12.26.2011

Ever notice...

Candace - 122611

... the feeling of over consumption after Christmas?  I am talking about the food, beverages, toys, gifts, wrapping paper, and all the extra stuff?  I think I am ready to make a big change for 2012.

No more Christmas gifts for me from family and friends.  We all stress out shopping for the people on our list without really having time to get something they want.  I know I've rushed gifts off without much thought on if it will be good for the receiver.  I've received those gifts as well.  They are more of a burden than a gift. 

I went to Bed, Bath, and Beyond today to get a few household items.  The return line was 20+ deep while the purchase line was empty.  All these people got something they didn't want and now have to get a refund or store credit and find something else.  

I prefer shopping for a birthday gift where I can think on the person and try to get them something personal.  Some of my friends and I prefer experiential gifts, like massages, dinners, etc.  Others prefer items like music, art, and other things they can enjoy, or hold, or consume.  By having time to focus on the individual I can get them that special something that will feel good for them.




12.24.2011

On the road... again

Mare Island - 122311

I am about to head out of town for a good chunk of Christmas break.  I am not sure how my internet access will be while away, but I will try to check in when I can.

To fellow Christians, Merry Christmas.  To my Jewish readers, Happy Hanukkah.  To every one, peace to you, your family and the world.  We need some peace around here.




12.23.2011

One more for the winter solstice

Katie - 122311


This photo of Katie always makes me think of the winter solstice.  I wish all of you long beautiful nights.

12.22.2011

*Winter Solstice

Moon 122111



**Winter Solstice -
I love the long darkness that is broken by short daylight illuminating a desaturated gray, white, black and muted colors world. 
I love the cold expressions of the earth - steam rising off the water, a dog's breath visible with every pant, the shivers of the people in line for the bus.
I enjoy this day when we are all the same gray beings shuffling about in our gloved lives. 
I see the world and all living things as they are - naked of pretense, color, or spark for at this time we exist to move toward the lighter longer days. 
Tomorrow is when every day will start getting longer and people come back to color, life,  purpose, pretension of what is going to sprout from the sky's warm light. 
Instead, this is the day when all pretension of the earth is stripped bare, we are naked of rich beauty and exposed as the raw, unadorned bones and leafless trees.

Hazy Shade of Winter - Paul Simon
Hang on to your hopes, my friend
That's an easy thing to say, but if your hope should pass away
It's simply pretend
That you can build them again
 




I know the winter solstice was yesterday. I enjoyed its dark beauty.

12.21.2011

Abarth ad translation - fantasy and fanaticism

Abarth ad still

Do you feel lost thinking that I could be yours forever?
In yesterday's post, Gender and Sexual Dynamics, I posted a video for the Fiat 500 Abarth.  In the post I mentioned wishing I knew what the woman (played by Romanian actress/ model Catrinel Menghia) was saying, but felt afraid that by knowing, some of the tension and greatness of the ad would fade.  My curiosity got  the better of me and I looked it up.  Below is a translation.

What are you looking at? Uh!?
What are you looking at?! (slap)
Are you undressing me with your eyes?
Poor guy… you can’t help it?
Is your heart beating? Is your head spinning?
Do you feel lost thinking that I could be yours forever?

Those last three lines are brilliant, in my mind.  They tap into the male's (at least this male's) psyche and think about fantasy/possibility of "forever".  I need to remember though Carla's cautionary words she shared in her comment about the dangers of being a man's fantasy girl.
He doesn't have a clue who you really are. Indeed, you don't exist. You are just the stand-in for a dream and had better stay that way. You are so right. In reality, your competition is a car, a job, the guy's mother or religion, whatever. 
Abarth ad still

After reflecting on this a bit, I have to think about fantasy.  I believe fantasies can be healthy, beautiful, inspiring, and needed.  Sometimes my fantasy narrative was the only thing that kept me going in the roughest parts of my life.  What I worry about is when fantasy becomes fanaticism.  It is funny how those two words are so similar in spelling.


