*That look

Rain DeGrey - 103116

You can seduce a man without taking anything off, without even touching him.

Rae Dawn Chong

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There is something special about that look.   Some call it the "Come-hither look".  It is not the coy flirting glance across the room or the laugh that lasts a moment to long.  It is a look that is directed to you and only you.

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I don't use my body to seduce, no. I just stand there.Ursula Andress

I think of it as the boundary moment when the moment is now and now is the time to move, to act.  In my young days, I was bad at reading that moment, that look, that signal.  I think learning what that look means and then knowing what to do next is one of those things that separates the boys from the men.

  

*Originally published in my former blog, shadowsexposed.com 

Wanton, Wanting, Wonton Wednesday

Jolene - 010913

Rain - 010913

Tiana - 010913

Wanton - adjective (of a cruel or violent action) Deliberate and unprovoked.  Noun - A sexually immodest or promiscuous woman.  Verb - Play; frolic.
Wanting - adjective 1. Lacking in a certain required or necessary quality: "their products would be found wanting in a direct comparison"  2. Not existing or supplied; absent.
Wonton - noun - (in Chinese cooking) A small round dumpling or roll with a savory filling, usually eaten boiled in soup.   - Dictionary.com

 I find all three of these words apropos to today.  Each fit a mood, desire, or need for my Wednesday.  Starting from the bottom.

Wonton - For me, there are few soups that taste as good on a cold, rainy day.  It warms the body and soul.  It also helps decongest the sinuses. 

Wanting - I sometimes feel like I am lacking in a certain required or necessary quality.  This hits hard on Wednesdays because the week has evolved far enough to know what must be done, but the realization hits on what I am capable of doing.  I feel like the black horse in this gif today. 

Wanton - I wonder why that word has different meanings, whether as an adjective, noun, or verb.  Other than not being a woman (and why is it only directed at women?), I sometimes feel like all three variations at the same time.   Today I may feel sexually immodest or promiscuous with a desire to play or frolic cruelly.  Ok, that is a bit of a stretch, but I can see that it could happen.

Along with the wanton label, I wonder if I described the ladies in the images as "wanton" or "wanting", how would they be perceived compared to "empowered", "aroused", or "erotic"?

You take the good, you take the bad...

Tiana - 123112

... because you have no choice.  

I recently heard on NPR a great show on meditation and mindfulness.  While I do need to include much more of each into my life, I heard a sentence or two that hit home.  In essence the spokesperson said, "In Buddhism, you must acknowledge that both change and tragedy are unavoidable in life.  This is something that was forgotten by many Americans prior to the financial collapse."  This was true for me and 2012 was a great reminder of the changes.

I am going to briefly describe the good, the bad, and the changes I experienced in 2012.  One overall influence was Las Vegas.  You will see my new part-time city as a reoccurring theme through the year.

The good.

I got to meet up with blogger buddy Terrell in Las Vegas a number of times, once as recently as this week.  On top of being deep in the local Las Vegas photography world (he is a local legend with the old timers - I learned of an interesting story of him and park ranger), he is a genuinely nice and true guy.  I hope we get to collaborate in the future.

I got to know my new sister city better by spending the equivalent of a month total time here in 2012.  I initially had a crush or infatuation with it.  It turned into a steamy affair quickly.  I am now in the growing in love with it, while starting to see the warts in the relationship.  Sometimes it is the flaws that are most attractive.  During that time, I got to meet three lovely ladies who modelled for me.  Thanks to Gabbi, Fae, and Jolene for blessing me with your beauty.   You will see a few fresh photos of those beauties below.

Starting in January, I included alternative processes into my art.  These included cyanotypes, van Dykes, digital negative to chemical paper printing, gel transfers, Polaroids, toy cameras, assemblage, collage, and multiple other fun techniques.   I am pushing my art into areas I've never considered before.

Below is a small portion of my "I objectify women..." series, where I used discarded packaging as surfaces to affix my photos of women I have taken over the year.  It was a very personal series for me as I know I am part of the objectification of women.  I am going to take higher quality photos of these pieces and present them here.

IOW - 123112 - Photo by Jackie Pruitt

In October my family gathered to celebrate my parents' 50th anniversary with 100 of their friends.

In the last three months I got my work into four shows.  That was great exposure.  On the downside, a woman called asking to buy one and balked at the price.  She needs to learn there is a difference between a fine art print and a photo calendar.  Let us see her get an original Ansel Adams for the price of the cheap copy she could get at a book store.

