Dusting off a blog... (blows into mic, "Can anyone hear me? Is anyone out there?")

Model Inertia Creeps - 051416

Shit.  It's been almost two years and I am finally blogging here again.  Here is a quick catch-up:

I had a great partner-blog - Shadows Exposed -   that fizzled out due to life changes for both me and my partner.  Those things happen.  After that I got away from blogging and focused on my own health and figuring out how to make art again.  I'd hit some emotional walls and needed to figure out what I wanted to create.

I am back and this is now my main blog for all my nude work.

This photo is of the great Inertia Creeps from the Bay Area.   I will write more about her, but she is an amazing model and photographer.

Chat more soon. 

"Hey sexy, nice ass..." and other objectifications

Earlier this year I posted photos from my other blog, shadowsexposed.com, about an art series I created titled, I objectify women (IOW).    In it I present my thoughts on how I objectify women through my art.  For me, there are many different types and degrees of objectification of another human.

IOW Jacqui - gel transfer onto old cotton shirt - 102413

This morning I read an article at Slate.com about the artist Hannah Price who photographed men that cat-called her while she walked the streets of Philadelphia.  I suggest you look at the photos and read the article.  I found that her photos are brilliant in how they transgress the sexist boundaries of cat calls by not returning them with a sharp retort.  She both humanizes the cat callers and also objectifies them in a way.  From what little I learned of her series she engaged the cat callers in dialogue and took their portraits.  I wonder if this has changed their attitudes about their verbal outbursts?  Hopefully.

IOW Jacqui - gel transfer onto old cotton shirt - 102413

Ms. Price is exposing one of the many types of objectification.  Cat calls can be range from pretty subtle (yet in their way still very intrusive) like, "Smile for me, beautiful" to horrifically vulgar, degrading and threatening.  I guess that is true of many types of objectification.

All of this makes me wonder on the intent of the objectifiers.  I think there are a few major categories of objectifiers.

1. They (and society) know they are doing it and it is accepted as normal by most.  This is the most common with advertising, movies, television, etc.  There are dangers still, but until society shifts, it will be there.

2.  They know what they are doing even though it unacceptable to society.  This may be porn, cat calls, comments on forums, jokes, created art, materials, etc.  Much of this stuff has to be kept underground or on special interest websites.  Depending on the content, it may be protected under free speech, but maybe considered dangerous or directly threatening to the "othered".  Some are ashamed they do these things, others do it blatantly and may have ill intent behind them.

3. They don't know it is objectification (both at the individual and societal levels).  I am guilty of this.  Many times it is subconscious, yet pretty pervasive (and may also be perverted?).    Examples of this are the male (and female gaze), unconscious thoughts, jokes, and other subtle and not-so subtle manifestations.

I believe that objectification will always be part of our world and that not all forms of objectification are bad.  Sometimes they are necessary filters to get information quick and make decisions.  The major danger though is when they become the only form of information we gather about the objectified and also how we treat and interact or act upon them.

Wow. Seven days in...

Nelson, NV - 010713

... and all those resolutions to simplify and try to go at a healthier pace have vanished already.  Oh well.  I guess my resolution to listen to more music is working though.

Nothing deep here, just winding out my day.  This post should be called, "No Nude Monday.  Here are some recent photos from Nelson, Nevada.  Thanks to Terrell for introducing this place to me.

West of the Colorado River near Nelson, NV - 010713

I can do the occasional landscape if needed.  My thanks to nature for beautiful clouds and earth.

I promise to get back to Skyfall soon.

Rain - 121712

Life is getting back to normal at the personal level.  At a national level we have tragedy, politics, and politics of tragedy playing out around us.  My deceased friend's family came to get her.  She is now ashes and on her way home to the UK.   The authorities are initially saying food poisoning.  What a weird and random way to go.  She was a pretty fastidious food preparer.

I have three shows coming down soon.  It will be good to get onto new stuff.

Speaking of new stuff, I got the chance to work with the beautiful Rain DeGray again recently.  Above is an early image from our recent session.

I will write about Skyfall in next.  Until then, a little Neko Case to keep me in harmony.

