Category: Uncategorized

Source unknown – Title unknown (19XX)

This reminds me of Nan Goldin’s work although I am reasonably certain it isn’t hers.

To the best of my knowledge, Goldin used color slide film exclusively. (I vaguely remember that she now uses digital–which makes sense given the gritty immediacy she trades in.)

That it’s B&W would be a huge departure for her.

Also, the orientation of the couple to the space they’re inhabiting is a bit over-stylized–the way her body enters the frame at a slant gives a sense of dynamic left-to-right leaning in, which in turn contributes to a physical sense of forward motion into the cocksucking motion–despite the fact that she’s pretty clearly moving her mouth up the length of the boy’s erection not down it. (That tension between bending in and pulling away, makes it feel a bit like a gif despite the fact that it’s a single frame.)

Again, though: there’s a way in which this image doesn’t seem to be for or about the viewer–it’s merely something the viewer has been deemed lucky enough to witness second hand. (And in that way, it’s also very much like Goldin’s work.)

Source unknown – Title unknown (201X)

The eye moves left to right over this frame; the action flows in the opposite direction (right to left)–like walking into the ocean when the tide is pushing in against the land; or, as if the arrow were pushing itself against the bowstring of its own accord–seeking that perfect tension wherein it can only be loosed free and true on target.


Lúa Ocaña – Untitled from Don’t Break series (2011)

I first featured Ocaña’s work roughly a year ago. I liked it quite a bit but it didn’t really reach out and grab me by the throat like say Allison Barnes or Sannah Kvist, and after just a single encounter I compulsively spend days meditating on the work.

This popped up on my dash the other day and I’m glad for that because I have been meaning to spend further time with her photos–it’s just that frequently in the rushed fuss and bustle to keep this blog running, work that I like but doesn’t necessarily immediate worm its way under my skin falls (unfortunately) by the wayside.

For now I have two additional observations to offer regarding Ocaña‘s photos. First, it’s interesting how her visuals play with the ubiquity of a certain minimalism embraced by hordes of internet famous image makers–a naked model against a white wall in medium close up with light falling in such a way that you know a window is just beyond the edge of the frame.

However, there is an intense vitality to Ocaña‘s work; a vitality absent from 99.9% of thematically adjacent imagery. I think the best I know how to point to that vitality is to refer to it as ‘intense introspection as a route to surreal experience’.

This leads to the second point: there is another image maker working in a similar style: Els Vanopstal. Yes, her work is a bit more varied and formal. But I can’t look at this image and not automatically connect it with Ocaña.

A 2 Week Queue

The influx of new followers over the last several weeks has been straight up unbelievable. Thank you so much and a very warm welcome to all the newbies.

Acetylene Eyes–for the first time ever–is set to run without interruption for the next 2 weeks. (Practically that means there’s likely to be at least one new post a day through mid-March, at least–though I am hoping to keep in going for as long as possible.)

I’m going to take this opportunity to remind you that this blog as long as this project is active, it will always be 100% free. However, the work involved in curating it takes a lot of time–approximately twenty something hours each and every week.

So if you like what I’m doing here consider offering a bit of support via my Patreon. Literally, at the rate I’m currently growing, if 10% of my followers contributed a couple bucks a month, I could feasibly transition to making this my full time job in a years time and making my current boring ass full-time office job a part-time thing.

Also, you know, if more than 10% of y’all donated, who knows. I certainly have bigger and better plans out there. But for now, I’m paying for them out of my own pocket. Investing in the blog, if you will–in the hopes that going forward, enough people will consider the blog worth investing in so that it can become self-sufficient and then maybe with a little bit of patience and a whole lot of love, it can possible be a way of supporting myself while I transition into some sort of more creative full-time occupation.

Alexander Prischepov – Untitled (201X)

I have A LOT to say about this image but I want to admit upfront that I am several steps over the burnt out line and as a result I am extremely brain fogged, so bear with me.

I wasn’t certain of the attribution on this for a while–it just doesn’t really look like much else Prischepov has made; but if you look here, you can match the model and the curtains.

I feel like a broken record every time I say this but–le sigh–this is not a good image: the angles are such that the slight variance between the frame edge and the inner window jamb are not squared and with this wawkerjawed-ness becomes more exaggerated as the your eyes scan the frame. (For example: left-to-right you have the left frame edge (0°), the inside window jamb (2°) back of the refrigerator (5°), edge of the refrigerator door to the right of the line of her neck (7°) and then the door handle (9°).

From the standpoint of composition this does push your eye left to right across the frame–but by doing so it doesn’t really encourage prolonged examination. And with the slowly increasing cant, the eye is drawn left to right and then down. The clear focus of the image is absolutely intended to be the well manicured fur on mons pubis.

