… which, unfortunately, has just closed but you can savor it to some degree in his review which ends on this note…

_ Art is, and has always been, a huge part of humanity’s salvation._

Art is an act of creation, and represents the best of us, as a species.

So let’s not forget that, in 2021, when so much bad-behavior gets us down.¹

… JB is one of my favorite reviewers of (mostly) photography… his anecdotal style and deep knowledge of what is going on in the world of photography combine to make just about every review he does amazing… always worth the read…

… chilly this morning… an air conditioner running…

… my back hurts… i should start stretching again…

… the undertow is towing… deep breath… be in the moment…

… unfettered happiness seems a difficult proposition…

Paz Errázuriz, “La Jaula, Talca” (1984/2014), Inkjet print, 12 5/8 × 17 3/8 in. (32.07 × 44.13 cm)

… an article in Hyplerallergic about Paz Errázuriz’s photographs documenting trans sex worker communities in Chile during the reign of Pinochet… twenty of the photographs have entered the collection of the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angelas…

… step out the front door… rain drops lingering on the car… air crisp, chilled… street flushed by rain… birds twittering…

… the undertow is with me this morning… deep breathing to settle it down…

… another jeweler?… there are several on Main Street already… steadily increasing luxuriance…

… as i walk, a tribe of finches flit from place to place keeping just ahead of me… am i chasing them or are they leading me?…

… L wishes me good morning… walking their dog… i notice they have allowed their hair to be gray…

…more signs of luxuriance…

… sitting near the falls at the roundhouse… three people messing with light poles on the terrace… taking them in for the winter?…

… the sun clears a building nearby, warmth spreading down the left side of my head… deep breath… be present to it…

… a father changes the diaper of a crying baby in the back seat of a car…

… a girl with fairy wings strapped on her back sits with her father outside a donut shop… the pinks and greens of the girl’s sweatshirt and father’s flannel shirt are dazzling in the morning sun…

… a caravan of venders popping up in the DMV parking lot… farmer’s market today…

… pictures of what i noticed along the way…

… [Jackie Nickerson](https://www.anothermag.com/art-photography/13652/the-story-behind-jackie-nickerson-s-salvage-portraits?utm_source=Link&utm_medium=Link&utm_campaign=RSSFeed&utm_term=the-story-behind-jackie-nickerson-s-arresting-salvage-portraits “Stansfield, Ted, The Story Behind Jackie Nickerson’s Arresting ‘Salvage” Portraits")

Photography by Jackie Nickerson

… as i look at the images i try to decide between gimmick and serious art work… i like the images, like the concept, but am i being seduced by something which really only has surface attraction?… she is described as a “world-class” photographer… she has earned her reputation in the fashion industry… interesting that these art/fashion photographs are about identity through, essentially, hats…

… the photography is from Salvage, her latest photobook… it explores the relationship between people and consumption in formal portraits… but what exactly does it say about that?… that we throw away some beautiful things that make cool face and head props in a photo project?…

… i look at the images… first take, cool… second take, what’s the message?… should we be forced to wear the wages of our sins?…

For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.¹

… as i think the words “wages of our sin” onto the computer screen, i look up the reference… a bible passage… and so, my thoughts about the photographs move to the objects plastered onto the heads of the models as some kind of cancerous growth… but not grotesque… somewhat disturbing but also beautiful… cleaned up, sanitized, cancerous growth…

… the pictures are compelling… would be easy to hang on the wall of ones living room… but… is the message lost in the glamour of the photography and art direction?…

… Ann Barngrover, Taking Flight

… the author discusses the work of another author… Helen Macdonald, Vesper Flights… i have, but have not yet read, H is for Hawk… Vesper Flights is a collection of essays… as i read the descriptions of the books, i am thinking they would make good Christmas gifts for my sister…