Where have you been?

Tiana - 110912

I've been a busy boy/photographer.  I wont bore you by regaling you with all the arduous details.  The big thing is that I have my photos up in two galleries and a local coffee shop.  They are three very different series out there, so I am proud to have so many different pieces out there.

ECHO Gallery - Calistoga, Ca

I am excited that I am getting my stuff out there.  It feels good that others are seeing them.  While they are my tamer photos, some still have an edge to them.   I need to find venues for sharing my nude/erotic work. 

In other news, I got a new Epson 3880 printer.  There is something rich about holding a physical print rather than just seeing its pixel sibling.

None of this post is too deep or profound.  I need to get into some meaty topics in the near future.  I also hope to have my "I Objectify Women..." series completed in the next month and will have to share some of it here.  There is also the election to write about.  Oh  yeah, erotica, sex, sensuality, and carnal mayhem are always fun too.

 

Java Jax - Vallejo, CA

Java Jax - Vallejo, CA

Photo note - Tiana was a great model.  I hope to work wither her again in the new year.

I love the energy of this song.

Sunshine on my shoulders...

Tiana -  101712

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy
Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely
Sunshine almost always makes me high. - John Denver

John Denver's somewhat sappy song makes sense at times.  I grew up listening to my mom's John Denver album and always paused to soak in this song.  It wasn't so much that the lyrics had meaning to me, but the Taize nature of the song pacified me for the moment.

If you know me, you know I am not a big fan of standing out in the sun.  I actually hate just standing or sitting in the sun.  It is hot and it makes me cranky.  With that said, there are times though I appreciate turning my face to the source of all organic energy on earth and relishing in its warmth.

The price of branding and exposure.

Valya - 092612

I am in a conundrum.  To become a better artist and to try to make a living from it I have to promote myself more. I appreciate and understand that, but where is the balance?  How much of this exposure is about my product or about my own personal brand?  What is the price of branding and exposure?

A friend gave us an beautiful original platinum print a few years ago of a young Mexican woman standing by a fountain in a plaza.  That is a definite description of the product and could mean the print is worth a few dollars or a few thousand.  With just this description though, I would only pay the lower end of the spectrum.

A friend gave us a beautiful original Edward Weston platinum print of Frida Kahlo.  Just that sentence alone increased the photo's value substantially.  It has two very powerful names with Edward Weston as the photographer and Frida Kahlo as the subject.  It bears both their brands.

When building a personal brand, the creator's personality, accomplishments, failures, challenges, likes and dislikes, and creations are built into the brand.   Think about Edward Weston's brand - black and white modern photographer and pioneer of the art, fine-art nude photographer pioneer, lived in the US and Mexico, often took photos of his lovers or had intimate relationships with his models, part of the California photography movement, co-founder of the Group f/64, and so on.  He was temperamental, had estranged children, and other personal challenges.  All of this has become part of his legend and his brand and helps ensure his art continues to hold or gain value.

Out of all the prints I've sold, I've never heard anyone say, "I own a Sutphin photo."  I would probably hear, "I have a great photo of horses and windmills that I bought from this guy in California."  Only people that know me personally and know my work have a chance of looking at a photo of mine and being able to identify it by style, content, etc., that it is one of mine.  Most others just see the content.   My branding is weak in two ways, no one recognizes my name to my art and no one can look at my art and identify it as mine. 

Rocky Mountain Front near Heart Butte, Blackfoot Indian Reservation, Montana - 092612

The answer appears very simple - get my work and name out there.  Promote, promote, promote.  The cost of it though is what do I associate with my name?   I see I can have at least two very different categories of clients, starting with portraits and erotic fine-art photography.  I doubt my clients for either group really care of or for the other type of work I do.  Do I hide one (probably the nudes) to grow my other brand and business?  Am I ready for my personal history, warts and all, to become part of my brand?  Is my history exciting enough to add to my brand?  I think about this because as someone's notoriety grows, so does his/her exposure and discovery of personal history.  Both my friends/clients and my competition are going to want to know about me if my art star rises.  How will this information of my work and life affect those around me?

