Foto Motel

Documenting The Migrant Party-goer in a Polyester Suit

Its nice that technology has made a place for a good party photographer to stand along side Patrick McMullan. Merlin Bronques has done just that or so says the NYT HERE. Porn, Fun, Voyeuristic, or Party, its a good time. And you are only as good as last night. Check it out HERE. The 70s produced another chronicler of the times, Mapplethorpe. That's right, that famed banned photographer was a really good beautifier, documenting the gay under belly (and sometimes the tops and bottoms) of a scene, a party scene. When you are having that much fun don't you want everybody to know. Or don't you want to be reminded later. Sontag's rolling over in her grave right now. Thanks Mr. Bronques for focusing on people and not the celebrity. I hope you remain so pure. Just think of it Mr. Bronques you could be seen as an FSA-esq photographer of the millennial party set. Where is your "Migrant Party-goer" or "Denizen in Polyester Suit?" There will always be a playground, thank good ness.

Special note: Thanks for thinking of me JW, I'm thinking of you too. I thought I might want this to happen to me too. You may remember me stumbling in, jetting off, or just making a lot of nosie as I passed your door. It was the heels.

Double Paged

Charles Dharapak of the Associated Press gets a gold star for making the front cover of The Washington Post & New York Times on Friday. His picture of Harriet Meiers waving to the press and biting her lip as she delivers her "formal" letter of withdrawl (for nomination to The Supreme Court), to the President, is the perfectly posed timely picture the photodesk has wetdreams about. This guy should get a raise. Check out other front pages of newspapers worldwide HERE.

Cheerleader Pie, sans nazis or homos

"Cheerleaders escape the great pie of Nazis and Homos!" See HERE.

That's right you heard it here first. The cheerleaders in fine art photography do have a home. How I overlooked the work of Brian Finke, I don't know. My apologies Mr. Finke. See Brian's cheerleaders HERE. In more Brian Finke news, he has a new show opening at ClampArt on October 27th. Somebody please stop by and relay Foto Motel's best to him. The show is called Most Muscular. Oops. Looks like the homos were just added to the cheerleader-pie, but don't worry, from the looks of the images on ClampArt they're only 2% homo. Which may be a photographic advancement by Brian Finke. I've always wondered what body builders look like without the seemingly ever-present homo-voyeur filter.

Madonna sited in DC...

...sorry, the other Madonna. Walking up Connecticut Avenue in DC I passed a long line of newspaper boxes and stopped at the "madonna and child" on Friday's cover of the NYT. The colors, the focus are beautiful. The reference to the "madonna and child" is helped by the gray cloth wrapped around the mother's head and the impoverished surronding in the image caused by the earthquake on the Pakistan/Indian border. Not wanting to put any more of a "western eye" on a woman and child that are unknown to me, I'll stop.

The photodesk at the NYT has once again proved they have a great eye. Photographer Gurinder Osan for the Associated Press deserves much of the credit. See more of Osan's work HERE and HERE.

Donate to UNICEF.

Tagging Madonna

Madonna.com wants you to tag. The "Icon's" newly launched site now has a place for fans to send in their collected pictures of Madonna. By sending an email to tagging@madonna.com of a photo "tagged" with numerous one word descriptions. This will create a searchable archive much like Wikipedia. I hope its as self correcting too. Guidelines are posted HERE. I find this interesting because there is a small history of photography that runs through Madonna, from Herb Ritts to Horst P. Horst.  I wonder if people realize this?

Tagging brings the fans together
Strike a tag
What it feels like for a tag
Desperately Seeking a tag
Don't tag Me
Tagline
Tagging Up
Live to tag
Tag another day
Sidewalk Tag
You must be my lucky-tag
Like a Tag
Like a Tag
Beautiful Tagger
Justify My Tag
Where's the Tag
Tag a Bow

Yeah, I couldn't help myself.

Who loves a magazine

The American Society of Magazine Editors announces their list of the top 40 magazine covers from that past 40 years. The 1981 RollingStone cover of Lennon & Ono doing their best ying yang for Annie Leibovitz, tops the list. HERE's the rest of the list. AL shot the number two cover-image of a pregnant Demi Moore on Vanity Fair in 1991. The controversy over that image was only barely surpassed by the one that surrounded a presidential candidate.

Thanks to the Reliable Source.

The Ongoing Moment

Is anybody reading The Ongoing Moment, by Geoff Dyer? I hope to finish it this week. It looks promising. Here's a review. If you are in LA (wish I was), he has a reading at The Hammer Museum in November. More HERE.

Sinar Sale?

According to the PDN Newswire that pops up in my email, Sinar Bron is having a 25 years 25% off sale! The ad claims that more details are on the SBI site. I could not find it. Maybe its a secret sale. Well, the ad did mention some numbers to call, SBI: 800.456.0203. Here's the ad I saw:

Sinar Bron Imaging Sale
Sinar Bron Imaging continues to celebrate its Silver Anniversary Year with the largest sale in its history. Through October 28, every item from FOBA, every power pack, reflector, and lamphead from Broncolor and every view camera, lens and select accessories from Sinar is 25% off. Details at SinarBron.com, call SBI at 800/456-0203 or your local dealer. See SBI at PhotoPlus - Booth 454.

