Street Portraits

Found this on a friend's blog. It's interesting little how-to video, even though the photographer gets uber annoying ... and he forgets to mention that the finals are toned and given a high-pass filter treatment in photoshop.

Voodoo mag in process

This is what I have semi-edited from a shoot this weekend for a start-up fashion mag called Voodoo. My friend and I shot this together.... we're gonna try and put together all of the images into a more cohesive editorial. (He has group shots I'm missing here ... so, this is only part I.)

Everyone involved in this, the stylists, models, hair/makeup person, etc., was awesome... super talented and totally dedicated to the project. It's really rewarding to work with hardworking people. They made my job super easy, and I think their work and love definitely shows in the photos.

July 4

I'm a little late on this ... but I spent part of my July 4 on Coney Island, Ny. Probably not the best decision, but a humbling experience to say the least.

aftermath of nathan's annual hotdog eating contest

En Honour

my favourite mj song RIP

Zero Hour

Stephen Dunn is one of the first poets I got into and really wanted to fully understand/internalize. He is honest and very brilliant -- but often heartbreaking. His collection Everything Else in The World is one of my most loved possessions, although this poem isn't in it. He might seem irrelevant to a younger crowd, because most of what he writes is on loss, getting older, and looking back on your life. But for some reason, I still find his voice extraordinarily familiar, witty, and very real.

Zero Hour

Stephen Dunn

It was the hour of simply nothing.

not a single desire in my western heart,

no ancient system

of breathing and postures,

no big idea justifying what I felt.

There was even an absence of despair.

"Anything goes," I said to myself.

All the clocks were high. Above them,

hundreds of stars flickering if, if, if.

Everywhere in the universe, it seemed,

some next thing was gathering itself.

I started to feel something.

but it was nothing more than a moment

passing into another, or was it less

eloquent than that, purely muscular,

some meaningless twitch?

I'd let someone else make it rhyme.

Guillaume Zuili

Guillaume Zuili is so obviously French -- check out his website and you'll see what I mean. His work is definitely dirty and every image doesn't "work," but he's playful, experimental, voracious, and his love of taking pictures pours out of all he does.

One of his more recent projects "LA Fragments" is a collection of images mostly shot with a pinhole camera. Yeah, okay, so we've seen some of this stuff before. But in a world saturated with celebrity portraiture and bubble-gum tongue-and-cheek high-gloss stuff, in the moment, at least, he is a welcomed breath of fresh-er air.

My Girl

I just watched this for the first time in a long time. Overall, it's one big cornball of a movie ... but this scene is really wonderful.  

My new home

 I am fascinated but also troubled by the physical and emotional processes we go through to make a new place a home. I just moved far away from most people I love and have never really experienced this type of exhilarating independence mixed with very real loneliness ever before. I am not afraid of living or being by myself -- I would just enjoy having a good friend or companion to explore and just plain live/be with. 

But I am slowly beginning to feel alright in my new surroundings. There's this inner calming and warmth that seems to grow when I am able to discover joy and love in a place. It's a feeling of comfort and clarity -- something I cannot really explain.  

I will post more images of this exploration. I have to admit I haven't taken my camera out much since graduation. This is something I need to change.

The pictures below are really just for me. I took them walking home tonight. I was out doing some food shopping in my neighborhood. I'm not trying to make any kind of statement with them -- but I hope they will help me make more sense of what's around me and better understand a change that's happening within me. 

   

Greenpoint, Brooklyn. 

Breathless

Screenshots ::

Ed Ou -- a peer but out of everyone else's league.

Story by Ed Ou about a small village in the northeast of Kazakhstan where the Soviet government has covertly tested the effects of nuclear radiation on humans since the beginnings of the Cold War. Ou says the Soviets have detonated more than four hundred nuclear arms into the atmosphere and underground areas of the town. As a result, of course, an incredible number of people are now suffering from severe physical and mental abnormalities and cancer. 