It is sad that we can't embrace sexuality, sensuality, and eroticism as an open art form without worrying about fall out from it.  I greatly lament this, but it is the reality and I must figure out my niche and how I can exploit it.  It's easy for me to think I wont worry about what others think of me, but if I want to grow my brand, I need to be concerned about it's value and appearance as well.  As much as I am growing into accepting who I am and trying not to worry what others think, that nagging worry will always be there. 

And the winner is... charisma

False Idols - 092312

"Charisma is a sparkle in people that money can't buy.  It's an invisible energy with visible effects."   - Marianne Williamson

Here is my attempt at a non-political post about the presidential election. I predict President Obama will win and my theory is not based on politics. It has to deal with the personality traits of his challenger.

Mitt Romney doesn't have the personality traits of prior successful presidential candidates that beat an incumbent president. He is not charismatic or communicates a well-articulated vision for the country. I am basing this off my memories of all prior elections I've been conscious of.

'72 - Do you remember who ran against Nixon? George McGovern. I was only three, so I don't have memories of this, but I know McGovern's name is pretty much forgotten in regards to this contest for me.

'76 - Ford was an incumbent and lost to Carter. This was partially due to the taint of Nixon's resignation and Ford's lack of time to build a track record. I throw this one out as a fluke due to the crazy events leading up to it. Carter still won though.
'80 Carter lost to Reagan. Reagan was the most charismatic Republican president in recent history. He had a vision for how he would lead the nation and shared it very effectively.
'84 - Reagan wins over Mondale. Other than Mondale riding on the power of having the first female VP nominee, he lacked charisma and vision.
'88 - No incumbent.
'92 Bush 1 looses to Clinton. Like Reagan, Clinton has plenty of charisma and was very effective in communicating his vision to the country.
'96 Clinton beats Dole. While Dole had a very distinguished military and political career, he didn't show his charisma, charm or vision.
'00 - No incumbent
'04 - Bush 2 beats Kerry. Kerry is not known for charisma or vision.
'08 - No incumbent
'12 - We will see. Romney is no Reagan or Clinton though.

I recognize this over-simplifies the details of prior elections and there were many more influences on the outcomes. With power of celebrity and popularity being such a key part of American culture (American Idol, America's Got Talent, etc.), the power of charisma and vision can't be ignored.

So with this, I bring a close to anything more I want to say about the upcoming elections and the issues/people involved. The current political climate disgusts me and I don't want to add my $.02 of poison into the mix.

The mirror of memory.

Valya - 091312

I looked back in the mirror of memory
for a guide to which lanes are still open
to merge, swerve, and pass in.

The mirror showed me this lane was closed
due to too much time and too little use.
The mirror also showed me that lane was empty
but would take me down a precarious exit.

I looked forward again, through the windshield
of nearing destinations and arrivals,
nudged on the turn signal
and didn't bother to check my blind spot
for those dangers I can't let myself see.

What do you care?

Valya - 091212

What do you care about me?  What do you think about me?  These questions are the basis for many of my behaviors and how I interact with others.  What I chose to let out of my mind and share with others is greatly regulated by my concerns of how I am perceived by others.  That bullshit needs to stop.

I am in therapy.  With that statement, I am opened up to many prejudices, stereotypes, and misconceptions.  I don't really care anymore if people know about it.  I don't wave a therapy flag or force this bit of information in a moment of too-much-information.  I  find it humorous to see their reactions.  They are usually slightly shocked, hold and awkward pause, then very cautiously ask me, "are you ok?" For many, they are concerned, for a few though, the judgements start coming.

Why am I sharing this "devil may care" attitude about my personal life?  It is because of therapy.  During my last few sessions I started discovering that due to my concern of how people view me and by the potential of me letting them down, I am not truly living with the real me.

This self sense of being Mr. Nice Guy and trying not to ruffle feathers, smooth those that are ruffled, and avoidance of delivering bad news has held me back too long.  Because of this I tend to take on too much onto myself when others should be doing their job or make their expectations more realistic.  I lose track of too many tactical, cultural, familial and other types of obligations. I am spending too much time on this shit.