Fanaticism - "... a belief or behavior involving uncritical zeal, particularly for an extreme religious or political cause or in some cases sports, or with an obsessive enthusiasm. Philosopher George Santayana defines fanaticism as "redoubling your effort when you have forgotten your aim"; according to Winston Churchill, "A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject". By either description the fanatic displays very strict standards and little tolerance for contrary ideas or opinions. In his book Crazy Talk, Stupid Talk, Neil Postman states that "the key to all fanatical beliefs is that they are self-confirming....(some beliefs are) fanatical not because they are 'false', but because they are expressed in such a way that they can never be shown to be false." - Wikipedia (bold emphasis mine)
When I read Carla's blog post that started all of this, she wrote of the sexual troll's in both real life and the pixel forest or internet.  These guys only focus on the sex and not the person they are interacting with.  I am wondering if part of their problem is that they have lost the ability to differentiate between fan, fantasy, and fanatic and are lost in their uncritical zeal, strict standards, and little tolerance for contrary ideas. 

Abarth ad still


12.20.2011

Gender and sexual dynamics.

Joshua Tree National Park - 122011

Blog friend Carla wrote a great post about sexual aggression titled, Holiday and Everyday- STRANGE.  Her post elicited many comments on the subject and made me reflect on the power of sexual dynamics and the self.   As a response, another blog friend, Cyranos posted a personal and very well-written post about internet perv trolls titled, Orcs, Trolls, and the Culture of Sexual Othering…  Like Carla's post, it generated many reflective and well written comments.  I highly recommend you read them both.

I wont really elaborate more than what I wrote in the comments sections of both posts.  I think we all have varying scales of sexual aggression and behaviors.  We all can be the bad boy, choir boy, perv, slut, skank, angel, demon, dominant, submissive, aggressive, passive, studly sexual beings.  We use these for both sex and power.  Sometimes we want to command, other times we want follow.  I know I can see all those characteristics in myself and probably use them for different purposes throughout life.


"Sex. In America an obsession. In other parts of the world a fact."
- Marlene Dietrich
I really like the new (to the US) Fiat 500*.  I checked out the US website and was drawn instantly to the new Fiat 500 Abarth, the sports model. There is a video (see below) for the new Abarth.  At first glance I thought it was sexy, objectifying, and funny.  After reading Carla and Cyranos's posts, I find it much more complex and contextual in regards to my reflections on their posts.  I would love to speak Italian and know what she is saying.  My question for all of you, who has the power?  My thoughts on that are below the video.

Abarth Video


Ok, now you have watched the video, who has the power?  In my mind, he does.  It is obvious she has it at first, but in the end, she is just a representation of the car in his mind.  She doesn't exist.   The erotic symbolism of the frothed milk foam is one of the most blatantly sexually suggestive elements I've seen in any commercial.  It can represent anything from his dominance to his premature ejaculatory issues (maybe I am being to Freudian and have to remember that sometimes frothed milk foam is just frothed milk foam).   **What are your thoughts on this bit of advertising?


*Italians design and build the sexiest and most passionate cars in the world.  Their cars are not known for reliability and great function, but who cares.  You feel safe and secure in a German car and sexy and alive in an Italian car.  Choose whichever makes sense for your needs.

** I am very happy to see the European advertising influences coming to America.  Europeans are not afraid of sexing things up.  It reinforces the Marlene Dietrich quote.

12.18.2011

Dividing the "intrinsicals"

Candace - 121811


Which are yours to keep
my snow, your sun, the in-betweens
lie on the table.

12.17.2011

Hues or gradients?


Candace Nirvana - 121711

Awhile back blog friend Carla suggested in a comment I write about why I choose to create photos in black and white or color.  I've been thinking about it now for a few weeks and it comes down to one question, "Which works best for what I need?" I know that sounds so simple to be almost trite, but the answer is the basis of all my art and the subjective power of the medium.

When I shoot digital, I always shoot in color*.  Most of my photos instantly lend themselves to color, black and white, or some subdued middle ground instantly.  This may be due to elements being too distracting or ruining the image if not changed over.  Since the answer is usually pretty obvious, the BW vs color choice is pretty easy.

For some of my photos, it is much harder to choose the final output.  The image works very well in either format.  At this point I have to ask

  1. What the intent of the photo is?  
  2. Is it part of a series that is in one treatment or the other?  Does it matter if it is different than the rest?
  3. Am I concerned about texture, pattern, line, shadows and graphic details?  Yes, go desaturated or BW. 
  4. Is the color a or the component to the image? Yes, go color.  I may even have to emphasize certain colors and play with saturation and color channels to get it just right.
Think of a sunset photo.  I bet it is a color photo.  Now think of a photo of woman carrying an umbrella on a cold rainy day in Dublin.  You probably can better imagine that in black and white.