You can see the full story on Ou's website :: here . He uses livebooks, which I respect especially since he is pretty well-known.  (Ou was recently acknowledged by the PDN 2009 annuals and made their 2008 list of the the 30 best emerging photographers.) Even better, he is only 21... damn, stiff competition. 

Anyway, there is a lot I could write about this, but my lousy commentary can't really live up to what the images say for themselves.

 

  

Friedlander

Saw a wonderful exhibit of Lee Friedlander's work at the Cleveland Museum of Art. It's a retrospective traveling out of the MoMA's permanent collection. 

Friedlander is such an fascinating person and has such a Surrealist eye -- you'll notice each of his images is layered and layered with meaning and filled with surprises and humor. I also appreciate the way he brings his own strong personality to everything he shoots -- and always shoots what he wants to shoot. 

I find his life, images, and way of seeing incredibly inspiring. And whether it's been acknowledged or not, it's clear that he has had a huge influence on many photographers of my generation.

"We are all a little weird and life is a little weird, and when we find someone whose weirdness is compatible with ours, we join up with them and fall in mutual weirdness and call it love" - author unknown. 

LBJ

Wish this were a little funnier -- but I still really enjoy it ... 

Cait Deibel Collection

Jacket by emerging fashion designer Caitlin Deibel ... to see more of her great work, check out her portfolio :: here

What We Believe

Interesting project that's been ongoing since the 1950s  -- This I believe -- Discusses the rang of beliefs/core values of Americans across the country.

Here's a part of John Updike's 2005 submission from his essay:: Testing the Limits of What I Know and Feel

"A person believes various things at various times, even on the same day. At the age of 73, I seem most instinctively to believe in the human value of creative writing, whether in the form of verse or fiction, as a mode of truth-telling, self-expression and homage to the twin miracles of creation and consciousness. The special value of these indirect methods of communication — as opposed to the value of factual reporting and analysis — is one of precision. Oddly enough, the story or poem brings us closer to the actual texture and intricacy of experience.."

Not trying to be "indie" but...

I think people too often attach themselves to certain products of culture (cult films, authors, TV shows, etc) and then hold onto those things for dear life. I'm not saying I'm not guilty of this, but I get these silly emails from Urban Outfitters almost everyday telling me to buy this "mind-blowing" Kerouac or Palahniuk book and suddenly I'll be "cool." No thanks Urban Outfitters, I can pick out my own books and make my own decisions about what is cool.

But speaking of cults, I watched Jim Jarmusch's, very self-absorbed, "arty-indie-comedy" Stranger Than Paradise yesterday. I realize I am judging it from a contemporary perspective, and this type of film now seems really mainstream to me and my peers. But once you get over the pretentious quiet indie plot, the real beauty is in the images. This film is seriously a photographer's dream -- it's like attending a moving photo gallery for an hour and a half. Each shot is given so much care and is deeply layered with meaning. And the compositions are really incredible and dynamic. Plus, part of it was shot in Cleveland, which gives it even more points on my coolness scale.

 

To wrap this up, what I'm trying to say is we need to look at the gifts culture gives us (in books, films, images, etc) more carefully for the specific parts that truly and individually move us . We need to look past the "labeling" that goes on online and in print by big lifestyle companies like Urban Outfitters. We need to appreciate words, images, and sounds for the way they can produce  feelings of pure enjoyment. We should definitely not use culture as a way to make us just look cool -- that's wasting resources. Seriously, be bold and make your own opinions. Even if they eventually come out the same as your friends', at least you arrived at them using your own mind and own sense of judgement.

The Red Balloon

I just watched The Red Balloon. It was my first time seeing it, though I've known about it for a while. All I can say is, this is such a beautiful film. The music, the visuals, and the plot are all simple but very precise -- It radiates a deep sense of a childlike truth and warmth. I definitely have to make a balloon picture now. I mean, just look at the last image of the boy flying away (above) with the group of balloons -- so incredible. Please watch it if you haven't already seen it. You have no excuse, since I bet the entire little thing (34 minutes total) is on youtube.

