Kingston to the Microverse
The Microverse, a macro photography show
“After stepping out of the greenhouse, close-up cannabis photos by Chris Romaine of Kandid Kush showcase the beauty of the plant through practically alien-like images. Bright green, pink and orange hues pop up in the artwork, which is hung on glittering silver walls.”
-timeout
My alarm startles me awake at 3am, my heart pounding, vision blurred, and the taste of that Smirnoff vodka from the night before lingers on my tongue. I stumbled out of bed towards the bathroom to splash some water on my face to snap out of it. Last night was Carnival in Kingston - also my last night in Jamaica, so there was no way I could resist the party.
While brushing my teeth I check my phone to see a bunch of notifications from the airlines that my flight had been delayed 6hrs. I called the airlines to confirm all my flights had changed with the delay. They assured me everything was up to date. At that time I was stoked, that meant I got to sleep another 6hrs. The stoked wore off pretty quickly after being stuck in the airport for another couple hours past the original delayed times —there wasn’t even a plane at the gate we’d been instructed to wait by.
Finally the pilots stroll past the line waving their hands as if they were in some parade announcing their arrival. The crowd was not pleased. Finally we touch down in Miami and I miss my connecting flight by 15 minutes. I wont pain you with all the details, but I ended up stranded in Miami over night missing every flight to NY and thankfully made the first flight the next morning.
For the record, fuck American Airlines. They are the absolute worst, their policy is to literally put their employees before paying customers who have missed their flights due to AA incompetence.
My Uber drive was a vibe on the way to Greenwich Village to the Airbnb. My driver blessed me with a joint as a welcome to the city. Things started to feel a lot better after the chaotic air delays. I was stoked to get to the bnb and the hit the streets with a camera —and of course to check out my exhibit!
I want to get better with street/street portraits so I challenged myself with “if I see someone I want to photograph, just ask” - and to my surprise not one person turned me down. I shot about two dozen portraits of strangers while walking the around the city. I captured all of these with a Leica Q2.
Check out my favs below!
I couldn’t wait to check out The House of Cannabis! My images covered the walls, floor to ceiling, in the main floor off of Broadway. For the past year and a half I’d been working on this project with the design team, Terrane Group —and I mean multiple days a week. Whether it was lengthy zoom meetings, searching through what seemed to been endless data on hard drives, layout design, or adapting to the evolutions of the project.
I truly gained new appreciation and perspective to large production exhibitions.
I’ve shown my work many times over my life, never to this scale though!
My first art shows were in Las Vegas in the 2009-2014 era. I displayed my work at the First Fridays Art walk, at Rumor Hotel, Artisan Hotel, Red Rocks Golf Course to name a few. This was well before Zappos cleaned up the downtown area for First Fridays —I actually had a piece of my work stolen right from the table it was displayed on one night at First Fridays. I struggled a lot with the Vegas art scene at the time. To me, it seemed most people were more interested in getting fucked up and causing chaos rather than view art and socialize. It’s nice to see it cleaned up now.
But now we’re in the Big Apple, City of Dreams, one of the Meccas of art!
I wanted to experience THC as anyone attending would, so I arrived with my friend Ivan unannounced. I didn’t want to pay either so I quietly told one employee I was the photographer for the Kandid Kush exhibit and they looked at me blankly.
So I said,
“My name’s Chris Romaine”
“Chris Romaine!” They exclaimed back to me - I laughed, “Yes, Chris Romaine”
“Aw, my man! Chris Romaine!” They get on the radio, “We have Chris Romaine in the building!”
So much for going incognito, haha! I was pumped, they were pumped, Ivan is laughing, snapping pics. Man, what a trip! Even writing this makes me grin ear to ear.
They wanted to usher me to the back entrance elevator used for the VIP ticket holders, but I still insisted on going with the general admission and experiencing THC just as most would. We preceded to walk up the long set of stairs taking us to the start of the experience. We made our way up to the third floor to the disorientation room, which was a small waiting room with those goofy warped mirrors you’d find in a fun house and some neon lighting.
As we waited, I was listening to this group of younger guys talk about how much money in clothes they were wearing. It was pretty funny, I bet they smoke mids too. $2,000 was the number if you’re wondering.
