Vape
vape
My first assignment where I questioned my morals. In my mind it's clearly unhealthy, there's no medicinal benefits regardless how ex-smokers say they feel better from the transition. At the end of the day they're replacing one substance with another. I have smoked tobacco in the past, why? Maybe social peer pressure and naivety, bad choices and lack of respect for myself but then at the end of the day you do only live once right. But there is no appeal for me to even try this, it just doesn't seem at all logical. It doesn't come from an herb or plant, instead it has ingredients poured from giant industrial plastic containers that you would associate with a number of toxic chemicals and your're suppose to inhale this?
So what would be the attraction to start vaping as a non-smoker? I've asked and spoken with 'vapers', the stores and continued to ask the question to myself and I still don't see it. It's a $10+ Billion dollar industry so there obviously is an attraction to a mass. It comes across as more of a scene, highly glamorized social images, videos, conventions and brightly open and well advertised stores in high streets. It doesn't have the class a cigar stores would portray and it doesn't have the versatility of recreation and medicinal purposes of a marijuana dispensaries. Yet they are in bloom and neon lit. It's a shame supermarkets feel its ok to cover the cigarette section but leave the e-cigarettes and vape accessories on show and neon lit too.
I've been inside vape stores. The test area seemed as if it was a place for a duo to get their fixes. I was surprised how much could their lungs take as they sold their well and truly making the most of their free samples. Filling their vape machine with the little polluting bottles, cotton wool and adjusting springs. The staff were as technical as silicon valley and rightly so, however as I was told the industry is still unable to provide a full medical analysis, not just on short term but long term effects of vaping. They believe after 13 years they will be provided with enough information. Many users will say they don't feel a tightness in their chest since making the switch from cigarettes to vape however they understand it may cause a popcorn effect to the lungs. This is somehow ok with them.?
If I smell it on the street or see a cloud of it drifting towards me I cover my mouth and nose, its thickness and smell is gross. Having a box of liquids to photograph in my house overnight was bad enough, it ended up in the garage. How people think its ok to vape inside still baffles me too.
Photographing vape smoking and products should have the same laws and cigarette advertising but it doesn't, at least not on social media. I guess it's naive to imagine companies in this industry would not want to glorify it or make it out to be not cool as they want to sell it. But surely there must be some limits put in place. In the end it was a shame in some ways for me to feel like this. I enjoy product photography and the challenges it brings, plus I was really pleased with the majority of images. However in the end I withdraw myself and my images from the assignment. I wanted to show them here as I use this site for reference to various work I do, however with respect I have hidden the branding.