… i learn about the German concept of wunderkammer, “cabinet of wonders.”…

Originally depicting rooms rather than pieces of furniture, wunderkammers were most popular in Victorian times as enclosed spaces that held collections of rare or unexpected finds. Instead of functioning as museums, “It was expected that people should pick up and handle the objects in these cases; feel their textures, their weights, their particular strangenesses.” You could touch and hold mollusk shells and chinaware, pressed feathers and butterfly wings, beaded stones and the fragile candelabras of fish bones, things both natural and forged. “Nothing was kept behind glass,” Macdonald notes.²

… as i read about the concept of wunderkammer… i think, i have a wunderkammer… my studio is a wonderkammer in a way… i have lots of natural objects i have collected… a bag of such objects from Block Island, sitting on my bed right now… a windowsill full of them… i think, this could be an art project… a photo project…

… the author moves on to talk about a college course on Star Wars that she and her colleague designed and gave… she talks about the feminism in Star Wars… she talks about the male know-it-alls who claim exclusive dominion over Star Wars interpretation…

Indeed, wondering comes at a price. As Macdonald reminds us, “Increasingly, knowing your surroundings, recognising the species of animals and plants around you, means opening yourself to constant grief.” This is the sobering reversal of slowing down and rejoicing in complexity and nuance, beauty and depth. The more you slow down, the more you will find. The more you find, the more you will connect. The more you connect, the more you will love. The more you love, the more you will lose—maybe not today, but one day, one day soon.³

… a good essay… worth reading…

… Reese Herrington, “Girl Talk”

Girl Talk, Photography by Reese Herrington

… a young woman photographer photographs the women around her in appreciative, sensual and sexual ways… in the bedroom, the bathroom, the boudoir… if its women photographing women, is it objectification?… their Instagram site is more balanced…

… i was getting very disappointed with Feedbin… I thought it wasn’t functioning properly… no new articles coming in… this morning decided to poke through settings and it turns out i was filtered to an item i had starred… once filtered to “unread” i am back in business…

… what catches my attention:

• Myths, Dreams and Erotica: The Zine Celebrating Latin America’s Outsiders, AnOther Magazine… i am drawn in by the lead photograph of a heterosexual couple in the midst of having sex… by the word Erotica in the title, by Latin America’s Outsiders, also in the title… i discover that the article is about a zine published digitally and in print, focused mostly on LGBTQ+ life… there are 25 images accompanying the article… most are about LGBTQ+ life… clearly AnOther thinks their readership is heterosexual…
• Photographer Lea Colombo’s Searing Ode to Colour and the Nude, AnOther Magazine… i am again drawn in with the promise of sex… an article with the words Searing and Nude in the title… yes please!… yes, sex sells to me and i am not ashamed of that… i like well done portraits of naked women and even men sometimes… however, i am also aware of the ways in which heteronormative society objectifies women… when i review the photographs accompanying the article, i see there is something more to the set than sexuality and i like it on a more platonic level… i see echoes of Roger Ballen (fellow South African Photographer) and Boris Mikhailov in her images…

From Colours of My Body (2021) Lea Colombo, via AnOther Magazine

From Structures of Madness, or Why Shephards Often Go Crazy Living in the Mountains, Boris Mikhailov

… the artist focuses on her use of color as a principal factor of the work:

I am attracted to colour’s vibration and energy, the frequency that it gives off and has, or holds. It allows a deeper expression. Colour is the living touchstone of reality. Everything that we see and experience is made up of a spectrum of colours – it’s how we relate to the world and ourselves. As such, it is a pivotal component of my artistic and photographic expression. It is how I render my relationship to subject and self.¹

… there is a gallery exhibit of the work in two places, South Africa and Los Angelas… there is a book coming… six hundred plus pages… i really like the work but wonder if it would sustain me through 600 pages…

… that the nudes are all of the artist’s own body frees it from questions of exploitation of the model… it is a self exploitation… i also think that the work frees itself from questions of objectification of the female body as intent… though, as with all such images, how the image is interpreted by the viewer can be pure objectification…