Portrait of a cat

So now that I'm home from college, I obviously have nothing better to do than sit around and take pictures of my cats all day. . . that is eighty percent a joke. I start my "real job" in two weeks, alright. But I couldn't resist this beautiful moment of my mom's cat looking so regal on the couch. I should have more interesting/creative/intellectually stimulating subjects to shoot in the near future.

swine flu ad from the 70s

... silly

herb ritts emulation part deux

I like the bottom two the best --- For some reason, I can't get them to show bigger. Please click on them if you'd like to get a better look.

Model :: Terry Marshall

Herb Ritts emulation

This is the first half of the shoot :: trying to emulate Herb Ritts

I'm shooting another model tomorrow, so more to come.

Danny Lyon

“I wanted to change history and preserve humanity... But in the process I changed myself and preserved my own.” 

McDonalization of Che

A new book is out by Michael Casey called Che's Afterlife (official site). It explores the ridiculously widespread Alberto Korda photograph seen and known throughout the world. (I read somewhere it is probably the most commonly re-purposed photograph ever shot.)

In really plain, kinda "guerilla" gonzo-esq language, Casey talks about how this one image of Che has been commercialized into an emblem of and for post-modern pop culture -- he says it's been diminished into a profitable "brand" for the "rebellious youth" -- I'm not giving all the details of his argument ... go to the links to read more if you have time/even want to.

I think this book could be really interesting -- or really long. You can read an excerpt here :: Che's Afterlife (part)

Anyway, it's a cool idea -- but a whole book's worth of goods? -- I'm not so sure.

Charting new courses

This is such a great poem -- one of those you want to memorize and keep with you wherever you go.

Some of Rich's work is too heavy on the lesbian/feminist themes for me -- but maybe her commitment to those ideas allows her 

to write such an empowering poem about a speaker whose sexuality is unclear -- it really doesn't make a difference

if the "explorer" is male or female. (("I am she: I am he")) Rich suggests we can share this pursuit together.

Adrienne Rich :: Diving into the Wreck

First having read the book of myths,
and loaded the camera,
and checked the edge of the knife-blade,
I put on
the body-armor of black rubber
the absurd flippers
the grave and awkward mask.
I am having to do this
not like Cousteau with his
assiduous team
aboard the sun-flooded schooner
but here alone.

There is a ladder.
The ladder is always there
hanging innocently
close to the side of the schooner.
We know what it is for,
we who have used it.
Otherwise
it is a piece of maritime floss
some sundry equipment.

I go down.
Rung after rung and still
the oxygen immerses me
the blue light
the clear atoms
of our human air.
I go down.
My flippers cripple me,
I crawl like an insect down the ladder
and there is no one
to tell me when the ocean
will begin.

First the air is blue and then
it is bluer and then green and then
black I am blacking out and yet
my mask is powerful
it pumps my blood with power
the sea is another story
the sea is not a question of power
I have to learn alone
to turn my body without force
in the deep element.

And now: it is easy to forget
what I came for
among so many who have always
lived here
swaying their crenellated fans
between the reefs
and besides
you breathe differently down here.

I came to explore the wreck.
The words are purposes.
The words are maps.
I came to see the damage that was done
and the treasures that prevail.
I stroke the beam of my lamp
slowly along the flank
of something more permanent
than fish or weed

the thing I came for:
the wreck and not the story of the wreck
the thing itself and not the myth
the drowned face always staring
toward the sun
the evidence of damage
worn by salt and away into this threadbare beauty
the ribs of the disaster
curving their assertion
among the tentative haunters.

