Category: Uncategorized

Source unknown – Nacho Vidal & Kristina Rose (2015)

This position is apparently called The Amazon. SWOON.

This gif? As much as I’m always harping about #skinnyframebullshit, I will admit there’s room to argue w/r/t still photographs/images. There’s not when it comes to video–go horizontal or stay your ass home.

Also, I had not seen the scene this is from before deciding to post it. I have subsequently seen enough of the video to know that it’s both too extreme, sexist and seemingly unconcerned with consent to be something I’m ever going to be into. Still, I do think this is gif is sexy af and the segment of the larger clip it’s from is slightly less obnoxious than the rest of the video.

Source: plumeti-and-sex

Source unknown – Title unknown (201X)

I have no idea where these images originated and that’s truly unfortunate. They’re hardly flawless–the poses are a bit too marked by self-conscious contrivance; however, they do feature carefully coordinated lighting design, a clear sense of purpose and although perhaps not intentional: there’s a sense of reflexive connection between content and context (i.e. the incisive sense of well-worn procedure in tandem with the carefully considered attention to detail).

It’s possible I’m projecting my own OCD tendencies onto this photo set. I’m very much a creature of habit. I’m very predictable and if someone knows my schedule, you can predict where I’ll be and what I’ll be doing with 100% accuracy give or take a seven or so minute deviation on either side.

I’ve always been like this. It’s part of how I’ve learned to survive in the desert of the real. There’s comfort in knowing the train arrives at this time and takes this long to get me where I’m going. Any delays, deviations, etc. cause me intense stress.

I get agitated when folks with a hippy bent preach new age/Buddhist mindfulness at me. It’s like my default setting is what such folks actively pursue. I’m constantly trying to be less aware of every goddamn little piece of sensory input screaming for a piece of my immediate focus.

What’s ironic to me is that my all this rigorously circumscribed need for order, predictability and certainty is less about iron fisted control. It’s like that Baudelaire quip about remaining boring, ordered and dull in life so that you may be exceedingly violent and unpredictable in your creative work.

The regimentation I cultivate in my own life is really a means to an end. To return to the metaphor of trains–with their timetables and presumed correlation to said timetables–it’s almost always the days where I’m merely going through the motions out of habit, and am following a particular thought that takes an unexpected turn that captivates me. I’ll completely forget that I’m on a train and end up four or five stops beyond where I meant to disembark. (As much as I crave order and hate when things go awry, I never mind these lapses. What they offer in insight is more than equal to the resulting frustrations of missing my stop and running late to appointments.)

What does this introspective speculation have to do with anything? Well, I think my need for predictable rituals as a defense against the mundaneness of daily exigencies is an itch that I don’t usually feel gets scratched by explicit depictions of sexual expression. Except these images appeal (a great deal, actually) to the order seeking side of my brain.

And I can’t help but think how aspects of my own sexual expression are similarly circumscribed. As an adolescent, masturbation was highly ritualized for me. (I’m not sure if it’s the OCD tendencies or being raised super religious… I think I could also point to my druggy years with all that focus on set and setting.)

It reminds me of something my friend Amandine said to me about attraction. Trying to seduce someone by making them want you is the wrong course of action. Instead it’s better to make them feel comfortable sharing time and space with you.

That’s the other thing about this that appeals to me. So much pornography hinges on a sort of heteronormative checklist of activities being ticked in a proscribed order. It’s about showcasing particular information–without any sort of consideration as to why this information as opposed to that information. In other words, matters of inclusion vs. exclusion are dictated by notions of what will appeal to the broadest set of viewers possible.

I’m much more interested in things that interrogate why something is being showcased over any number of other things. And these images have a strong feeling of what I’m being showed are not just things that turn the author on, there’s a great deal of effort put into presenting those things as a series of decisive moments in an erotic progression.

So yes, the attention to detail in the set design and lighting orchestration speak to creating a sense of context. The presentation of decisive moments fosters a sense of documentary objectivity. (This isn’t exactly well-managed from the point of the subjects–whose poses seem self-consciously contrived.) But it does seem to be about creating a comfortable space as a starting point and emphasizing concrete ritual procedure in a carefully considered fashion. And that feels honest and affirming of my own experience in a way that porn never really offers me.

Source: bedxxx2

PeterVR – Soleilaberlin, Bonn (2017)

I’m not at all fond of vertical orientation in photography/image making–I refer to it with the pejorative #skinnyframebullshit.

This isn’t #skinnyframebullshit. Why not?

…

My frustration with portrait orientation in photography/image making was born of the same thing that makes me distrust zoom lenses–i.e. the place an emphasis on results over process.

Instead of standing in one place and adjusting the focal length of the lens to provide an angle of view that allows you to convey the information you select to the viewer. It fosters a first idea, best idea approach that I think when deeply ingrained too early on becomes a huge stumbling block further down the road.