I went to England and Switzerland for work in May.  While the working situation was good, the trip was pleasant, and not much more.

In February, I worked again with the great Candace Nirvana.  This September and October I worked with Tiana and Rain deGrey.  I hope to work with all of them again in 2013.

I am helping a friend start her blog.  I am also starting a new blog with an old friend.  More news on that in the 2013.

The bad.

My health is slowly deteriorating.  It is starting to get noticeable.  Sadly, the cause is purely self induced.  I need to get in better shape and take care of my self before I pass the point of no return.

My relationships with my family are drying out.  I am starting to realize that there is a reason my friends are close, we chose each other.  As my relationships with my family age, they contain less commonalities or areas for us to be close again.  I don't know which is more sad, the fading relationships or that I am not as bothered as I probably should be by the situation.

A close friend of mine died within a week after visiting us in Las Vegas.  LV had nothing to do with it. That was just a month ago and still feels raw.

The changes and the neutral.  

My wife and separated due to her starting a tenure-track position in Las Vegas.  We see each other a couple of times a month.  I am proud of her getting the position.

It is interesting being quasi-single again.  I have a home in California all to myself.  I find I spend almost all my time in my home-office, bedroom, or kitchen.  The rest of the home stays dark.  This time alone makes the times when we are together both fun and difficult.  It is hard to go from single to instantly together again.  On a positive side, I have more time than ever to work on art.

I want to thank my blog friends - Carla, Terrell, C.D., D.L. Wood, Joe, and many others (sorry if I didn't include you.)  You continue to inspire me to create and write more.

I will be back in 2013.  There is much more art to create, life to live, sex to be had, and just general life stuff.  Happy New Year and Ciao.

Some new stuff.

Candace Nirvana - 123112

Fae DeCay - 123112

Gabbi- 123112

Jolene- 123112

Rain- 123112

A little party music for dancing into the new year.  I really like a quality remake like this.

A day of Rain.

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Rain - 122812

A month or so back I enjoyed an afternoon photographing Rain DeGrey.  She is a local legend in the modeling industry.  I wanted to photograph her again since the first time we worked together was not an ideal situation (not at all her fault).

Rain is a hardworking, well prepared model.  She has a fun and funny style that can quickly turn to as serious as you desire in the photo shoot.  She is willing to try new things and stretch to what I wanted to try.  Some things worked well due to her.  Others failed, not because of her, but because the idea was weak.


I look forward to working with her again.  This was a pretty vanilla shoot.  She is willing to go dark and gritty and I am thinking about where that will take me in creating stuff.  As with all models, it takes time to get to the level of collaboration and trust.  I feel this is going to be a good partnership.

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.

Karl's three laws of life and art

Rain - 100911

Here are my three laws of life.  I've found all three to be true every time.

1. Everyone has psychological baggage.  If they say they don't -  denial, sublimation, repression, and telling lies are manifestations of their psychological baggage.  You can't go through life without carrying some of it.  It is how you handle the baggage that says a lot about you.

2. Everyone you know will fail you at some point.  Many will fail you repeatedly.  Inversely, you will fail them all as well.  These failures could be as small as forgetting to pick up the bread he/she promised to bring to as painful as breaking your heart.  They will do it to you and vice versa.  My only advice when someone fails you, forgive when you can (somethings shouldn't be forgiven) and move on.  If it helps, remember you have failed or will fail them as well. 

3.  The tide flows and the tide ebbs, as does all aspects of living.  Life, love, hate, faith, passion, lust, and knowledge all go through these cycles.  Our tide of life flows in as we grow and develop into adults and reaches its greatest point before slowly moving out to sea again.  This same pattern is true for almost everything from our love of a certain food to the value of a kiss.

Since I try to keep this as much an art blog as possible, these laws apply to art and creative pursuits as well.

1.  People will interpret and respond to art based on their own person baggage.  If you aren't carrying around the right baggage, some art may not elicit any response.  That is fine.  There is plenty more art to get connected with.  Someone else will connect with the piece you feel nothing for.

 2.  The more personal and subjective something is, the more likely someone will fail you in regards to it.  I can't think of anything more subjective as art.  The challenge with subjective things is that words are often not enough to express expectations of others.  If I am working with a model and ask him to look despondent, what he gives me may be completely wrong for my needs.  This may be due to the different subjective definitions of "despondent".

I have also found the more subjective the purpose, the more likely someone will blow it off and/or stand you up.  Subjective things take lower priority than objective things.  People are more likely skip an appointment to create art than sell you something, provide a medical service, or pick up the bread.

