03 Maria Lax, Some Kind of Heavenly Fire:

Night Flight, Maria Lax from Some Kind of Heavenly Fire

… a photographic rendering of UFO sightings in a small Finnish town up north in the 1960’s… the sightings seem to have occurred at a time when there was an exodus of people to find work in the cities further south… it was a time of economic hardship and struggle… the photographs are beautiful and remind me a bit of Gregory Crewdson images, sans the people… they are noir in their generally dark and brooding character… they are on display as an OpenWalls Arles 2021 winner… i came very close to ordering the book… don’t really have the money right now…

05 Photo Notes:

From today’s walk…

03 My Photography:

Flattened Cans…

I have been collecting images of flattened cans for a number of years. They represent uniqueness out of homogeneity to me. They start as cohorts (particular brand, particular size) of perfectly shaped and, for all intents and purposes, identical industrial objects. When tossed into the environment (sadly, there is no end of subject material) they continue the entropic process of becoming unique and beautiful objects.

05 My Photographs:

… sometimes color is an important reason the photograph is made…

… sometimes color is the whole reason the photograph is made…

… homage to Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty…

📷

03 Photography:

Fiona Véronique…

… the images presented in this article are from “Riddle,” a recently released photobook by the artist…

Published as a photobook by Antics Publications in 2020, “Riddle” follows a road trip Véronique took with her sister, from Seattle, Washington to Elko Nevada.¹

… road trips to “look for America” are a common theme for photobooks, by American photographers (Stephen Shore, Uncommon Places), and foreign born photographers (Robert Frank, The Americans)… there is a high bar for this kind of work…

… i don’t know if this book meets that bar as i don’t have a copy to look through, but i believe many of the images in the book are quite solid and evocative…

… this one in particular is beautiful and rightfully headlines the article… the flat landscape, the trucks, the edge of a parking lot, the place chosen to sun oneself, at the apex of the corner of the parking lot… all quintessentially American… tipped on an angle (homage to Frank?) to slope down (suggesting a downhill run for the nation?)…

… i click through to the book purchase page and buy one of 50 copies for $30… why is it so cheap?, why are there any left?…

05 Walking:

Daily photo walk…

… these steps by the falls are a favorite stopping place…

… this school building was built in 1955, the year i was born… had i lived in Beacon then i might have attended elementary school there… it looks set to easily outlast me… i wonder how many children got their first sense of who they are wandering it’s halls?… i wonder what they have become?…

… i like the colors of these houses together…

… sitting in another one of my favorite stops by Fishkill Creek… note the orange inner tube on the opposite bank… isn’t it interesting the way the landscape revolves around it?…

… some pictures of things noticed along the way…

… the walk of sorrow…

… my wife and i refer to this stretch of road as “the walk of sorrow” because we saw sad looking people walking down it all the time… the people come from Hedgewood assisted living facility a little further down the road… the facility houses people who are not able to fully function in broader society but are no threat to themselves or others…

04 My Work

Having just posted about Jurgen Teller…

… i thought i would share a link to a body of work that recently appeared in a solo show at WAAM (Woodstock Artist Association and Museum) in Woodstock, NY… it was my first solo show that i did not organize myself… when i said at the end of my previous post that i am more of a Basho poetry sort of person, this is how that manifests in my photographic work…

… a couple of examples…

03 Juergen Teller and Skateboard Fashion

An article on a new skateboard fashion line incorporating the images of Juergen Teller…

… an interesting character, fashion and art photography that often (always?) pushes the boundaries of good taste (many would say steps well over it) in presenting male and female bodies…

… i have one of his photo books…

Cover of Unterwegs Mit Juergen Teller

Spread from Unterwegs Mit Juergen Teller

… it’s a collection of photographs taken during his career with brief stories accompanying each… it is frank and largely heterosexual, even if it incorporates gay and trans personalities… it, like the fashion industry, very sexually oriented… there is a picture of Nobuyoshi Araki with a beer bottle sprouting erect-penis-like from his crotch (a frat boy cliche if you ask me, but then, it’s Araki)…

… he seems to be an equal opportunity boundary pusher, young nude women, old nude women, nude men (mostly his middle aged self), men’s genitals, women’s genitals, men’s sphincters, women’s sphincters, trans women, black men, black women, most of them celebrities of one kind or another…

… from where i sit it seems a wild life… my libido is interested and perhaps a little envious, but the poetry of Basho is more my style…

04 Scenes From a Walk

03 Lightroom Enhanced Mode

While i was away…

… Adobe issued an update which allows you to double the pixel length and width of an image… i can now print images to a size of 40” x 60” at 300 dpi… bit of a game changer… heretofore this was done through a third party app with an expensive subscription model…

… tried it on one image… really seems to bog down my computer…

… i am guessing i will only use it for exhibition prints…

04 Tarra St. Hill

… an article about TSH in AnOther Magazine… i am initially interested because the lead photograph is of TSH from the waist up, naked… yes, the sex hook worked as it usually does…

… AnOther Mag is largely a fashion focused publication, but includes some good spreads on art of the moment, especially photographic art… in the past i have not been much interested in fashion, but a niece in the fashion industry and my interest in how women are presented photographically have converged to inspire me to pay more attention…

… TSH was apparently a muse to Corrine Day who was a fashion photographer, documentary photographer, model and author of Diary, in which she wrote about the experiences of herself and the constellation of people around her… Diary, published in 2000, sounds as though it has been generationally important… and when i look the book up i discover it is out of print and collectible, selling for north of $300 for a hardcover copy… it’s available as an ebook through a membership gated portal… i will investigate that later…

… as i read the article on the new TSH zine… it strikes me as largely a PR piece meant to enhance the notoriety of TSH… that the article leads with a partially nude portrait is to draw people (especially men?) in… TSH reminds me of the Blade Runner character Priss in the selection of photos offered from the magazine… i imagine that is intentional…

04 The New Woman Behind The Camera

… this one is at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, so i have no excuses for failing to see it… i purchased the catalog a while back and am happy to be reminded to go see the exhibition… as i have mentioned in the past, all things camera and woman interest me… it’s my personal wormhole… don’t you have one?