But my bias is definitely in favor or work that is more studied and/or contemplative.

Of course, at the end of the day the only question that matters is did you or didn’t you get the shot? A vital shot that is legible–will depending upon the urgency of the moment–work despite failings in visual grammar.

After a decade of looking at student work and working with novice photographers and image makers, I can say that in my experience–unless the photographer/image maker is working within the confines of the architectural genre, a vertical oriented frame is almost always self-conscious, affected and logically incongruous when considered within the context the scenes it depicts. (I’ve actually had a half dozen people tell me that the reason the chose the vertical composition was because they felt more like a photographer when they took it–which is one of the most idiotic things I’ve ever heard.)

The saying goes: you have to know the rules before you break them. Yet, by the same token: there are exceptions which prove the rule.

Intermediate practitioners love to take me to task about my strenuous objections to #skinnyframebullshit. (There are at least two internet famous photographers who disagree with me vociferously–in one case the photographer seems to have specifically built a body of work in an effort to flout my assertion. I find it ironic that this insistence is actually very much to the detriment of what would otherwise be better than average photos.)

In my own work–there have been instances where I have employed a vertical frame. I only use it as an absolutely last resort. And frequently I find a way to do it wherein the resulting image will be presented as if it were original conceived and executed as a horizontal frame.

This is partly because I am interested in more narrative or cinematic photos/images. And if you are intended to make a narrative photo/image and you frame it vertically, you’ve already missed the bus.

Another excuse I hear a lot is that the framing echoes the relationship of the subject to the space the subject occupies. This is actually dumber than the but I feel like a photographer/image maker because I tilted my camera on its side while taking a picture. Almost categorically, people who use this reasoning do so because they like the age old trick of making already skinny women look thinner through the imposition of a vertical frame. Or, they do it because they are shooting in an unphotogenic space and want to through shallow depth of field and careful staging draw attention to the subject while merely implying things about the physical space (i.e. it’s an interior with a brightly lit window.) :::masturbatory gesture:::

Most folks don’t stick around long enough to advance beyond the intermediate level. Also the gap separating a novice from an intermediate is much less than that which separates the intermediate practitioner from the advanced.

At a certain point you have to realize that the rules only apply to the well-traveled paths. They are there to keep you safe. But when you find your passion and chase it off the well-beaten path, the same rules deteriorate, clutch up and cease to offer their assistance. You begin to make your own. (And the way you’ll know whether or not someone is at that level, the ones who deny they’ve reached there are always more trust worthy than those who insist they know better.)

So why does this image work? I mean am I not contradicting myself because the framing so clearly echoes the position of the subject in space that is depicted. Well, yes. But also, not how the frame functions as an ellipses. The grading toward black at the top and bottom of the frame presents an impermeable boundary. Whereas the white on either side (bed and curtains, respectively) speak to space beyond the left and right edge that has been purposes excluded due to repetition. In other words, by seeing what we do of the bed and the curtain, we are able to extend the frame out in either side in our mind’s eye.

Anything that manages to include and engage you in the process of perceiving is a victory. But that fact is while being invited to participate is invigorating, a horizontal frame here would actually be boring. Too much white and not enough black would give it a oneirically suffused look; whereas because of our participation this seems edgy, voyeuristic and even lonely.

I’m not super familiar with all of PeterVR’s work but looking back over some of his recent stuff, he actually does a really good job of knowing when to use vertical frames. So if you’re interested, you should definitely spend some time with his work.

Source: newcracksinthewall

wonderlust photoworks in collaboration with @marissalynnla – [↑] Tenebristic Curatrix; [↖]  _.._; [↗] Against a Tide of Tyrants; [↙] Liminal Interval; [↘] Tightened with a Pin; [↓] Eigenstate (2017)

Back when I was first dipping my toes into the shadowy fjords of photography, I was a ridiculously squeeing fangirl when it came to work produced by Houston neighbors Traci Matlock and Ashley MacLean.

I utterly adored the ambiguity their work faciliated–mid-way between out-and-out eroticism and unblinking, it-is-what-it-is matter-of-factness.

I’d been following their work for the better part of a year before I learned how they worked; namely, when Traci made a photo of Ashley, Ashley was given the first editing pass. Allowing the subject of the photo a thumbs up/thumbs down first look–a means of allowing the person in the photo a very real degree of agency in how their visual identity was presented.

This process has become integral to my own work. With whomever I collaborate, I always offer them first look rights.

One of the interesting things about these images was that–without prompting–Marissa zeroed in on the all the same photos by which I was already captivated. (I’m telling y’all she’s not just a first rate model, she’s also a damn fine artist.)

The other interesting thing was that between shooting more frequently and being able to work in B&W in my preferred manner, it feels like my work is actually gathering something not unlike forward momentum.

Now if I can just find more folks who want to collaborate…