In the Beginning
This was never my intention…
Obviously this is not a new idea–people were taking photos of Barbie Dolls in front of the Grand Canyon in the 1970s, Cabbage Patch Kids near Mount Rushmore in the 1980s, and GI Joe’s on the Berlin Wall in the 1990s. In 2001, the French film, “Amelie” popularized the concept with a traveling gnome and then Travelocity corporately killed the fun by using the concept as a primary driver for all of its advertising. My story begins a different way…
Jason threw a plastic bag full of Homies at me as he and his fiance hastily filled moving boxes. He’d collected about 20 Homies from a Cala Food store in San Francisco and it was time to pass them along. They soon joined a collection of other random elements in the junk drawer of my desk where they stayed for several years.
It wasn’t until I relocated to Denver that the Homies would be truly unleashed. I grabbed a few on my way to test a new camera lens in downtown and found that I enjoyed their stoic attitudes and certain detail. Clearly they were better photo subjects than I could ever be. Let’s be honest, featuring pictures of me in front of international landmarks stopped being amusing right around the time I gave my original set of Transformers to my cousin (oh the regret) in 1989.
So in 2007 I began to travel with a different set of Homies each time I got on a plane. Several years later I’ve accumulated every Homie variation and a ridiculous portfolio of Homies Around the World. I hope you enjoy the limited set I’ve presented here.