Sometimes I choose one over the other because of the feel it gives off.  For me, BW can "feel" more factual while color can "feel" more abstract and multidimensional.   This is not a golden rule for me, but for a recent series, I wanted the feel that black and white gave as a sense of documentary of the emotions of the people in the photos even though the whole series is conceptual and highly interpretive.  I wanted people to really focus on the emotions on the faces.  The photo of Valya in the bed works in black and white so much better for me because of the emotional feel conveys so much better desaturated than in color.
Valya - 121711
Valya - 121711



Jacqui - 121711
Jacqui - 121711
The photo of Jacqui in the truck only works in color for me.  I saw how her dress, my truck, and the rich blue California sky worked so well together.  The photo has strong directional lines that would lend well to a black and white photo, but obviously color is the best choice.  Compare this to the photos of her wearing just a white dress while sitting in the same truck.  For those, black and white was my only choice.
Jacqui - 121711

Jacqui - 121711



Sometimes I have a hard time deciding which is best.  I ask other photographers for their thoughts, but this usually has mixed results.  Some like color, others like the black and white better.  The photo of Jacqui below has had about equal votes for both treatments.  In the end, I will have to decide which works better for what I need it for.  I have to answer the four questions above to help me divine the answer.
Jacqui - 121711
Jacqui - 121711
 






















Do I have a predelection for one treatment over the other.  It depends on my mood, my life experiences at the time, and if I am excited or bored with the treatment.  I learned to photograph using black and white film, developing it, and making wet prints from it.  I feel that may give me a bit more of a push toward black and white, but I still like both.  By learning to shoot in black and white, I learned key components of line, shape, pattern, contrast, and other BW elements that translate well to color photography and make those images better.

Below are pairs of photos with both treatments.  Feel free to share comments if one works better than the other for you and why that is so.

*The basic reason to photograph digitally in color RAW and then convert to black and white instead of just using the camera's black and white settings comes down to shades of grey.  When you use your camera's internal BW setting, it limits the captured image to 256 shades of grey, but if you shoot in color the sensor captures 256 shades of blue, red and green each.  If you multiplied 256X256X256, you get the total number of different colors captured - 16.8 million different colors.  When you convert the photo from color to BW on your computer, each one of those captured colors will have slightly different shades of grey from each other.  Your BW image will have much greater tonal range and look richer.


Candace - 121711
Candace - 121711





















Jacqui - 121711
Jacqui - 121711

























Courtney - 121711
Courtney - 121711

























Palm Springs - 121711
Palm Springs - 121711


Candace - 121711
Candace - 121711




12.16.2011

The small pathetic

Valya - 121611

The small pathetic
lies with barbed ice seething cold
in his heart's demise.

12.13.2011

Overstaying my welcome

Delta Sign - 121411

Back in college our group of friends would take turns hosting parties.  There would usually be a dozen or so of us laughing, dancing, arm wrestling, drinking, eating, toking, making out, joking, and then repeat.  Each party was a treat that lasted for hours and ended when everyone dribbled out.  This exodus usually would last only last ten minutes or so before everyone cleared out.

One night at Scott and Tracy's, four of us remained as we hung out in the living room talking, laughing and getting drunk.  At one point (around two am) there was a lull in the conversation and we could hear the music coming from the stereo.  The song was Contact by Phish.  The relaxing lyrics of the first verse so clearly poured into our ears.
The tires are the things on your car
That make contact with the road
The car is the thing on the road
That takes you back to your abode
We looked at Scott and asked if he was trying to give us a hint.  He laughed and shrugged.  We all then laughed and decided it was time to walk home.  That song became a running joke that we would all play at parties as the exit tune.  It was a funny way to give the soft message, "Time to move along."

We moved to California in 1997 and have lived in Vallejo ever since.  That is only fourteen years, but that is four years longer  than I've lived in  any other place in my life.  Vallejo feels like home and I am comfortable here, but I am getting the subtle signs, internal and external, that it is time to move on.  For the past year or so I've felt both pushes and tugs to leave.  These forces are communicating to me that it is time to move along down the road.

Las Vegas Sign - 121411
The pushes are all around me.  They are subtle and I believe exist in both my subconscious and of those around me.  Many of the pushes are probably my sub-conscious creating negative narratives affirming a need of my own.  One example is the feeling at work that it is time to move one.  The job feels old and rusting.  My performance is getting worn out and I am running out of enthusiasm for it.  I wouldn't be shocked if my coworkers feel the same about me. 