A year or so ago I had a dream where my wife told me "I am not going to help you clean up the façades you built around yourself."  This profoundly hit me and cuts to the core of my tendencies to placate.  I build up all these façades to keep the peace from falling into pieces.

While that revelation is big for me, it took a simple observation from my therapist when I told her of that dream.  "Those narrations in your dreams are written by you, not the person represented in your dreams."  Whoa...  For the past year, I've subconsciously believed that statement represented something from my wife.  While it may be something she believes, it is my projection on her, manifested in a dream.  Since it is my dream script the message is directed at me... from ME. 

I know that should be very evident and elementary in terms of psychology.  I have a degree in the subject.  Unfortuntely, I never thought that those things said in my dreams are my script and messages my soul, spirit, and intellect are trying to convey to me.  I may get inklings of the messages during awake time, but it takes a dream to live those messages.

Out of all of the therapy cliches, here is a big one - the role of my parents in my current psychological health.  I will put that net out wider to include all family, many close friends and coworkers.  For years I've said "yes" to many things while suppressing my real thoughts, ideas, and desires in fear of hurting and disappointing these people.  Once my therapist got this out of me she asked the next huge question --

"How does this affect your art?"

I have two self-identified types of art I create, the secular and "sexular".  The "sexular" is all my nude photos and those images that have overt erotic elements.  The secular is pretty much all my other stuff, portraits, landscapes, commercial work, etc.  If you go to my commercial website, you will find most photos are my secular works except for a harmless, tiny, implied nude of Candace.

Back to my therapist's question, "How does this affect your work?"

For my secular art , I am concerned that the craft and art in it are not strong enough to be appreciated or accepted by those who are important to me (see list above).  I love making these photos.  Most do not have deep contextual artistic meaning, but they are fun and rewarding to make.

For my "sexular" art, I am very concerned by how I am perceived by it.  I've published publicly very little of my work in this area other than on my blog.  I think all this angst over showing this work and how it is important to me to those who may condemn me makes me put up even more façades. 

This subconscious drive most recently manifested in my newest series I am creating - I Objectify Women.  In this series, I am grappling with objectification of women, and how I am part of it.  I am hoping it will help me answer some of my own tough questions and self-doubts.  In the end though, it is becoming a statement piece saying, "This is my art and this is who I am."  Maybe it is time for me to live that mantra in more areas of my life.

"This is my work and this who I am."
"These are my desires and this is who I am."
"This is my sexuality and this is who I am."
"This is my body and this is who I am."

It's time to drop so many of the facades around me.  I need that energy for more important things.

Why are they hidden?*

Valya-090812

"What do I remember about med school?
'This is my air hole (pointing to her nose)
My sound holes (pointing to her ears)
My food hole (pointing to her mouth)
My pee and baby holes (pointing to the front of her pants)
and my poop hole (pointing to her tush)'
All other stuff is related to those holes. " Dr. Sylvia

I got that great quote from one of the physicians I used to work with after asking her a technical medical question.  All the other doctors and nurses in the room laughed as hard as I did.  She pretty much summed up most of internal medicine right there.

 I recently had to train a group of employees about retrieving key information from a drug side-effects database and I came upon two sticking points.  The first was an acronym I didn't know and the second was a medical term for a symptom to multiple potentially dangerous conditions.

I came across the term LMP and had no idea what the acronym represented.  I asked one nurse I work with and he blushed.  I asked his boss, another nurse who is a no-nonsense and just out right said, "LMP - Last Menstrual Period. "  For some dumb reason I blushed.  I knew though I had to get over my blushing since being descriptive is a needed part of medicine.

The second event concerned doing a search on the symptom - "blood present in urine."  I chose this term for a training exercise since it brought up many interesting bits of information from the data base.  One employee warned me that it could be an awkward topic when training fellow global coworkers in certain cultures and locations.  I ended up keeping the term in the class and push through any initial emotional responses from the learners.  In my opinion, its part of our job, get over it.  It wasn't like I was saying the event in crude terms like "blood in your nasty piss".