Good shopping.

Meeting Eliot Shepard

Go meet Eliot Shepard. He has a photo for you and an interview on Gallery Hopper, HERE.

Veras Images

Check out Veras Images. Jessica Dimmock has a home there.

Mass Photo Opps

Dec 01, 2005 JURIED SINGLE PHOTO CONTEST Seeking submissions in color and b&W from individual photographs. For more info please contact: Santa Fe Center for Photography OR 505-984-8353 OR http://www.sfcp.org

Nov 07, 2005 INTERNATIONAL FINE ART PHOTOGRAPHY EXHIBITION Seeking all forms of photography (traditional, digital, and avant garde) for showcase. $1,500 Best of Show award and exhibition (including online). Low-cost shipping options for international entrants. For more info please contact: The Naked Truth, The Center for Fine Art Photography OR 970-224-1010 OR http://www.c4fap.org

December 31, 2005 The 2005 National Photo Awards is now accepting entries. Open to all amateur, emerging and professional
photographers. A separate monthly print competition is also available. The competition offers over $6,585.00 in cash and prizes
for the winners in the various categories. Winners will be selected in several categories. $9.00 for each photo entered into the monthly competition, $14.00 for each single photo or $28.00 for each series entered into the main competition. To request your 2005 entry forms and view past winners, contact: 2005 National Photo Awards, 59456 330th St, Warroad MN 56763 OR 218-386-2100 OR http://www.NationalPhotoAwards.com OR awards@mncable.net

November 7, 2005 THE NAKED TRUTH - CALL FOR ENTRIES The Center for Fine Art Photography invites U.S. and International photographers to submit their work. The Center accepts all forms of photography, both traditional and digital and those working in the avant garde. The Center encourages international participation. Awards include: 1. Best of Show, $1,500 US Dollars, 2. Featured Artist in ShowCase, an eight-page insert in CameraArts magazine February-March issue 3. Director's Selection - special recognition in the ShowCase publication, 4. Selected work of approximately 12 other artists from the exhibition will also be included in this edition of ShowCase. 5. All exhibitors' work is featured in the Center's online edition of ShowCase. The Center provides international artists with low-cost shipping options - see details on the Center's website under Call for Entries. Additional details and online submission at: www.c4fap.org, click on Calls for Entry, or call: 970-224-1010.

These appeared in my email yesterday from The Art List. You can subscribe HERE.

O'Hare Art

Congrats to Chicago's O'Hare Airport for not only being a self sufficient entity (it receives no money from taxpayers), but also has a rather impressive display of art. Both rotating and permanent. Click HERE for more info.

Bush Clinton Happy Together

Photographer, Doug Mills was allowed to capture our past two Presidents frolicking (almost skipping) out of The Oval Office together. Click HERE.

Masterfile

Masterfile sends out the best promotional materials. Just got the second in the "unbound" series today. Its so well produced, with its unglamourous paper and "artist book" manufacturing. I went crazy for it. Well, its just nice to get something in the mail at work. Get on the Masterfile client list, you get good stuff.

Abercrombie-Vogue

Some things I never got to post this summer:

• The Polaroid Book, from Tashen
• "Who is Platon?"
• My fantastical idea to collect every magazine cover by Herb Ritts.
• Pitt & Jolie's romp through W
• David Hilliard
• Being underemployed
• American & Other Works, by Andres Serrano
• Why I bought the 800 paged Vogue
• My desire to buy Abercrombie & Fitch catalogs from ebay. I bought a red hoody instead.
• Leitmotif: Photos of celebrities with guns; Madonna and here, Morrissey, Nancy Sinatra, Brad Pitt, Mapplethorpe

Richard Avedon's latest book

Looked through the book, Woman In The Mirror, published posthumously by Richard Avedon, recently during a very un-Funny Face lunch break at Olsson's. Not into this one. The NYT had this to say, "Avedon's photography animated women with spirit and determination." Read the rest HERE. OK, I get it, Dick liked women. Well, I like men and I'm over this. Seriously, In what seems like a pattern of a new book of Avedon's every two years, Woman In The Mirror, is the weakest. We've seen more than 90% of this stuff too recently in other collections. I will say, it was nice to recall a previous fall afternoon when I discovered Avedon's "return to fashion" in the New Yorker years ago, where Nadja Auermann was paired with a skeleton. Which brings up the question, when will his last project (unfinshed), for the New Yorker, "Democracy" be put in book form? Might I suggest pairing it with his 1976 work for Rolling Stone, "The Family," as was done earlier this year at Andrea Rosen Gallery. An election year is right around the corner, get ready.