While I may be manufacturing many of the pushes in my mind, I've noticed real ones too.  I've burned a few bridges over the years.  One really bad and recent one is indirectly sending me push messages.  Through very indirect communication (some subtle, some public), the sender is giving signals that my presence and welcome are worn out.  The sender is done with me and it is time for me to fade away.  I earned that push so I am trying to fade out as quietly as possible.

Helping the push are the tugs pulling me into new areas.  The tugs come from going to New York, Las Vegas, Rome, and my other wanderings and travels.  During those times away I felt tugs to move to the new area and a growing regret when I got back to the Bay Area.  These tugs made me realize that a new home awaits me elsewhere.  These tempting tugs beckon me with promises of a  home where I am welcomed, wanted, and where I can bring fresh blood, no burned bridges, new perspective, experience, passion art, humor, and energy.  These places are not tired of or annoyed with Karl yet nor feel the need to push me out.  I haven't disappointed, failed, hurt, or broken hearts in those places.  I am sure though one day I will.  It seems everyplace I go I overstay my welcome.

Phish - Contact

12.11.2011

Valya

Valya 121111


One of my favorite days this year was November 21st.  It was the last day of my New York vacation/photography trip.  It also was a chance to photograph Valya.  My artist's soul needed to work with her again.

I had a loose concept and we discussed it.   It is not as easy to define as our stuff we created in 2010.  This one is still in its infancy and I wanted a look and feel, but direction of emotion and movement was very open to the moment.   We talked through different nuances and parts and also let the moment flow through with minimal words.   After the photo shoot we talked some more.  I need to say this.  Valya is a true artist muse for me.   I truly feel it is a gift and honor to create art with her. 

Valya 121111
I don't use the term "muse" lightly.  I've only worked with a few, and each one of them was a gift to me and my art.  One key part of our relationship is the trust in each other.  I trust her as I share my ideas and how they come from deep in me.  Sometimes I am not the best at expressing them, yet she has a muse's magic at helping me dig them up.  She knows when to ask a question and when to let silence guide both of us.  I trust her with the things I share about my thoughts, visions, nightmares, and where I want to go, no matter how vague.

I feel she trusts me as well to witness her natural state.   She doesn't act so much as she lives through the moment.  I feel she shares a bit of her soul with me as I shared mine as well.  This openness allows both of us to feel comfortable and connected which allows us to create together.

Another gift we share is that we can laugh during a session.  I tend to pick darker, sadder, and quieter moments I want to capture.  I greatly appreciate the laughs to help keep things real as well.

One of my favorite things Valya does is shares ideas.  She offers thoughts, suggestions, and works with me to create what I need.  She gives every effort during our time and I greatly appreciate it.

At this time of year I look back and think of things to be thankful for.  One of my top things is having had the privilege of sharing time with Valya twice this year.  She not only helps me make art, she helps me live it.

12.05.2011

I loved pushing your buttons.


I was born at an interesting time, but aren't we all?  My mom sent me into the world a few months before Neil Armstrong did his "giant leap."  I became self aware in the mid seventies and came of age in the eighties.  During that time, especially 1975 to around 1983 I became fascinated with buttons (the pushing type, not the holding your shirt closed type) for they represented technology and the manifestation of my imagination.

I forgot about this obsession until a few nights ago when I was using my iPhone.  After entering terms for a Google search in it, I realized its touchscreen did not have the satisfaction of feeling the physical responsive reply of a button actually being depressed or feeling the click.  That night I couldn't sleep because a flood of button memories came rushing in and I had to think about why the actual act of pushing buttons used to be my heart crying out for technology (and all its possibilities) that did not exist yet in my personal life.  I also realized just how few buttons existed in my life back then.  They mainly turned on or off things or made things manually open, close or shift.

Computers were just starting to be used in major systems, such as space flight when I was born.  By the early nineties, our cars had computers much more powerful than those that were on the Apollo spaceships.  At the same time as the early Apollo missions, the television show Star Trek (1966-1969) accentuated the major role of a central computer that regulated the ship, kept a huge database of information, was used for navigation, medical diagnosis, making food, and a multitude of other applications. 

I remember the first time I watched Star Trek I was amazed by all the buttons.  They did so many things.  Sulu could fire the phasers, Scotty could maintain the engines, Dr. McCoy could diagnosis patients by twisting a dial, moving slider and pushing a button.  After seeing that I wanted to push every button around, especially if it made something happen using electricity.