This is the place.
And I am here, the mermaid whose dark hair
streams black, the merman in his armored body.
We circle silently
about the wreck
we dive into the hold.
I am she: I am he

whose drowned face sleeps with open eyes
whose breasts still bear the stress
whose silver, copper, vermeil cargo lies
obscurely inside barrels
half-wedged and left to rot
we are the half-destroyed instruments
that once held to a course
the water-eaten log
the fouled compass

We are, I am, you are
by cowardice or courage
the one who find our way
back to this scene
carrying a knife, a camera
a book of myths
in which
our names do not appear.

Editorial piece I shot this weekend -- still trying to put it all together -- had some major technical difficulties and lost a lotta files... not very fun losing files :: 

Sarah Moon

:: (full) interview by Ilona Suschitzky ::

(here's the end)

So how does it all begin?

-- It's never the same... of course I have a point of view, I make formal choices, but I prefer to feel my unconscious leading me before my will interferes. I appreciate that photography allows me to be uncertain, and for example, to have no idea why I might ask someone to hold a guinea fowl in their arms and then to scream as well. Maybe what suits me is that in one second I can't affirm anything because the next one can cancel it all. Sometimes I am not even sure of what I have seen. For me it is an enormous advantage to allow myself to be vague and to move by instinct rather than thought. I find it hard to be too precise, too definite... I like to go on searching, maybe it's the quest more than the ending that keeps me going.

Mark Borthwick

I'd never heard of this guy before -- but he is also a musician, cook, filmmaker, and all around pretty interesting person; he has photo gallery-installation-dinner parties at his home for like 100 people. 

I don't know, honestly, how interested I am in his images --  but he makes some really great statements in this interview. I copied and pasted the parts I really like :: (click here for the full link) ... really, though, please, read the whole thing.... it's good.

So you feel like when you are doing photography that you can accomplish all those multidimensional feelings?

MB: It's just attaching yourself to that feeling. For me, it was an enormous awakening to realize that there was a certain period in my life, maybe five years ago, for the ten years prior to that, where I struggled between the idea of Here I am today, I'm writing, the next day I'm drawing, the next day I'm taking pictures, and the next day I'm with the kids. Because there was no time, I never gave myself time to actually edit the pictures, or analyze the pictures, and question what I was doing and I realized that I never wanted to attach myself to that question. That question was never involved in the way that I was working; I was never practicing the idea of trying to understand what I was doing, what I was putting out there. I just wanted to leave it for what it was.


On why he doesn't shoot fashion anymore:

MB: No, no, it's exhausting in the sense that you're continually put into a position of a student. You have these hypocritical fashion editors out there, a few of them that try to attain their rules and put that forth. I don't believe in any of it anymore and fashion itself has become extremely unfashionable in that sense. Especially today, I think it's amazing to hang out on stoops here, where we live and see there's another way. There's always another way. Magazines took such a step backwards over the last twenty years trying to close the door to the other way. And I'm always interested in the other way, and I attach myself to that, whether it's with the clothes, the music, the cooking or just the idea of bringing people together. There's so much joy to be had with the small little events that happen to you daily. Te last couple of days have been magical. I walk out of this place, vibrating at a pace that's just phenomenal. There could be two or three people walking down the street, could be a kid and its mother and they sit down on the floor and... that's very precious. That lasts forever.

Answering what you said before about reaching a larger audience again with this, that's what I'm interested in now. I'm not trying to make it bigger than what it is, but at the same time, I'm interested to see where it can go. I like putting myself in a position where I'm back at the beginning again, and just nurture that. It's so much less about me and so much more about communicating and listening to the audience and people around. Maybe that's what this is about: that I gave myself the opportunity to take a step out and just listen for a while.

We were sharing love for joni mitchell today in one of my classes. It got me listening to her all day.

But I really love this song. I've loved it for a long time --

work in progress

Here's what I have toned and edited so far for a catalogue  I'm working on (collaboratively with another designer in my class) for sumgirls, local boutique -- more images to come. These were shot at green lakes state park in Syracuse last weekend.