We all have these body parts.  They all have functions and purposes, yet we are shy about them.   I know some of these body parts have less-than-idyllic functions and purposes.  We still have them though and they are a part of us.  This need to censor our natural bodies goes to all parts of our culture, especially art.

I have an anus.  I also have testes and a penis.  All my nude models I've photographed (so far) have vaginas and anuses**.  We all have the holes (in one form or another) that Dr. Sylvia mentioned.

In my photography, I captured (both intentionally and inadvertently) all of these bits and pieces, however, have you really seen any of these in the photos I've posted before today?  Nope.  In our "fine art" world, many consider them off limits as elements of acceptable art.  Why do we hide these bits of ourselves that make us human, that makes us male or female?  I am guilty of hiding them by putting them into shadow, covering them, etc.  Why?  Why hide them?

Parts of this argument can get into the porn vs. art debate.  Other arguments may include the crassness and baseness of the subject matter pulls the attention away from the art and makes the appearance of these parts the only noticeable element of the piece.  I can see both points.

I have no societal answers to these complex questions on showing our basic parts.  For myself though, I've am evolving my own aesthetic on when to include or occlude/obscure them.  It needs to come down to my intent of the piece.

I am growing more willing to include these items in my "published" art (my photos that are going to live out in the world, beyond the film negatives and my hard drive).  This applies to anuses, vaginas, genital labia, penises, etc.  For me to include them, they have to:

• be integral to the purpose of the piece
• not overwhelm the piece, unless there is a purpose for it to overwhelm
• be acknowledged and/or approved by the model, knowing that this part is being shown.

I think all parts of human body can be beautiful.  I haven't photographed a nude male yet (other than myself), but find all parts of the male anatomy to have a purpose and role in art as well.

I guess much of this has been hashed out in the porn vs. art debate?   Is my intent of showing these bits for profit and exploitation, or is there an artistic reason behind it.  I am hoping for the latter.

* As much as I've enjoyed the deep metaphysical/cosmological/chronological posts of the past few days, sometimes it is important to explore the basic and close-by things in our lives as well.

** Latin scholars may stipulate that plural form of anus would be ani, but after a google search, it appears anuses is the modern accepted term.

The "big" of it all

Time (featuring Gabbi)* - 090212

I want to focus on the big picture as a conclusion to my series of posts on time.  It is easy to focus on the now, the world within a few feet of me, and the people I can see around me.  Even though I have a well established sense of object permanence, I still tend to disregard the big world around me that I am not immediately interacting with. 

My mind knows that my wife is at a church a few blocks away.  I know that my parents are probably getting in the car for their trip to their church.  I am sure President Obama and Governor Romney are talking about the election to some other people.  Even though I know all this stuff, I am not really thinking about it. 

Right now I am looking out at grassy area on the UC Berkeley Campus, drinking a tea (trying to soothe a sick stomach) and writing this.  A wall is behind me, a number of men are sitting in a random pattern in tables facing away from me.  My whole world can easily be summed up by what I am seeing, hearing, feeling, smelling and tasting at this moment.  This sense of "immediate-me" creeps into all my senses, including one of the senses we don't really count as a sense - the sense of time. 

When I was getting my first undergraduate degree**, I took two influential courses in the same quarter, geology and and astronomy.  It was in both of those classes that my concept of size, space, and time were challenged.  I held a rock that was over two billion years old.  I learned I was made of dust from stars long dead.  One night, my astronomy class used a telescope and I became a speck.    We looked at  a very faint, distant object and my professor mentioned that it was a very old star and that I was looking back in time, probably a few billion years.  He then told us that star probably didn't exist anymore and if it had a solar system, all its planets were burnt up and dust.  After looking back in time, I let my eyes adjust to the dark while standing in the cold mountain air and looked at the Milky Way floating above.  I got a glimpse into how long time really is.  The enormity hit me and I had to sit down and felt tears run down my cheeks due to the magnificent grandeur of it all and how damn insignificant I really am.

Someday you will have to say "goodbye" to the sun.
You will bid farewell to the moon, the sky, the clouds, and the stars.
As all things that live, we dim out to a smoking wick, our quiet goodbyes to those things that were  always with us acknowledge we were the grain and they were the beach.
They may not hear our goodbyes, but their existence in our beings need to be recognized and bid proper adieu. 

