"Liberation" and its Reality

Photograph by Paolo Pellegrin. Aperture Magazine, spring 2010, issue 198.

Saba is the name of the girl in this photograph. She went to university in Baghdad until a gunman shot the driver of her car in the head. He then shot Saba in the chest at point blank range immediately severing her spinal cord. She was instantly paralyzed, but some how managed to call her parents for help on her cell phone. She went to several hospitals, but no one would treat her. Now she lays in a bed in a friends apartment afraid that the gunman that shot her will find and kill her. This is the reality of what the American government has deemed the "liberation" of Iraq.

Changing of The Guard

David Cole's photograph, Changing of the Guard, is a poignant reminder that presidential administrations come and go, unfortunately their actions, or lack of, can remain with us deep into our futures. The ease with which Chief Petty Officer Bill Mesta takes out former President George W. Bush's picture at Guantanamo Bay, and replaces it with President Barack Obama's is quite telling. Isn't the presidency just a picture constructed by each administration to anesthetize the people? If ever a glossy finish were applied to a photographic print, it would certainly be used for the official presidential portrait (a LOT of gloss is needed to make this a pretty picture).

Time for a short story. I remember rolling into school, in the summer of 1985, to have my graduation picture taken for our high school year book. School had not officially started, but I was on campus because soccer practice began several weeks before the start of the school year. Ok, one problem. No one actually told me I was going to get my picture taken for the year book that summer day, so when someone came down to the soccer field to tell me to go get my photograph taken, it came as quite a surprise. I was covered with mud, wearing my goalkeeper clothes, and I didn't have an extra change of clothes. So, I washed my face, threw on a graduation gown and hat and had my picture taken. The photograph actually turned out nice, but what would people think if they knew what I was hiding under my handsome graduation gown? In this regard, I do share something in common with our government.

Fecal Feel Fun

Doing The Fecal Dance

fecalography Continued

Fecalography

Opinions, opinions, opinions...? We can't get away from them-they're running rampant out of people's mouths and through our brains! Opinions pierce our Chi like hot glass chards in our cornea. I'm not interested in what you think-especially if it's based on nothing more than the hot air coming out of your pie-hole. Maybe I'm deranged? Ok, yes, of course I'm deranged. I started thinking that saying something controversial might be fun in a sick and mentally twisted way. Since I'm fairly certain no one really reads my blog, I thought this would be a great place to wade into a rant, or possibly a diatribe if you prefer. I love a good rant-mostly because we never totally know how they get started, and we usually have no idea where we will finish. If you don't want to here another opinion, stop reading now.

If I laid a big steamy dump on a plate and told you about its beautiful biomorphic form, and its creamy cocoa brown saturated color, and then I referenced someone else's art work to set a precedent and create a historical context for my plate of poop, would my fecal matter be considered art? Pardon my sassy phrasing. The reason I reference SHIT in this blog is because Neil LaBute mentions it in his article Because the Darkness Feeds My Soul in the Fall 2009 issue of Aperture magazine. The photographs in this article are a collaborative effort. The images are created by Gerald Slota, and the text accompanying the images is by Neil Labute. To make a medium length story-short, Gerald Slota finds old images and then mutilates each image-then Neil Labute writes a few words on the image and it's a done deal. I'm sorry, but this sounds a lot like shit on a plate. I would certainly prefer not to eat shit!

We Have Ways of Making You Talk

Daniel and Geo Fuchs

In The Halls Of The Stasi

Article by Matthias Harder

Aperture, summer 2009, issue 195

Daniel and Geo Fuchs photographically portray one of the Stasi prison detention centers in east Germany. The cold sterility and the sense of vast emptiness help these powerful images speak loudly of what went on behind the closed doors of this detention center. Though many years have passed since these rooms where used for interrogation, I still sense the terror emanating from these photographs.

Robert Adams

Robert Adams

Summer Nights, Walking

Interview with Joshua Chuang

Aperture, Winter 2009, issue 197

Adams shot this series in the summer of 1979. I remember this summer. A year later in the summer of 1980 the Phillies won their first world series. Anyway, The sense of place and time struck me in this group of photographs. Sometimes I can look at a picture and be transported back to a certain time and space. These pictures are so silent and still, yet they so powerfully move me, in a gentle way, into my past.

Poetry in Pictures

Minor White
Aperture, Winter 2008, issue 193

How does the saying go? A picture is worth a thousand words? The honest truth is most are not, but this picture by Minor White is truly a gem.

