a few that were new to me. I bought them mostly for nostalgia but also eventually wanting to listen to them. The next week I went to a Goodwill and found a tape deck and a Walkman, both for less than 10 dollars. The cassettes were 25 cents each and honestly I felt better about buying the tapes than downloading an album from ITunes or Amazon. I went home, listened to the tapes and was surprised at how good they sounded. Giving the music a little more character. This led me to look up cassettes on the internet and I found some small labels still releasing music on tape. Mostly beat tapes, indie and metal. I listen to all types of music but mostly hip-hop, finding it on tape was a little more difficult. While still on the hunt for hip-hop on tape I decided to search hash tags on Instagram, #cassettes #tapes #hiphop #rap. What got my attention in all of the photos was a red tape. It was hip-hop and the artist was actually from the same city. I contacted him, we met up at a local sneaker show and I bought his tape. Fast forward to the follow up of this album. I'm at the release party and I happen to take a photo of him holding the cassette. This picture sparked the idea of getting different artists to sign a tape and let me take a few shots of them holding it. While starting this project I've met artists that I now support and hope the best for in all the projects they take part in. I have to thank everyone who has taken part so far and to the ones who will in the future. In the end it's about being able to do two things I enjoy at the same time...take photos and support artists and their music. No matter what format it is. Stay tuned for the photo that started it all.