Foto Motel

My Favorite Books from 2008

Including one re-issue and a pop-up book.

 

Sex Advice from Photographers

Sex advice from Photographers on NERVE. I doled out some advice to Will Doig of Nerve. What is there now is only partial advice, you'll have to become a subsrciber to read all of the advice. Hope it helps.

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.

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.
 

Jessica Dimmock Q&A ???

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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