Foto Motel

Emergency on Planet Polaroid

Behind the Camera

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?

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.

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.
 

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.

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.

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.

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

Supreme Court Group photo

Here's a link to the most current (soon to be defunct), Supreme Court of The United States, Group Photo. Not much different from the photo taken of the court in 1954 (the court that heard "Brown v Board of Education") . Maybe Vanity Fair and Annie Leibovitz will have a go at it. She's already done a pull-out cover of Bush's Administration. Maybe, they're on it already. I'm sure they've tried. Imagine, what it would mean if the official United States Supreme Court photo of the new court, once Bush's appointment is confirmed, (whomever that maybe), was taken by David LaChapelle. What would it mean if the official photo was taken by Andres Serano? Or Liu Zheng, or Alec Soth, or Nan Goldin, or William Eggelston, Bruce Weber. What could it have meant to have the official portrait from 1954 taken by Avedon, Arbus, Horst P. Horst, Gordon Parks or Weegee. Imagine. Chances are, whoever passes the confirmation hearings and is sitting with the other eight on the first Monday in October for their official portrait it will look something like this,