During the Christmas break of 1975, we moved into a new home in Billings, Montana and I soon found every new-to-me  button in the house.  The doorbell gave immediate satisfaction but became boring after a few repetitive pushes.   The two buttons on the stove vent hood turned on the fan or the light.  I liked those, one was red and the other was black.  We had a new box fan that used push buttons to select the speeds. The only other buttons around my life were the ones on the car's AM radio that changed the stations.  I would sometimes sit in the car in our driveway and push the buttons to watch the needle bounce around the radio dial.  In my mind I was flying a space ship though and these buttons were controlling everything important.

My obsession with controlling technology and pushing buttons went crazy in June 1977.  My mom took me to see Star Wars.  Along with all the aspects of it that an 8 year old boy could become obsessed with (my first crush was for Princess Leia), I loved all the damn buttons.  The spaceships and fighters had them, the Death Star was full of buttons that could operate trash compactors or destroy planets.  Even Darth Vader had them on his chest which kept him alive.  My favorite button though was the one and only button on the light saber.  I truly understood Obi Wan Kenobi's words of wisdom about this powerful weapon as he gave  Luke Skywalker his father's light saber.  This simple elegant weapon only needed one button to do the bidding of the user.
Obi-Wan: "I have something here for you. Your father wanted you to have this when you were old enough, but your uncle wouldn't allow it. He feared you might follow old Obi-Wan on some damned-fool idealistic crusade like your father did."
Luke: "What is it?"
Obi-Wan: "Your father's lightsaber. This is the weapon of a Jedi Knight. Not as clumsy or as random as a blaster. An elegant weapon... for a more civilized age."
God, I wanted a light saber.  

Robot Chicken Star Wars 3 - Clip 2 from Revolver Entertainment on Vimeo.

Around that time more buttons began appearing at home.  I can remember going to the store with my dad to buy our first calculator and distinctly recall its $80 price tag.  It had red LED numbers and could only perform addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division, and nothing else.  It was magic to me.  It was our first computer.  It was TECHNOLOGY.

My mom was so excited for it.  She took care of the family checkbook and finances and always did the math on scratch paper.  This technology saved her hours of work over the course of a year.   On the other hand, I grew bored of its mathematical uses and soon used it as part of a cardboard spaceship cockpit which had many cardboard buttons, but the calculator became the ships computer.  I remember how stiff the buttons were and could sense the click from it both through auditory and tactical feedback. 

After that we got a stereo record player with more buttons, followed by a Kleenex box shaped tape recorder.  More buttons that actually did things were entering my life.  With all of this I was not satiated, my friends had microwave ovens and push button phones that I coveted.  Each time I got to push one of these buttons and tactically feel a response back and and an action as a response, I felt the power of technologies changing our lives.

In 1980 I got my first handheld electronic game, football.  After that I started to slowly lose my fascination with buttons.  Two major things came into my life about then that made me put my button fetish away.

The first were the early Radio Shack computers we got at school.  They started to represent technology because they could actually do the things that I imagined and dreamed of during my playtime with the old buttons around me.  I no longer had to pretend a calculator controlled my space ship.  I could use a real computer to do computer things.  Maybe part of this change also came from entering my adolescence and the fading away of imagination and play and the beginning of early adulthood.  Play was for kids.  Computers were for real.

This growing older also brought the second thing to change me, puberty.  Playing with toys, no matter how cool, took a distant backseat to the primal and novel feelings and urges that started pushing through my body and taking no prisoners.  I regressed from the development of technology in a way and started to grow into my primal sexual male self. 

Since those early computer days, these machines became part of my daily life  and were tools more than imaginative play escapes (until the internet came along, but that is a different story).   I used a typewriter when I entered college to write my papers.  I had a 280 PC by the end of that degree to print out my papers.  That computer was a tool and not much more.

The touch screen has taken over in so many electronics in the past decade.  The iPhone, iPad, and even the automated checkout counter at my local grocery store use touchscreens.  I love the speed and simplicity of these machines and the elastic capabilities that can completely change the use of the device by simply opening a different screen and using something new.  While I use these devices everyday, I am starting to miss those simple, early technological devices that had tactile physical responses from being pressed.  I miss the simplicity of one button controlling one thing.  Maybe that is one reason I love my Nikon dSLR over my iPhone and point and shoot digital cameras.  I push the shutter release and can feel it sink into the camera body and then both feel and hear the shutter release and reset allowing the light from the image to be recorded.  One motion, one action, one function. To paraphrase Obi Wan - An elegant technology... for a more civilized age."