Category: Uncategorized

Source unknown – Title Unknown (2009) 

Any halfway decent Philosophy 101 course is going to touch on the notion of an ontological argument.

The premise goes like this: God must exist because a God is perfect and that which exists is more perfect than that which does not exist.

I feel as if a lot of modern images suffer from an ontological raison d’etre–namely, the image you capture is better than the image you don’t because the former exists and the latter does not.

All sorts of justifications are employed to shore up this rationale: if I don’t take a photo I won’t remember or it seemed to suggest something that would make a pretty picture.

I call bullshit on both. On the one hand the notion that folks need to Instagram every prettily plated meal and a trendy eatery cheapens the notion of persistence of memory. I’m sure it was good and all but are the huevos rancheros you had a brunch really something you want to remember ten years from now? (It’s like they teach you early on in film making–there’s no need to shoot coverage of a scene with closeup inserts that show the protagonists movements. He grabs something off the counter and picks up something else on vanity in the vestibule. It’s unnecessary to show a close-up of his wallet and his keys, respectively; unless either figure prominently later in the plot.*)

But the second impetus–it seemed like it would make a pretty picture–is, at least, more fundamentally honest in that it assumes that someone else seeing the image will through seeing it gain something.

The proliferation of ready-at-hand imaging devices has not materially improved image making. This is due to the fact that the vast majority of the impetus to create images is grounded in the capitalist act of conspicuous consumption. It’s not enough that I eat and remember what I ate, it’s necessary to show that one is eating here there or having this or that unmediated experience.

It gets even worse with porn. Consumers of erotic content are spoon fed a stylized and highly unrealistic version of sexuality. What I always find so completely bonkers about that is that–by and large–when folks set out to produce DIY porn, instead of asking themselves how do I convey what my experience of sex is like (or perhaps better: inquiring as to why they have the urge to produce such content and then exploring how to place what they want to show in line with what they create), porn provides an easily replicable template for making you the porn star or starlet of your own triple X scene.)

The above is–to my eye–quite different. It’s clear that the audience is seeing something pornographic in nature but the focus is on the expression of an intense, in-the-moment experience of physical pleasure. Yeah, it’s goes way too dark in areas and the shadow cast by the tripod in the upper left corner is detrimental to the immersive effect the image seems to be seeking; but, the way she’s looking back over her shoulder isn’t something that could be easily staged.

Karin Székessy – Jutta auf dem Sofa (1968)

As I’ve mentioned before I went to parochial schools from 2nd grade through high school.

In 5th grade, the school didn’t have enough money to hire a qualified Physical Education teacher. And despite the fact that every student attending already paid tuition, the school came up with the brilliant idea of charging families for extracurricular PE options.

This was how I learned to ski.

…

I actually did okay, at first. Managing to not fall for the first several hours I strapped fiberglass planks to my feet. Then I had my first lesson and the first thing they did during the lesson was to have everyone lift their foot–right first then left–and touch the tip of the ski to the snow and then the tail.

From that point forward I spent one day a week for the next three weeks falling often and hard. Be I pushed through the difficulty, learned and before long as tearing up green circle and blue square slopes.

…

Photography and image making are deceptive media. Our culture is so visual and so immersed in lens based modes of representation, that whether most folks give a second thought to it, those of us in the western world are steeped in an unthinking awareness of the basics of how to present a scene.

It’s relatively easy and takes minimal training to call one’s self an image maker. However, inherent talent only goes so far. At a certain point–if this art form means anything to them–they need to do the equivalent of lifting their ski off the snow and touching the tip and the tail to the snow; in other words, a certain dislocation or disorientation is required to truly begin to learn–one must realize that what they thought they knew they know not at all.

…

What does all this have to do with Székessy photograph. Well: although it’s hardly the perfect analogy–the realization that one knows little to fuck all about art history is probably the more apples-to-apples comparison with the example of learning to ski–as much as we’d like it to be (and as much as new technologies attempt to make it so–a lens does not interpret the world in the same fashion as the human eye.

And it’s not just any one thing that’s different–it’s a complex of things.

On thing is that lenses allow us to render visible subtle gradations in light we don’t normally perceive. Arguably the best example of this is covered as a part of the thoroughly excellent documentary Tim’s Vermeer–which centers on Tim Jenison’s attempt to recreate a perfect copy of The Music Lesson.