Debbie Fleming Caffery

Debbie Fleming Caffery

Stories And Histories

Article by Mary-Charlotte Domandi

Aperture, Fall 2009, issue 196

Debbie Caffery is from southern Louisiana. The photographs in this series focus on the Bayou Teche in what is known as sugarcane county. Sugarcane county was home to thousands of slaves who were forced to work at the sugarcane factories in the 19th century. Caffery's black and white photographs seem to carry an apocalyptic undercurrent. Actually, the apocalyptic feeling is more than an undercurrent; it's in your face. The opening photograph is of a small group of children playing by the water. The innocence I normally associate with childhood is muted due to the children's dark shadowed representation. The subsequent photographs focus on people in the midst of some type of earthly catastrophe. Caffery's dark imagery both conjures the past hardships of her subjects, while simultaneously foreshadowing the dark events of Hurricane Katrina.

Eadweard J. Muybridge Fact

Eadweard J. Muybridge (1830-1904)

The Alta California, a news paper in the mid 19th century, once wrote of Muybridge: "he has waited several days in the neighborhood to get the proper conditions of atmosphere for some of his views; he has cut down trees by the score that interfered with the cameras best point of sight; he had himself lowered by ropes down precipices to establish his instruments in places where the full beauty of the object to be photographed could be transferred to the negative; he has gone to points where his packers refused to follow him, and he has carried the apparatus himself rather than to forgo the pictures on which he has set his mind."

I decided to take this pioneering attitude into the field with my camera last week, and I promptly got my car stuck in the snow. I did get some pictures while my car was stuck, then I lost my clog in a large pile of snow and had to dig my car out of the snow by hand and drive home. In the midst of all this my cell phone was ringing, but I lost that too.

Deceased Photographs

I used to love the thought of this photograph, but somewhere along my way it left me standing in the dark.

Life is so huge and so small. Is this the beginning or the end? Are we awake or just dreaming fast in flight? I have a photograph etched in the marrow of my body and soul. I was flying so high. I was filled with the certainty of my youth skipping across the slipstream of life when she took me with her sight, her green eyes dancing in the late October night back in 78'. Two children were held tight in the preflight position of their life, questioning their human rights. Thinking back now, I remember how we ran together through our lives restless gates, and I remember how our bodies came together like roots to the earth. Some may say this was the result of God's grace and light, or perhaps it was a prelude to a charmed life. We were bound like the shore line to the sea, so close, yet so far. We stood at our precipice drawn together tight. We lived in a home spun cocoon, through so many moments of time we dwelled in life's womb. Inevitably though, the force of life took us from behind. Even though we willed with our entire might, reality had its way with us, diminishing our pledged rights, and we went crashing with all our human fright into the superimposed night.

What? You say you found this photograph and you have been using it for a cocktail napkin?

The Taoist Maniac

Who were the guys that left the bread crumbs on the ground to help find their way home? Whoever they were, I bet they wish they had some of this Spanish Tapas instead of a bag of crumbs.

Anyway, I got to thinking the other day (an activity that normally leads to a state of despondency) that maybe the pictures we take might be left behind to help someone find their way home. Who knows? Maybe if I look close enough, I might find my own way home. In some strange way, photography reminds me that the past is my companion not my adversary, and the future is something I can help shape not run from. Normally "the state of the nation" just makes me want to bury my head in a hole, but taking photographs can be an empowering experience. I feel like capturing moments of time gives me something permanent to hold onto-life moves so fast now. Maybe life moves at the same pace it always has, and its me that has slowed down. When I take pictures I feel in sync with life. I'm not pushing or pulling. I think the Taoist philosophers called this the art of non-action. I wish I new how to live life the way I take pictures. Generally speaking, I'm a pusher and a puller. You might say I'm a crazed maniac, but a gentle maniac-I promise.

Maybe I'm Lost?

Spanish tapas late night.

Still Getting Longer

Spanish tapas in the early evening.

The Long Road Home

Spanish tapas in the afternoon.

The Long Road Home

Spanish tapas in the morning. Google Susan Goldman for more food photographs.

Nadar 1856

"Photography is a marvelous discovery, a science that has attracted the greatest intellects, an art that excites the most astute minds - and one that can be practiced by any imbecile."

