Blue Dreams, N.Y. City Diesel and Black Berry. These aren’t the names of the next big rock band, but brands of marijuana which were on display at the Golden State Patient Care Collective cannabis dispensary in Colfax. I have never been to such a place, for personal use or for the job. When Journal reporter Jenifer Gee handed me the assignment slip, a smile appeared on my face and she even chuckled a bit. I will admit it’s not your everyday assignment, and I had no idea what to expect but I knew there were going to be strict rules to obey when photographing in the store.

When we arrived to the Colfax shop, the aroma of the “medicine” could be smelled before setting foot to the entrance of the building. A security guard stood by, checking ID’s and paperwork of patients who were picking up their scripts. I was told immediately no faces, no heads and no people. Basically that leaves the only option of hands and piles of weed to be photographed. The front-page photos on the Grass Valley Union portrayed exactly that when they wrote their story just a few days before. I wanted to challenge their requests to see how far I could push the envelope. And besides, I didn’t want to copy the photos Union photographer John Hart captured. We needed something better.

I explained to co-owner, Jim Henry, what kind of photo we needed and mentioned there are ways to photograph people with out disclosing their identity. He was open to my ideas and I explained with the use of selective focus, camera angle and some directing, it is possible to have a human element without knowing who that person is. People selling and buying marijuana legally is a bit taboo, and I’m sure those same people seeing a photographer looming over their stash may raise some concern. After all they are patients with privacy rights just like at any other doctor’s office and I only snap photos of people who agreed to be in them.

Communicating with Jim Henry before entering the store made the session go very smoothly. After the shoot I showed the images so he could approve them, even though in reality he doesn’t have the final say on which photos we run in our paper. But out of respect for him and the fact he allowed me to create my ideas I wanted him to rest assured we would not run anything that would jeopardize his business or his employees.

In the end it was an interesting photo assignment, and probably made for some good water-cooler talk in the morning.