Here’s an interview The Citrus Report just did with KC Ortiz (you may know him from the t-shirts we just released of his…)
TCR: The best way you can, how can you describe We Are Supervision to the outside world?
Supervision is a collective that consists of a group of good friends who combine their collective forces to help further each other and the group as a whole. It also serves as an umbrella for commercial work, pushing and protecting all its members in the business side of things. It’s almost comparative to a crew. Which, the majority of us having come out of a graffiti background, it makes sense that we started our own crew to take on the world and try to get peoples attention with. With no formal training or schooling it was probably only natural that we fell back into what we knew best and had worked for us in our lives, forming a collective/business in a crew like format.
TCR: You have a pretty amazing photo site, and I guess the first question seems to be you travel a lot, so are you a hired photographer? How do you get access to all these amazing places?
Thank you. I work as a freelance photographer, sometimes on assignment, sometimes on my own personal projects, both of which have me traveling a lot. I use any and everything I can to get good access for my stories. Sometimes its something simple that who ever I’m working for has prearranged, more often then not it comes through a good fixer or local who is really connected in the way I need. Nothing could be accomplished without the fixers, organizations, and people on the ground. Outside of that, it often takes a lot of hard work and good luck to find what you are looking for, meet who you need to, and get what really matters to the story I am trying to show. And of course, it doesn’t always work out as planned, as there are plenty of places in the world that work on a whole different playing field and aren’t concerned with your time limits or needs, often understandably.
TCR: Talk about Chicago, as in the stuff that most outsiders don’t know about. The spots for graffiti, culture, food, everything.
“Loving Chicago is like loving a woman with a broken nose.” —Nelson Algren.
Chicago is a big city without the attitude. Don’t get me wrong, there are plenty of attitudes on the corners, in the bars, and other haunts, but they are not pompous attitudes. They are attitudes against attitudes. It’s not NYC, its not LA, its not Paris, its strictly Chicago. And it’s proud of that. Its a little rough around the edges, and BS doesn’t go far. A lie gets called out pretty quick, nobody is impressed what you have or don’t have, and if they do care, they are going take whatever it is that you have. That’s always been the Chicago way. When you see something you want, you get it. Some people earn it, some people take it. But they will get it if they really come out of a Chicago block. I think a lot of it may have to do with our weather, if you live in a place that is inhospitable over half the year, that’s going kind of toughen you up in a way that other places cant.
That being said, its a great place to visit! We do have some great food, street food, ethnic food, pretty much any kind of artery clogging food you can think of. Tons of steak spots, hot dog stands, bars, taverns, pubs, clubs, any everywhere else you can grab a drink. You have to love a city that’s greatest contribution to the culinary world is the leftovers of a pig slaughter with a salad on it. Eating food is a great way to see the city as well. Most of the different neighborhoods all have their own kinds of food as they are all segregated by ethnic lines. So you get a chance to check out how most people in Chicago really live, and eat a bunch of food in the meantime.
READ THE REST OF THE INTERVIEW HERE