Patti Smith & Jefferson Hack

Michelangelo’s David, Florence, Photography by Patti Smith

… characters of the late fifties, sixties and seventies cropping up with regularity… i suppose Modern Nature, by Derek Jarman is part of the reason… DJ mentioned Robert Mapplethorpe in my readings of a few days ago… Patti Smith on another magazine ties into that thread, Mapplethorpe and Smith were good buds back in the day… i look the article over because it contains Smith’s photography… i have a book of her photographs… my general reaction is that they are good photographs, but they don’t take my breath away… this article opens with Never Still, a poem being published for the first time by Smith…

… it seems appropriate to the milieu in which my readings and discoveries are unfolding… Derek Jarman would have connected to the physique of David i suspect… who doesn’t, but most of us don’t in a queer way, he would have… perhaps stating the obvious here, but i am thinking about the statue and it’s frank sexuality… do i recall that Michelangelo is thought (known?) to have been gay?… i do an internet search and the answer seems to be maybe… would it be possible to make such a sculpture without being in love with the subject?… it reminds me of MK, designer, artist, mentor… when he died it was discovered that he had a bunch of crocheted penises hidden away in his apartment…

Walking

… after taking garbage to the dump, a walk around old harbor looking for boat reflection images like this one:

… one of my favorite subjects…

What a Little Moonlight Can Do

Stacy Arezou Mehrfar: The Moon Belongs to Everyone

… as i look through the review, not really sure i can call it that as the reviewer doesn’t take a position on the book that I can see, if don’t find an image that is compelling in and of itself… i get many of the images, but don’t love any of the images, and have a sense that the photographs are gathered to become something more than they are individually… this image is an example:

… an image that most any photographer with a bit of a poetic spirit might make…

The Moon Belongs to Everyone by Stacy Mehrfar, is a response to the contemporary experience of migration – of shifting continents and mindsets. A multi-layered visual narrative set in a non-locatable landscape, the book reflects upon the loss of roots, and search for belonging in the wake of immigration.¹

… it might sound like i am panning the book, i am not… i don’t have it in my possession, so can’t take it in entirely… i have only the images shared in this review and the artists statement about the work to go by… i am attracted by the idea of it and its alignment with a spirit within photography which doesn’t view each individual image as precious, but rather places the emphasis on the story they collectively tell…

Photographer: Kate Sweeny

Kate Sweeny

… nice photographs of young women, clothed and unclothed… an example of nude photography with women behind and in front of the camera… the artist tells us that the photographs are not about the objectification of women, but rather, about the celebration of women’s bodies as an art form in and of themselves and as natural presences in the world… which i believe… the photographs are, however, easy to view in a sexualized and objectified way, especially when they deploy tropes like wet fabric on the body as in the above image… i think we suffer from a lot of confusion about sex and sexuality, particularly in American Society, because there is a strong tendency to repress sexuality, and because the Patriarchy is so alive and well, it makes any young woman an object of sexual desire and any photograph of said young woman sexualized, when patriarchal eyes that are looking… i don’t see this as a reason not to make and display them… i do see a need to be honest about the variety of ways in which content can be perceived…

Photographer: Grade Solomon, BOOOOOOOM Mag

Grade Solomon

… the above photograph blew me away with it subtlety and clarity… it’s also a photo i could easily have taken…

… exceptionally well made photographs and an artist statement that is to the point and accurately reflects what i encounter in the work… no small feat…

Bruce Haley, Home Fires. Vol.I: The Past

… reviewed by Jonathan Blaustein… based on the review, i would buy the book if i had much disposable cash… it’s about ecological disaster… maybe i need something more uplifting…

I Am So Apalled

… from this article i learned about a website where you can upload a photograph of any woman, and it will feed you back a very credible nude image of that woman… it should be illegal, but guess what, it’s not…

… you can imagine the variety of malignant uses the website can be put to…

… interestingly (not surprisingly?), it doesn’t work at all on men, unless you want to imagine what they might be like as a woman…