We proceeded to enter the next room which was a brightly lit neon green room with a large screen the size of the wall in front of us. There were a few benches for people to sit on, while the rest of us crowded around. Granted we were there on 4/20 and the grand opening day, so it was a bit crowded and harder to hear audibles with the chatter of people going about. I think on a slower day THC would be much more appreciated. Imagine going to a museum to constantly be distracted by talking, kinda that vibe.
The film kicks on, and it’s a collaboration of video clips showing a brief story of the war of drugs and stigmatization of marijuana - Reefer Madness!! It was pretty dope to see one of my macro trichome videos plugged into the video reel too!
After the video finished up we moved on to a room with five or six people size screens with these half domes over head in front of the screen. It was meant for you to stand underneath to hear the audio from the video playing, so multiple videos could play at once without disrupting the others. This room might be the most important room of the entire place —I say that because the stories told on these screens are from those who have been greatly impacted by the war on drugs. They are brutal stories of prohibition and racism involved with marijuana.
The following room is more for the arts and influence herb has on artist culture —more specifically sneakers. The photo-realistic illustrations hanging on the wall are so detailed it makes you double take the image wondering if it is in fact drawn or a photograph! Mad props!
After making our way out of the sneaker room we head back to the stairs to go to the grow rooms and then the Microverse. I was getting a little nervous, well I’d been nervous and I’d already seen my exhibit a few days prior —it’s the nervousness and excitement of seeing it with complete strangers.
What will they say? Will they even stop to look? Do they care? What if it’s not impressive?
Do I even care if they care? Ahhh all the thoughts, haha!
Fuck it, let’s go.
After going through the live plant showing different stages of plant growth, you turn the corner to enter The Microverse. In this room I have eight images that are four by three feet in size beautifully displayed in back lit light boxes that are precisely spaced in this trippy room. There is a five foot monitor mounted horizontally that features a one and a half minute video montage of flower videos I created for the exhibit. The glossy mirror floor reflects the images as if they were hung over a glassy body of deep dark water. The walls are made of sparkling stones that change luminance with the light spectrum throughout the room. It’s subtle and not as distracting as it may sound. In the center of the room is what looks to be a trichome encased in this diamond shaped metal case. Along with all the visual stimuli, trippy melodic music hums in the background. The vibe in the room is very floaty, curiously calming. It’s dope.
I watched as people take steps closer and back further away from the images, snapping iPhone pics, and laughing about the room at the amazement of what they’re viewing. Each room had a host who greeted the guests and explained the installation. Enough talking—typing.. I’m pleased to share photos with you of
The Microverse
Did I mention how much of a trip this experience was for me!?
Here’s a little flashback -
In 2015 I moved to San Diego from Las Vegas. Weed was medically legal in CA, so I hopped online and ordered four to five different strains from a delivery service I found on Weedmaps. If there were images aligned with the strains, they were trash —and I mean absolute garbage! You couldn’t tell if it was a clump of grass, a bug, pile of poo or what was going on. I knew at that exact moment there was a huge opportunity waiting for me. I was a weed smoking photographer for nearly a decade prior to this moment. I’d been searching for my niche and there it was, right in front of me in the form of an awful Weedmaps menu. And that’s where it all began, taking photos of a few nugs on my glossy white Ikea table in San Diego—fast forward eight years later and I’m standing in my gallery on Broadway in New York City. Eight years seems like a lifetime and a blink of an eye at the same time. Time is funny like that isn’t it.
Again, I’m so appreciative of your time to read my blogs, look at my photos, and supporting one of my passions —photography.
Most of my work is available for sale too! If there’s something you want that’s not one my site, hit me up.
Bless up
Side note: I was looking at my instagram reels while searching for content to share with this blog. As you may know, my account was deleted in December 2022 —thankfully got it back but had to archive all 1,200+ post from 2015-2022. In that process I left all the reels posted. I remembered I made this post on Feb 23 2022 of this macro trichome video with the caption:
“I want to do large format exhibitions. Contact me if you can help”
On May 10th 2022 I was contacted to be brought on to this project. Turns out the same video I shared on ig was selected to be used in one of the videos for an installation in THC.
I want to do large format exhibitions globally. I want to help rid the stigma of cannabis through the beauty of my photography. Contact me if you can help.