The Zen of Photography

Zenographer - Leon's made-up word that refers to the act of artistic and spiritual enlightenment through the meditative practice of image making. I hope my image making journey is more fruitful than my spiritual journey. I do love dried fruit. Maybe I'm more spiritual than I think.

Off The Grid

I'm thinking she doesn't have a refrigerator?

Peruvian Women Meet A Chorus Line.

Peru is sponsoring an OFF, OFF broadway rendition of A Chorus Line.

The Old Johnny Quest Cartoon Series

I just found Hoji hiding high in the Himalayas . He can't find Dr. Quest.

Peru Needs A Super Hero Too

I can leap tall buildings in a single bound!

Photography is much like life. Understanding it takes a lot of time fruitlessly fumbling in the dark. Life certainly contains its share of latent images--some we drag out into the light and others we bury deep in darkness. In photography, as in life, we dance between the night and the day time light. If we are fortunate, we finish with a picture we don't mind showing someone. What? You only take digital photos? Just shut your pie hole. Digital photography doesn't work with this analogy.

What the hell does this have to do with my posted photograph? Answer: absolutely nothing. It was probably a digital photo.

Walter Rosenblum

Three Children on Swings is one image of a much larger project called "Pitt Street Series" by Walter Rosenblum. He shot this series of pictures in New York city, 1938. The moment really came together well in this photograph. The thought young and fun just entered my mind. What is it about a swing set that makes us want to test its/our outer limits? As young children, maybe it's our first chance to dare fate, I'm not sure. Why do we always want to swing higher than all the other kids? This shot takes me back to "the beginning." Doesn't everyone remember their first swing set?" What? you say you never had a swing set? Frown.

Sure, we could talk about everything that makes this picture a technical success (composition, print quality, content, etc), but we would be doing a huge disservice to a beautiful moment suspended in time. Yes, an exceptional photograph is comprised of these attributes, but ultimately it must entice us emotionally. Can we appreciate and enjoy a photograph that doesn't include an emotional facet? Yes, without doubt, but a picture without an emotional connection never really transcends its inherent two dimensional existence. Or, maybe I'm just a big stupid blowhard who just turned 42 years old. This picture speaks to a simpler time in our lives - a time when we could swing high with abandon.

Amy Stein

I found myself aimlessly driving through the country last Monday in an attempt to find the one "thing" that no one else ever photographed, or possibly to think of the one idea that has never been explored photographically. What? Ok, so I never actually took any pictures. Anyway, as I was driving, and not taking any pictures, I started to think about Amy Stein and her series of photos about people stranded on the side of the road who needed help. She goes all over the country, rents a car, and drives around searching for people stranded on the road to photograph. I humorously started to think about parking my car on the side of the road with the hood up, and snapping pictures of anyone who actually stopped to see if I needed help. Maybe Amy Stein would show up? An hour or so later, I wound up at a book store perusing the magazine racks, I look down, and I find this picture (Fast Food, 2007 ) by Amy Stein on the cover of Orion Magazine.

A box of Wendys french fries and a lonely burger bun lay in the foreground. The American flag stands tall in the background, and in the middle six birds swirl in a circle in the parking lot of a Perkins restaurant. The subtext in the title of this magazine reads: nature/culture/place. What? What does all this mean? Judging from the subtext of this magazine title, I'm thinking that we are a fast food, consumer nation that feeds on itself like annoying little stank creatures. The American flag, the symbol of a nation with potential limited only by our shortsightedness, waves lethargically in the bleak winter cold. Or, maybe someone just stopped to feed the birds.

Check out Amy Steins Domesticated series of photos at Harvard University's Museum of Natural History, January 21-March 19, 2010.

Rediscovering Pete Turner

John Rohrbach of Color Magazine writes that as a child Pete Turner used the money he won playing gin rummy with his fathers musician friends to buy colorful postage stamps. What is it with photographers? I recently read that Minor White collected thousands of post cards. In Fact, Minor White would sometimes mail his friends post cards during his travels and then demand that his friends return the post cards after they were read.

Anyway, I'm just a young grasshopper in the world of photography, but when I came across John Rohrbachs' article, Pete Turner: The Doctor No of Color, I was smitten. Did someone say color? Turner pimps color like it's nobodies business. And I love it! Check out this photograph taken in 1970 titled Push. Color, form, and content merge to create one hell of a seamless photograph. Pete Turner is a zen master of color. He mixes color like a hip hop DJ spins his rhythm and jive. Yes, it's loud and in your face, and it's undeniably brilliant.

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