Leila and Hana - 100911

3.  The tidal flow and ebbing of art.  Jackson Pollock was a big sensation.  His tide came in and he was on top of the world.  Roy Lichtenstein, and other pop artists, came in on a different tide and Pollock's tide ebbed out.  This flowing and ebbing also occurs at the personal level of the artist.  I will come up with a new concept, build it, grow it, develop it, create it and become obsessed with it.  At some point though my passion for the concept will ebb and I will want to get it finished.  By the end of it, I am tired of the work, looking at it, and and greatly lust to go onto the next alluring project.

Due to personal experiences, a tidal wave of issues may inspire frantic creation, and inversely, a deep personal wound can make an artist give up on or abruptly end a whole modality in art and self-expression.  There are certain things I will never photograph again because of this.


Video

Future focus... or not

Rain (via lensbaby) - 062711

I first heard about it from a photographer friend on Facebook.  Another friend asked me about it over the weekend.  Today I read an article about it at Slate.com.  It is being touted as the biggest evolutionary jump in photography since... the beginning of photography.  It is called Lytro and soon you wont have to focus on whatever you photograph.

Looking about isn't a techie-gadget blog, but some things catch my eye and Lytro is one of them.  In current digital and film cameras, the photographer composes the shot, focuses, and shoots.  The depth of field is regulated by the aperture and determines how deep the focus goes into the scene.  Inside the camera, the image is captured on a single plane of film or sensor.  Lytro is a completely different way of doing that.  The photographer composes the shot and pushes the button.  No focus or depth-of-field to worry about.

Lytro does its magic by taking multiple images at the same instant.  When you download the photo package to your computer, the software lets you decide what is in focus and what isn't.  This works really well when your image has details in multiple layers of depth.  This technology can also work for 3D images as well.  You can watch the silly video below or play with some Lytro photos at this site.  It is fun.



Some professional photographers feel threatened by this.  All those years of study and thousands of pictures learning how to master depth of field, special focus, and technique are useless because this camera takes care of that.  Now everyone can take a photo and have the power to adjust the focus after it is shot.  Amateurs are going to think they are pros because of these new powers.  As a professional photographer, I am not worried.  I believe this is good for the art.

First, my digital camera is a 13mp full frame camera that creates large RAW files of a single image that I focused to the way I want it.  The Lytro will create a photo that has the same focus, but its resolution will not be as high.  This makes the Lytro more of an amateur camera with users not expecting to make large prints of fine detail.

Second, my choice of focus and depth is important, but regardless of whether it is film or digital, most of the work occurs in post processing.  I touch up the photo (But not overly so.  I hate waxy-skinned perfection), dodge and burn, adjust saturation, crop, and perform other bits of my magic on the image.  The focus was only the beginning to making it a finished image.  I enjoy having that control over the process.  I doubt amateurs will do much more than select focus, maybe de-saturate it and call it good.  It will not be a refined and finished image.

Third, the old adage, "The tide raises all boats." is true for photography.  By improving the quality of amateur photographers shots, it will force the pros to improve as well.  I know I always have room to improve my craft and art.  I welcome the challenge.

Finally, I have to add that most amateurs don't consider composition of the image.  They don't often think of how a certain shadow, texture, color, or expression will work with the overall photo.  They take snaps of their friends at parties and put them up on Facebook.  I know this sounds elitist on my part, but I've earned a right to differentiate my work from the masses.  That is what separates it from amateur stuff.  Lytro is going to change how we photograph things, but it want necessarily make every photo art.  It is the artist that does that.


Video Note - This video is from a memorial concert for George Harrison.  It is great to see the Clapton, Starr, and other great musicians having fun singing this song.  George's son Dhani looks like a young version of his dad.

Recent Stuff - Febraury - Part 2

Rain - 031511

Quick recap of Part 1 - I worked with the wonderful Candace again.  A few weeks later I was stood up by a model and talked to another model about the experience.

A few days later I worked with another model who restored my faith in the model/photographer team.  Though she was great, the session left me feeling weird.   I went to a monthly photography event at the Center for Sex and Culture.  They host photo shoots with various themes.  The attendees pay a fee and get to work with models to photograph.  On the Sunday I went, there were four other participants.  We then spent the next two hours photographing the model.  It felt weird from the first moment. 