… how low can we go…

… and on that note, i am off to walk, contemplate and make pictures…

An-My Lê

… an interesting quote from the review…

_ Simply put, the raison d’etre for the military – despite all protestations to the contrary, despite all the good works they otherwise undertake – is “to engage in combat, should it be required to do so by the national defence policy, and to win. This represents an organisational goal of any military, and the primary focus for military thought through military history.” (Wikipedia) In terms of military doctrine, we note that in the history of the United States of America, the country has been at war 225 out of 243 years since 1776. America is a militarised society where the military prosecutes war on its own terms, disguising power as virtue. In terms of the prosecution of war, the country seems to be manifestly belligerent._

… this is an interesting followup to the Afghanistan article i posted right before it…

Soft Copy Hard Copy, Stephan Keppel

… a book review by Jörg Colberg and GPT-3…

… Colberg experiments with an AI writing partner… to be honest, i don’t like the results very much… i laud the attempt but think it does a disservice to book and author, as the language is a bit clumsy, somewhat repetitive and all the while, one wonders, what is human reaction to the book and what is AI reaction to the human reaction?… it obscures an honest review and appreciation (or not) of the book, though your mileage may vary…

… there are two reasons this article caught my attention… Colberg wrote it and i have high regard for his reviewer perceptions and knowledge of photography, and his AI co-author had come to my attention in an article i read the other day in which a woman author was telling the story of something significant and sad that had happened to her (her sister dying of cancer when she was a teenager)… she would start a paragraph and let the AI complete it, experimenting with getting more and more honest with her own thoughts and memories in her prompts along the way to see how the AI writer responded… her result was more coherent and satisfying, but also suspect, because as humans, we want to read what other humans think and feel, not what an AI partner intuits that we think or feel…

… the gorilla in the room, however, is, will there be a moment when we won’t know if we are reading words assembled by a human or AI (a variation on the Turing test) if we are not told? (as i was in both articles i have read with AI co-authorship)… and what are the implications of that?… or, more scary, have i already read an article either co-authored or solo authored by AI without knowing it?… hmmm…

… there is a wider conversation to have about AI in general… I shared a micro poem about that yesterday… but that is for another time…

James Whiting, Roaming Near the Fireplace

… this photobook intrigues me… it is about people, civilization if you will, without many images of people… my kind of book, since i am somewhat averse to photographing people myself…

… it is available in an edition of 100 for $65 dollars, and i would buy it, but money is tight right now…

… this is not the sort of book that is popular in the United States, given its oblique approach to generating meaning… i am reminded that i was once told to pedal my work in Europe where there might be a more receptive audience… this kind of work is like that, more suited to a European audience… but hay, it’s the same with Jazz, isn’t it?…

AnOther promises: The Best Art and Photography Books to Buy This Summer

… human centric… as in all humans all the time… not that there aren’t good works in the lot… it’s just that, maybe, if humanity spent less time on its selfies and more time on appreciating anything other than self, perhaps the planet wouldn’t be the mess that it is…

Catherine Opie

… a retrospective volume of her photographs… the review talks about her prolific production, that it is normally organized chronologically, that in this volume, it is organized thematically… i am not sure i am as interested in the photographs as i am the words, prolific, chronological and thematic, all three of which apply to my work…

About Bull Fighting

A matador taunts a bull. © Jo-Anne McArthur / We Animals Media

… i almost didn’t write about this photo essay on bull fighting… it moved me practically to tears… i have no interest in bullfighting i thought to myself… i’d rather not think about what we (humans) do to animals (and to one another)… but then, i thought, i have been powerfully affected… if this is not paying attention, then what is?… so, i share it… the photographs speak for themselves…

… i participate in killing chickens… we eat… we eat animals… i thought it important that i confront an animal and take its life if i were going to eat animals… it always saddens me, but it doesn’t stop me from doing it, because i eat animals and i should know what that is in all it’s facets…