I feel like that’s in some way what Székessy image here is trying to convey–beyond a curious and dynamically presented scene.

Source: afroui

wonderlust photoworks in collaboration with Lyndsie Alguire – [↑] The Right Light; [^] A Piece of the Sky; [+] Fever Dream; [v] Invisible Syllable; [↓] Annunciation (2016)

Nothing short of pure joy to work with @suspendedinlight and I could’ve easily included double the images here. (About half turned out really damn well.)

These were the most intriguing and distinctive to my tired eyes, though.

I am already very eagerly anticipating the opportunity of work with Lyndsie again in the future.

Source unknown – Title unknown (200X)

With images, my personal preference is to always have some sort of insinuation of a comprehensive context; thus, here: all you can see is three people and a bed–contributing a sense of this-could-be-happening-anywhere-in-the-western-world. (Whereas, I’d prefer to actually see the window in the background that is merely implied here; also, maybe enough of the way furniture is oriented in the room so that I have an inkling of whose space it is, i.e. is it her space or is it one of the boys’ domicile? The sheets make me feels like it’s hers…)

That one small-ish quibble notwithstanding, I do like this because it feels like it thwarts a lot of assumptions that would typically be projected here.

For example: I’ve been asked by several followers if it’s possible to depict a subject with their legs spread wide and have the resulting image not come across as objectifying. My answer is usually something along the lines of viewing the vulva as an eyelid–if it blinked open would the newly unshrouded iris be staring directly at the camera? Then yes, there’s a huge potential that the image will be read as objectifying.

In this case, however, I feel like this is perhaps an exception that proves the rule. And the why of that I think has to do with the fact that the focus is on attending to her pleasure. I mean–yes, the one gent has his finger inserted into her anus up to the second segment; and yes, it’s probably a warm up for anal sex.

The tableau is arranged to play towards the camera but the participants are ignoring the camera. The way the guy with the finger in her ass is always bracing her butt with his hand doesn’t seem solely about ensuring a good view. It feels like an effort to organically provide additional support as she’s trying to hold her own leg back and out of the way.

The whole thing feels (to me) intimate and attentive. I think this is another image I might want to borrow inspiration from to pursue in my own work at a later date.

Source: mysecretperv

Sebastián Gherrë – Benja (2016)

I feel about Gherrë the way I’ve come to feel about Araki–namely: I don’t always get it but the work is consistently of high quality and in spite of the tendency for both artists to cover the same ground over-and-over-and-again, there remains surprising freshness and variation.

Also, I love that there’s someone out there who is still making traditional dark room prints. They just look so much better, damn it.

Source: gag-ball-gallery

Frank Ocean – Blonde cover art (2016)

If you think my standards for good images are absurd, you should probably avoid talking about music with me. (As an erstwhile friend noted w/r/t my taste: it ‘simple yet specific’.)

I always tell people I like a little bit of everything except bluegrass and polka–and I think there’s a couple bluegrass tunes I’ve grown to like over the last several years.

I’m super out of touch when it comes to current music, is my point. The National? Arctic Monkeys? I haven’t a clue. I know Fleet Foxes and they’re the actual worst. (Seriously fuck them sideways with a shovel.)

But every once in a while an album release shows up on my radar. Kendrick’s To Pimp a Butterfly (mixed feelings), D’Angelo’s Black Messiah (effing incredible) are two examples of stuff that the hype pushed through to even someone as hopelessly unhip as me.

Ocean’s Blonde is the latest example. I know nothing about Ocean except that maybe wasn’t he in that rap performance art group Odd Future Wolf Pack Something? And his first solo album–which I still haven’t heard–people lost their shit over.

When Blonde dropped I gave it a listen. It’s phenomenal, y’all. You should definitely listen to it if you aren’t already wearing it out.

But: this isn’t a music blog. I’m more interested in the cover art–which I believe was shot by Ocean himself.

I can’t find the link now but apparently the image is based on a girl he saw sitting in a car that drove by. She had her seat belt on and Ocean felt a profound sense of empathetic understanding that he wanted to present via a self-portrait.

The light, the color, the frame, the inclusion of context–it’s a masterful image that conveys a strong sense of what he meant to convey.

Apparently, if you pick up a physical copy of the album it comes with a zine featuring work by the likes of Ren Hang. But for my money I’ll take the above image over anything Hang’s ever made–as Ocean seems more preoccupied with documenting appearance than appearing documentary.