After that moment, I felt so insignificant in the great sense of time and space.  In the universe, I am less than a grain of sand and in the dimension of time I am less than a atomic flash.   When compared to the extreme greatness of both, there is no microscope powerful enough or time piece precise enough to measure or observe my existence.  This was (and sometimes still is) a pretty depressing realization, until I learned of another truth - the order of it all.

Our universe is spread across time and space.  It isn't haphazard or random.  Invisible forces keep it in order and can help us theorize on what has happened and predict what will happen.  Stars form from the dust of other dead stars.  From that, solar systems form, life my grow on a few planets, then the star dies out, one way or another and it starts over again.  The same is for humans, we are born, we grow up, some of us procreate, and we die.  All I have to do is live in the time I have, try not to harm others, help where I can, enjoy and experience the awe of it all, and die.  In the grand scheme of things, I really don't have much to do.   The weight of the universe is not on my shoulder and I am a tiny piece of lint on its broad shoulders.

* Please click on this to see the big picture.

** I am not bragging about my number of undergrad degrees.  I pissed away my first (psychology) by not getting good enough grades by being lazy.  This laziness cost me the chance to get into grad school and finding a job.  I went back for a second degree and did much better because of the hard lessons learned from my first one.

A diferent time piece

Gabbi (Noon o'clock) - 082212

I saw the first red leaf of fall today, and I was also thinking about change - it's cyclic and reflects nature.

A few days ago Carla mentioned noticing the changes around her in a comment she shared on my last post.  Recently I've felt tick-tock time is losing its meaning to me.  I am losing my ability to feel the seconds go by and know what part of the clock the hands are resting on.

If people have super powers, I have had two.  I can almost always tell where north is.  From that I can usually point toward any direction.    I am sitting in a windowless room right now, and just pointed north and then checked it on my iPhone compass.  I was off by less than 5 degrees.  This doesn't mean I don't get lost.  It just means I usually get un-lost pretty fast. 

Sadly, my second super power, being able to intrinsically tell tick-tock time without looking at a clock and being accurate within 15 minutes is fading fast and is nearly gone.  For many years, I only carried a watch when to-the-minute accuracy was needed.  Now I wear a watch so I know which hour it is in tick-tock time.

I use the term tick-tock time to represent the human-made time measurement system based on seconds, minutes, and hours.  While it is dividing a solar year down into 365 days (not including leap year) with 24 hours in a day, with each hour consisting of 60 minutes, and each minute containing 60 seconds.  That is 525,600 seconds in a year.  I have no mechanism in me to note the passage of a second, minute, or hour anymore.

If we are healthy, our resting heart rate is around 60 beats-per-minute (bpm).  I can't trust my heart to tell time though.  When I sleep, it drops to less than that rate.  If I am excited, it can easily double.  Without having an internal mechanism anymore to tell tick-tock time, where am I getting my cues?  The natural universe provides it.

The earth's daily rotation provides a good basic visual time piece, light or no light.  My next favorite is the 28 day lunar cycle.  I know that if it is a new moon now, it will be a full moon in 14 days.  I am always looking up at the moon, when visible to give me a clue as to it's path.  Here is a link to learn about the phases of the moon. 

For the past few years I've felt the seasonal transitions more and more.  I like some more than others, preferring fall and winter to spring and summer.  I feel each one though.  Every August I can tell when autumn is coming by noticing the lengthening of shadows and the quality of light around me.  I feel the winter solstice by enjoying the long, dark, cold days of winter.  The seasonal changes are one measurement of time I feel deep in me.

Maybe my spirit is trying to tell me something with my loss of ability to internally tell tick-tock time.  It isn't the second that separates present me from past and future me.  It is the changing of the universe around me affected by the cycles we physically go through.  I can't control these cycles.  All I can do is recognize them and make sure I live as much as possible through them. 

