Sam, the Shoeshine Man

Continuing the "People at Work" series, I met Sam. He's been shining shoes for a couple of years, but it's a stop-gap profession for him. He has fifteen years of experience as a waiter and bar-tender, but he can't find that kind of work in Portland, where unemployment is high. The shoe-shine business is a fill-in for him, and he enjoys it, but it's hard to make a living. He gets a kick out of mixing polish like paint to match odd shoe colors, and he recently bought some beautiful gear, an antique two-seat shoe-shine setup, but he doesn't yet have the capital to pay for an indoor shop space. He sighed, most people either wear sneakers or have leather shoes they don't maintain properly.

He has a charming street-corner arrangement, but of course it's only viable when it's not raining. Today was a lucky day for weather, not something he can count on. My work portrait of him, complete with his whole costume and set-up, is here, but I prefer the more complex expression in this closeup, taken while he was on his coffee break, talking about his hopes and difficulties.

Some of you like reading each other's comments and being able to leave comments when you feel inspired to, so I've decided to leave comments on and add ratings, so fellow blippers can throw some stars at a journal if they don't have time to comment. I post each blip on Facebook, so people who aren't registered on Blip can leave the odd comment there. (I don't, however, do much else on Facebook. Maybe the occasional link.) I need to cut back on commenting myself, so I'll be saying less, often leaving anonymous stars and not saying anything at all. We'll see how that goes. The comments on my last blip were thought-provoking and very helpful. Thanks so much.

Edit: Not only is the Blip site really slow, but the thumbnail editing function isn't working at all. Sorry for the lousy thumbnail on this. It wasn't my choice.