Don’t get me wrong all vulvas are beautiful and deserving of considered appreciation. But the way this is set up compositionally is entirely ubiquitous as far as the art historical male gaze and it’s essentialized, objectifying orientation.

What I find fascinating and commendable about the image is the way that despite how it’s organized, it–to my eye at least–subtly subverts such a  mentality.

I don’t think it’s intentional on the part of the image maker. But there’s a contrast between the super styled and fully made up production design against the casual way she’s sitting. (I mean she looks super comfy. And it occurs to me as I sit her writing this that I am sitting in a similar position and am just as naked and comfortable. The only difference is I’m drinking coffee not tea. And she’s prettier than I’ll ever be…)

She’s also not making eye contact with the camera. She’s staring at something the viewer can’t see–intently lost in thought. (It’s very difficult to objectify someone when you acknowledge that they have an inner life which you cannot access unless they choose to share it with you.)

Further–as I tell folks who are interested in avoiding objectifying imagery–think of the labia as eye lids and the vagina as if it had an eyeball, if that eyeball is staring directly into the camera, then, yeah, it’s highly likely that the image is objectifying. (This is a general rule. There are exceptions. Steph Wilson comes to mind but her approach is more one of re-appropriation of the trope. Same with this one by Becky Flanders–which probably was a predecessor to Wilson. )

I’m also looking at this and recalling the question that @suspendedinlight made during her guest curatorial stint a bit over a week ago. She wondered allowed whether “[It’s] possible
to desire someone without objectifying them?”

I’m gonna steal a line from Bjork’s Immature:

How could I be so immature ?
To think he could replace,
The missing elements in me,
How extremely lazy of me.

To employ an analogy desire is to objectification as joy is to happiness. Joy is something that happens in a moment. It’s something experienced not controlled. Happiness is the effort to transform joy into something continuously uninterrupted.

It’s the same with desire. There are a myriad of flavors but insofar as your understanding of desire involves gaining something from someone else as opposed to sharing your self with them and reveling in their sharing of themselves with you, then yes desire is inherently objectifying.

I, for my part, reject that kind of desire.

As far as depictions of desire go, yes it’s complicated. An image is permanent and unwavering. In effect, by trying to depict desire visual with non-moving images, you are fundamentally objectifying. But although largely true such a perspective egregiously fails to acknowledge that just as the meaning of a word evolves as its use shifts, the interplay between visual grammar and concept and execution provides ample opportunity to interrogate such considerations–whether or not the image maker intended those responses.

Source: le-voleur-de-beaute

clikr73 – DSC_3901 (2015)

This isn’t a good image but it gives me all sorts of warm fuzzy feelings.

It’s from the 2015 World Naked Bike Ride in Portland–and event I promise myself that I’m going to do each and every year and then chicken out at the last minute each and every year.

It’s a complicated thing. I’m super fascinated by intersections of ‘private’ experiences in public spaces. But I get intensely put off by the whole nudist/naturalism scene. Not that I have anything against nudism/naturism, I’m just more interested in the transgression of the boundary that says being nakedly embodied is not something appropriate for mass consumption. (Nudism/naturalism seems to drift toward the extreme of trying to normalize and de-transgressionate public nudity.)

Also, if there was a closer match between how I see myself–a dyke-ier version of the woman here with the fabulous ink–I’d probably be more into these sorts of things.

Mostly what gets me about this is the way that these two are obviously close friends. They are sharing water from the same nalgene and are sharing space in one of those casual, unconsidered ways that friends do. I’m jealous of that, honestly.

I’d like to have friends that feel comfortable being naked around me and whom I feel comfortable being naked around. Bodies are great and I don’t think we should have to hide them and I don’t think being naked around other people always has to be sexual, I just think that it’s more honest in some ways. (If that makes sense.)

I do also realize that this is a very male gaze-y sort of thing. I mean the way it’s focused on the woman with the ink as opposed to anyone else and the way it’s framed so that you can see the knee jerk cishet assumed erogenous zones is kind of grating. But I do have to admit the twine tied around her hips gets me all kinds of hot and bothered, if I’m honest.

wonderlust photoworks in collaboration with Kelsey Dylan– [↑] Not a Place–a Feeling (2016); [-] The Anchorite’s Niche (2016); [↓] Opia (2016)

Kelsey and I were able to pull together a quick session while she was in New York in November.

There was nowhere near enough light and I only had 100 speed film on hand but I think we still managed some good snaps.

Also, I think I’m getting a better handle on how to communicate with photographic collaborators. And I’m super excited now that my B&W slide lab is back online. (Can’t wait to get back into serious B&W work again.)