 

Life changes (as a verb)

Candace Nirvana - 082012

Time may change me
But you can't trace time 

~ Changes - David Bowie

Life changes so quickly.  It isn't always the change we need to focus on, but the fact it is changing.  I sometimes overlook this important part as my days whiz by me.  I only  look at what is changing (i.e., my waist and hair lines, my bank account balances, the new color on the walls, etc.).  I rarely look at the fact that things are changing, I am changing and what does change mean to me.  I need to ask myself , "Why am I changing?".

For the first time in 21 years, I am sort of a bachelor again.  My wife and I are still together (we just had our anniversary last week), but I also helped her move during that time as well.  We are purposely living apart now.

She is finishing up her PhD in Spanish literature (final revisions) and earned a tenure-track position in Las Vegas at a college down there.  She is going through orientation today and classes start next week.  She was offered this job a month ago, so this change came fast.  Fortunately, we have a home there, so the move was minimal - one car load of books and some additional clothing.

I am really proud of her and am contemplating what this means for us.  We are going to be flying a bit to see each other until I can get a decent job down there.  I also have to figure out what to do with our under-water home in California and all the stuff stored in it.  What about my desire to get an MFA in photography and teaching art and photography while developing a business?  Once again though, I am focusing on what the change is, not on the act of change.

Why are all these big changes coming down?  Many of the changes are due to manifestations of earlier goals.  Some are due to financial limitations and abilities.  A few fall into the change-(or shit-) happens category.  I still need to think  about what the act of changing is doing to me.  Am I control of my change?  If "yes", how much control do I have and how can I control it more?

Maybe I am getting too deep into what my evolving life is doing and I should be content and ride the wave.  That though gives away control.   I think I need to allow myself time to sit on the side and watch the change and see if it is taking me where I need to go and how I can change on my own terms and not just living with the changes.

I watch the ripples change their size
But never leave the stream 

~ David Bowie

Photo note - Candace Nirvana delivering a quiet moment.  Sometime powerful stuff can come in subtle messages and moments.

Faded-out jeans

Leila Swan and Hana - 072612

I once had a love
that was as deep as the indigo
in my favorite jeans.

I wore both too often for a time,
The love tore away from me.
The jeans continued fading out with each washing.

I threw out the jeans today - the indigo is gone.
The denim's faded like her love - both faded for them.
Neither were under my control, but they both bled out from my indiscriminate use.


The River - Bruce Springsteen

Back to work...

Candace Nirvana - 022912

I've been really busy lately.  I finished up the first version of my commercial website and will share it here in the next post.  I also started an alternative photography methods course.  We have been playing around with photograms, cyanotypes, and crude toy cameras (Holgas, Dianas, etc.). 

With all of this fun, I resurrected my darkroom and started shooting film and printing again.  I missed the elegant peace of the analog method.  This may sound crazy, but I forgot how much I liked the smell of fix.  That smell gives me a peaceful feeling from all the memories of working in my darkroom. 

I recently worked with Candace Nirvana again.  We shot film and digital.  I still have to develop the film, but here above is a quiet moment from the shoot.  Candace is a gift to work with.

I have two big future posts coming up.  One is for my new website.  The second is in the works - the premier of my freshly completed series Border Moments.

Kick in the ass

Yes. I used PS Dark Arts on Myself - 012812

"It's great to have a passion, but you must also have a work ethic around it." Unknown*

For the past month or so I received multiple subtle and explicit messages to get my shit together.  Most of these messages concern my art.  All of them are basically saying, "Karl, You take pretty good photos.  You have an eye for capturing people in your photos.  Good boy.  Now you really need to move on to the next level.  You need to do it better and you need to get it done.  Not only done, but done right."

I  hired a graphic/web designer/artist to help me build a commercial website.  She designed  a new logo for me late last year.  I was impressed by it and looked at her portfolio of commercial websites she designed and was very impressed.  I showed her my half-ass, stagnant website and she gently tore it apart in a critique.  I knew then I had hired the right partner to help build the new one.  A month later, and many hours of writing text, selecting key photos, and many other tasks concerning SEO, keywords, aspect ratios, and categorizations, it is almost ready to go public.  I will co-premier it here and Facebook when it is ready to go.  I will also share her name and website in that post.