… bull fighting is torturing animals for sport… this is obscene… like dog or cock fighting… that we should be entertained by the suffering of any creature is abhorrent… but people can be, too often are, abhorrent… we progress through the grace we offer the life we share the planet with and one another… that bullfighting still exists tells us we have a long way to go… the only hope for survival in the long term is offering that grace collectively, everywhere, always…

** Jörg Colberg, On Art and Neo Liberal Society**

From The Merge by Sara Brincher Galbiati, Peter Helles Eriksen, and Tobias Selnaes Markussen

… watch this video demonstrating the current capabilities of robots created by Boston Dynamics…

https://youtu.be/fn3KWM1kuAw

… then read this…

… and if you need more encouragement, this…

_ But when the sum of it all — the (art) community — largely fails to respond to all the various challenges to our societies, democracies, and well being, then I’m left to wonder where it all went wrong._

Maybe it’s simply the fact that the world of art has become too enmeshed with the very people who are responsible for the challenges I just mentioned. Why or how? Simply follow the money.¹

… the article is significant to me less for the book it reviews, which it pans, than for the conversation it starts, which to me is, wtf are we doing?…

Guido Guidi

… another article by Brad Feuerhelm for ASX… this one on Guido Guidi’s Cinque Viaggi 1990-1998… another photographer who photographs the evidence of people much more than people themselves… just look at this landscape…

Guido Guidi, from Cinque Viaggi 1990-1998

… mentioned also in this article is Gerry Johansson, another of my photographer heroes… another who focuses much more on the evidence of people than the people themselves… i get my courage to move forward from these photographers… i understand them and it starts to occur to me… a hypothesis if you will… is the depiction of people much more prevalent in photography by women than in photography by men?… i am thinking i need to review more carefully the photography i love, and see what binds it together…

The Evidence of People, Not the People

… all of the photography work i am viewing this morning is of people… extremely heavy emphasis on people… i don’t photograph people and don’t seem to be in the mood to look at photographs of people… i much prefer the absence of people, in life, in the photographs i make… i do photograph the evidence of people, all the time… the evidence is more interesting to me than the people themselves, or at least, the evidence does not protest when i make a picture, does not present itself as a being that will get angry with me for intruding… and then this article on the work of Mark Templeton in ASX, by Brad Feuerhelm… and this image…

Mark Templeton from Ocean Front Property

Mark Templeton has taken notice. Though the refutation of another place is not the aim of this work, what Templeton suggests, by acknowledging the infernal desire to leave as quickly as possible and as far away as possible, is that what we are seeking is not the place itself, but rather the journey away from ourselves, and he is rightly critical of that practice. He has noted that we never seem happy enough with where we are. We have been produced and educated with this in mind. We litter our surfaces with the promise of water, and, without remorse or candor, we embark recklessly towards entropy inasmuch as we refuse to stop expanding our movements. All heat cools. All light fades. And yet it would be a shame, in this broad and beautiful geography, if we could not take time to measure ourselves against what is most precious: the home, the family, and the will to accept that our lives are fleeting no matter where our feet finally place themselves.¹

… the emphasis i have placed on the one sentence above is because it so aligns with my experience of those close to me… what is is never good enough, and lives slip away, beautiful present moment by beautiful present moment, unnoticed because we are continually dreaming of some better, happier life down the road…

Mark Templeton from Ocean Front Property

… i love the above photograph… and would you believe that i prefer the decrepit urban landscape to the hot tub bliss depicted on the billboard?… i know, i’m weird… H will confirm that to you… she understands my preference, but has long wanted a hot tub…

… if my funds were limitless, or even less bounded than they are, i would buy this book… it looks very good and BF’s essay about it is good too…

Holy

By Donna Ferrato, reviewed by Jonathan Blaustein…

… for the most part, i agree with Jonathan Blaustein, that Holy is a powerful book, though my personal reaction to it is that it starts to fall apart a bit in narrative intent at the end, in the “Other” section… i proudly own a copy though… it’s overall, fabulous… i commented on the post, expressing these sentiments…