Foto Motel

New projects

I'm trying to begin new projects. As well as, re-vamp my portfolio. Someone once told me that the way to do both things is to find existing images that you like, images of the work you are interested in doing and subjects you want to explore. The next step is to put them on you wall, in a place where you must see them on a daily basis. And finally, write about them, draw them, whatever you do to let them seep into you and your work. Hopefully, after all that something happens. You see your existing work in a new light or a new directions becomes clear. Well, this is where I am. I've got the images on the wall, in front of me at this very moment. It only took four months for them to go up. How long will the writing part take? Just as long. Although, I have noticed some similarities in the images that I didn't notice when I was putting them up.

If you want to see what I'm looking at go HERE.

Any comments?

Focus on AIDS 11: UpDate

PDN Online reports that, The 11th Focus On AIDS photo auction raised about $270,000. The biggest sellers: Henri Cartier-Bresson's “Behind the Gare St. Lazare, Paris 1932,” for $17,500, and Sally Mann's limited-edition platinum series book, for $8,000.

Square America

America Squared.
I have a new treasure, Square America, see it HERE. I personally went straight HERE, to the guns section, 'cause well, that's me, (earlier post HERE). Curiously enough I didn't see any photos of gun-toting babes, like HERE, HERE, HERE and of course HERE. I guess women didn't pose like that in "vernacular" photography during the first half of the last century. There were a lot of kids with guns, cowboys and soldiers to make up for the lack of gun-toting babes. Americans like there guns.

The reason I'm so attracted to these images and the many like them is, I hope, maybe even expect to find myself in them. If not me, then maybe, just maybe a long lost photo of my parents or grandparents. A hidden treasure to answer all the unanswered  and unanswerable questiuons. I have not. But I keep coming back.

Jury your Digital Art & Photography

L.A. Center for Digital Art Juried Competition
Deadline: November 30, 2005
Fee: $30
What You Get: 10 prints in a solo show

Click HERE for more.

Steve Smith's book

Congratulations to Steve Smith on the publication of his book, The Weather and a Place to Live: Photographs of the Suburban West. Which was made possible by, The Center for Documantary Studies/Honickman First Book Prize from Duke University.

And I remember when Steve Smith came to RISD. I wonder if he'll sign my copy.

"Change Me" Getty

I've forgotten the mini-cooper that I didn't win from Corbis because Getty has "Change Me." Here's what Getty says on the site:

Change Me is an open conversation that brings people together to share ideas through powerful imagery.

Simply find an image that inspires you and use it to express an idea that has the ability to touch or affect the person viewing it.

If selected, your image/idea may appear as part of a traveling global exhibit, and be published in a book.

For each submission we will donate $10 to ONE: The Campaign to Make Poverty History - which helps raise awareness about the crisis of extreme poverty and AIDS.

So I figure that with 2004 profits of $107 million that's 10,700,000 submissions that they can afford. So what are you waiting for click HERE. And tell your friends too.

The Four Sisters Brown

The Brown Sisters are in town for the holidays. I was sure they were avoiding a national gathering, since its their 31st anniversary. I can't blame them, who wants to be surrounded by tourists, flashers and old aunts at the holidays that only poke, prod and point at you, remind you that you're still in black & white and that you have not changed a bit.

Go see the Brown Sisters by Nicholas Nixon at The National Gallery in DC. More info HERE. See them at their 25th HERE. Word has it that one of the photography curators at the NG went to high school with the sisters. And in case you didn't know, third from left is Bebe, aka Mrs. Nicholas Nixon.

To see some other Brown Sisters click HERE, HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE.
 

Gotta Get a Getty Grant

Get your Getty Image Grant HERE. Deadline is November 15th.

Magazine Abundance

What to do with two years of PDN, Picture, Blind Spot, Photo Shop User, Modern Painters, and American Photo? I want to keep Modern Painters because it smells the best.

Jessica Dimmock Q&A ???

Who would like to see a Q & A with Jessica Dimmock? See earlier posts HERE & HERE. Let me know.

Supreme Court group photo: Update #1

Doug Mills of The New York Times got a candid photo of the most recent edition of The US Supreme Court. Stay tuned another update is on the way. Not one of the 9 is focused on the camera. Guess who looks happiest to be apart of the group. Now guess who looks like, as they say on MTV's Sweet Sixteen, "I'm so over this, let's go home." Interesting thing about Roberts, his hands are in a very similar position to Rienquist's hands in previous group photos. I just noticied that and thought I would share.

Stephen Crowley hits up "Tableaux Vivant"

Bought the NYT today at Starbucks on 7th & G because of the beautiful poster like image of Bush and Alito by Kevin Lamarque/Reuters on the front page. How could I resist the blurry absence of George and the lost-in-space puckered kiss of Alito. Well was I in for a pleasant surprise on page A18-A19. That's right, a Stephen Crowley spread. This guy's work and the forward thinking of his editors has produced an amazing image. I presume it to be two images again (see earlier post HERE). This is the newspaper version of the triple fold-outs Leibovitz does for Vanity Fair. See HERE & HERE. Frankly Alex, I'll take Stephen Crowley for the NYT for a dollar (in DC) over Vanity Fair any day. Though, I do a a sweet spot or two for it.

Talk about telling looks. Bush looks down. Alito spys on Bush to his right from almost closed eyelids. An empty chair to his left. The Alito family stand in the second panel. Daughter and son both look down. Maybe mesmerized by the positions the unseen photographers must take on the floor to make a picture of their father. Only his wife is seen proudly looking in the direction of the podium. Random photographers in foreground and one hiding behind a plotted plant. Not only is Bush pictured, but we get two others presidents as well. A Portrait of Kennedy is tucked away in the center of the image, arms folded looking down. Clinton's portrait beems above the Alito family. And wouldn't you know it, his painted hand appears to be on Laura Alito's shoulder. This image by Stephen Crowley is almost pure American "Tableaux Vivant" history painting.

Robin Gavhin, I hope you explore this nominee and his family through their fashion sense as you did Robert's earlier, HERE.