That experience taught me a valuable lesson.  If I am going to spend a good chunk of money and get a strong commercial site going, I had better go all in or pack up.  You can't go into business half way.  All in or fold.   Balls deep.  Shit or get off the pot.  Ok.  Enough metaphors for that.

While on Christmas break I saw a great a video clip of a George Carlin tribute with Louie C.K.  Louie C.K. is a comic genius and speaks so many truths for me.  In this tribute he shares the influence of Carlin on his career.  The key lesson is to keep reinventing his work and push his comedy further and further and get to what is raw, core, and never stop exploring.  Go deeper.   The gold starts at 4:55.



It is too easy to keep producing the same images the same way and getting the same responses.  I keep creating the same stuff, just with different flavors.  I keep getting the same results, and not going too far both in my art and in the success of my art.

The golden nugget from this video made me realize that I get the best feedback from my stuff that pushes me in new directions, new materials, new concepts, new people, new methods, and new feelings.  It is time to let some things go that are finished and run their course with me.  It feels like being given a new wild world to go out and explore!!!

So, if the first lesson was to go all in or go home and the second lesson was to keep reinventing and pushing myself harder, deeper, and into new areas, the third one was a hard criticism on what I have done.  It made me first question what type of photographer/artist I am in the sense of the quality of my work and then kicked me in the ass to do something about it.

I sent out a few proof portrait images.  The subject liked a few and then did something shocking, but also taught me a lesson.  The subject edited  one of my photos and sent it back with the list of edits.  Holy fuck.  Nobody has edited my photos before, especially without telling me first.

At first I was pissed.  How dare somebody touch my work like that!  I went for a walk around the neighborhood and came back and decided to look at the edits and compare them to the original I had sent out.  In came the head kick of humility and the lesson - Karl, your digital photo editing skills are kind of rudimentary and basic.  Karl, you do some digital photo editing really well, but if you are going to do this seriously, you really have to get better at it.

I use Adobe Lightroom for my photo workflow, everything from downloading and storage, through editing and refining, to creating a print or digital output.  It has many great tools that are similar to what can be found in the traditional darkroom.  It greatly complimented my darkroom knowledge and helped me make the transition from film to digital.   All along I denied the value of Photoshop.  I felt it was too complicated to learn.  It made my art a technical exercise, not a passion of the soul.  I would get lost in all the layers and gadgets and my art would lose its soul.  All of these were excuses, not reasons.

I am in the middle of an intensive Photoshop course now and am finally beginning to understand that its a wondrous tool box that can liberate so many of the limitations that straight photography places on me.  I am quickly realizing that I am not making the best art I can and honoring my subjects by my reticence to learning this important (and let's face it, industry) tool.   It is sort of like learning magic.

I've learned many new things that remind me of the Harry Potter universe.  Magic has both its good and bad arts.  In the books, all Hogwarts students had to learn the Magic of the Dark Arts.  For some it became their primary tool for power, for others it became a last-use weapon or a knowledge on how to defend ones self from it.

I think this is true of Photoshop as well.  There are so many ways to manipulate photos within that program.  There is the subtle stuff like correcting for perspective, saturating or de-saturating colors, reducing wrinkles, getting rid of pimples, etc.  There is the heavy stuff like distorting the body to look thinner, taller, whiter, darker, and closer to an ideal of what someone should like vs. what they truly look like.  All of these tools are available for the photographer to change the photograph from simple edits to a work of fiction.  These are some potentially dark arts that I need to learn and master.  How I use my knowledge and mastery of the dark arts will determine whether my intent was good or not.

Below is a video about the dangers of Photoshop.



I haven't written a blog post in the past few weeks due to all the work I am pushing into my art while still working my paying job and trying to maintain a life.  I am not getting any younger.  I know I have many more years behind me than ahead of me.  I need to get my art done before I die and I need to get off my lazy ass and do it.  I also have to do it better or why do it all?

*I hate it when I hear a great quote and can't find who said it.  Google can only do so much I guess.  I know it was an author. 

*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.

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.

Dividing the "intrinsicals"

Candace - 121811

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