The model mainly works in fetish themes with an emphasis on BDSM.  I am not into that scene, but there is something about the starkness of the environment, the black leather against light skin that gives a strong graphic novel feel.  None of the session involved any heavy fetish stuff or go anywhere deep into a scene.  The closest it got was when she had a cat-o-nine-tails that she held and posed with.  The event organizer (one of the photographers) went over the  ground rules of not touching the model, being respectful, etc.  This wasn't the weird part.  It was the working conditions.

Call me a snob, but I have always worked alone with models (not including my 1:1 tutorials with Kim Weston) and I prefer to work alone.  Two of the five of us had experience working with nudes, the other three had little or none.  The problem came when figuring out how the session would work.

I suggested we take turns working with model, maybe in 10 minute blocks.  That got rejected and it quickly became a photo free-for-all.  It felt like a seedy paparazzi scene with a bunch guys standing in a semi-circle while the model tried to follow directions from us all.  A few of us knew enough to provide direction and talk with her.  The rest just snap, snap, snapped away.  We kept getting in each others' spot, blocking light, and getting into the photo frame.

At one point I got on a ladder and tried to photograph way high.  That worked for a bit, but I grew tired of it.  All the other camera holders remained at standing height snapping away.  I got on the floor and rested the camera a few inches off of it.  I was in no one's way and found some interesting low angles.  Within a second of getting up, one of the newbies took my spot.

I was the first one to mention my concept/idea to the model and show her some photos I took of her where we approached the idea.  They seemed to notice I knew a bit about this stuff and started copying my theme.

Out of the 120 minutes, I probably shot only a quarter of that time.  I stood back and watched the scene unfold the other 90 minutes.  During the break and at the end, I gave the model my card with my MM account and email. She gave me hers.  We chatted about some future ideas.    The session ended and I was happy to get out.

I felt awkward and dirty driving home.  After thinking on it, it made me think the event was a photographic circle jerk.  All the camera holders taking their thrill pics.  I felt dirty for being a part of it.

There is a photo exhibit up at the SFMoMA titled Exposed: Voyeurism, Surveillance, and the Camera since 1870.   One of the photos exhibited is a piece by Chris Verene from his Camera Club series.  This series is about:

"In the mid-nineteen nineties, Chris Verene sought out photography clubs that advertise to aspiring models offering them a career in the modeling industry. These clubs have been in the US since the 1940’s—often seen as groups of male photographers huddled around swimsuit models in studios and on beach locations.

The project sought to document the photographers who join a club as way of access to women who would be willing to pose in lingerie, swimwear and nude. Verene joined these clubs in a number of American cities and surreptitiously made pictures of the men and their equipment while they were distracted by the models. Verene also conspired with a female friend who applied to the clubs as an aspiring model as a way of investigating the system that drives the organization. The two found that the clubs were never a real route to becoming a fashion model, and such promises were often offered in lieu of payment.

Verene’s “Camera Club” project is unstaged, and is a real document of how the clubs truly feel. It stands as a caution to young models—suggesting to all such people that they be careful who they trust with taking off thier clothes for pictures, and that they not always believe all the stories that such clubs tell." - From Verene's website

This is what it felt like to me, an exploitation of the model for our cheap clicking arousal.  
I thought on it some more the next day and my view changed.  The idea of it being a photographic gang bang remained, but the vileness of it changed.  I remember the first time photographing a nude model.  I was nervous and trying to do everything Kim Weston showed me.  I was awkward talking to the model and kept getting distracted.  I got some good photos from the event, but I would say I was barely above being a GWC (Guy With a Camera).  Maybe I should give the other camera holders a a bit of a break for being green.

The model was open and enjoyed the shoot.  She was not bothered by it and shared that she had done these before.  I could tell she had experience because she would pose and then look to each camera giving that photographer time to snap a few shots before moving to the next.  She ensured every photographer got a few seconds of individual time before moving or changing poses.  So, even though she became very objectified, she was actively participating.  I am not saying it is right, but at least it felt less like victimization.

So, what did I learn?

1. I work alone or with lighting assistants.  I am the only photographer.
2. I like leading, teaching, or guiding, but that should be a predefined role and expectation.  I don't like having to do this when my goal is tobe  the photographer.
3. And most importantly, I am no GWC.  That was my first and last time going to one of these monthly events.

Photo note - I do not want to disparage the Center or the model, Rain Degrey.  The center is a great, sex-positive place that educates, celebrates, and provides awareness about sex, sex workers, and the world erotic.  Rain was great to work with and I highly recommend her.