03 LES RECONTRES DE LA PHOTOGRAPHIE

… if i were in France in the next few months i would make a beeline for Arles to take in the photo festival…

05 Scenes From a Walk

04 Paul Phung, Sisterhood

… to encounter Paul Phung’s portfolio, Sisterhood, immediately after spending time with Jenna Westra’s Afternoons, is interesting to say the least… the parallels are significant… Phung’s project shoots women who are dancers… Westra’s project shoots women who are dancers… both make claims to displaying feminine intimacy, though Westra’s work is a deeper study of the feminine…

… costuming has removed the sexuality of female bodies as in issue in Phung’s work, the women dance in robes with copious amounts of fabric which hide features of the female body that could signify overt sexuality…

… largely, i react to Phung’s work as a study of dance and female dancers… the choreography is not that of the artist as it is in Westra’s work, and Phung remains removed from the work since he does not, could not, participate in it as subject, and he photographs from a distance, no close in crops…

… i enjoy Phung’s photographs, they are well done, but they actually lack the intimacy claimed, which is further made remote by dance representations of what intimacy amongst women is…

03 Jenna Westra, Afternoons

… i’ve taken my first page by page tour through Afternoons, by Jenna Westra…

… here is what i notice…

… the artist includes photographs of herself throughout and uses a cable release in several of the portraits which marks the portraits as self portraits and identifies her amidst the multiple women who are subjects of photographs in the book…

… thus, one woman in particular, the artist, has prominence in the book as the only individual with a name and a presence that goes beyond studies of form and the feminine… the choice to include herself without such clear identification for the other women is significant and shifts what the book would be without it… yes, the other women are sometimes identified in the title of a picture, all, i presume, are listed at the end… it’s not possible to be certain, as there is a list of names but only as individuals to be thanked, one wonders about these choices…

… keeping the female subjects of the photographs largely unidentified supports the feminine generalities of the book…

… there are full and partial nudes in the book… they are outnumbered by images of women with some kind of clothing on… only one of the nudes¹ strikes me as being at all sexual, attractive to the male or female gaze… a woman’s sex potential is not an overt theme of the book, rather, it is feminine form, femininity and an intimate society of women together… it is not to be assumed that the women are lesbians either… they are there, with each other, as a sisterhood… or perhaps, as alter egos, different dimensions, of the artist herself…

… the book is well done, a mixture of black & white and color images, it has a nice pace…

… there are layers of intent and meaning to peel away, more is revealed with each pass through the book…

… a very nice photobook experience…

03 Afternoons, Jenna Westra

… i ordered this book prior to leaving on vacation, forgot that i had, was pleasantly surprised to see it in the mail pile when i returned…

… for some time now i have been interested in the subject of women in photography, as subject/object, as photographer, as critic… i became especially interested in the “male gaze” vs the “female gaze,” as i was noticing increasing numbers of women photographers photographing other women nude… i often found the nude images made by women as “male gaze” provocative as those made by men, and wondered how that squared with the feminist idea that it is not helpful that women are continually objectified as sexual objects, not to be taken seriously as intelligent accomplished beings in their own right…

… i ordered this book because it is entirely about the female body, singularly or with other female bodies, with some full or partial nudity, but as often dressed and posed in ways that allow an appreciation of youthful feminine form without being open to an overly sexual read…

… from the opening essay by Orit Gat…

Many of the photographs feature degrees of nudity. Once this book, these photographs, are out in the world, the tender consciousness of being seen between the models and the artist or the cameral shifts. Whatever eyes rest on them, though, will recognize different things in their freedom. It’s hard, maybe impossible, to talk about a female gaze without it reading like a translation of the terminology of the male gaze. The comfort nude women feel around one another will read as familiar to many, and like a secret society to others. The photos do not explore the difference per se, but they also do not generate tension around the history of nude representation. Instead, there is tenderness.¹

… it’s a deep subject that has brought lots of feminist literature into my library, Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex, for example…

… the biggest thing i have learned is that consent, then intent, matter… the models should always have agency in both agreeing to be photographed, how they are photographed and how the photographs are to be used after being made… intent also matters… and even when intent serves a good purpose, is not objectification of subject, the image can always be appropriated as such when it engages the male gaze, which often is the case…

01 First Thoughts

… no middle of the night waking by either dog, but Chas is ready promptly at 4 AM… it’s ok, no alcohol last night and in bed more or less on time…

… the heat should break today… there isn’t anything abnormal about a few days of this kind of heat at this time of year… not like the Pacific Northwest where temperatures are breaking records, and in the case of British Columbia, setting an all time record… 116 degrees!…

… this morning’s Heather Cox Richardson is all about how the oil and gas industry are lobbying states for legislation that favors the fossil fuel industry and makes it harder to pursue green energy strategies… the problem with capitalism… money equals power and big oil and gas have lots of money… interests are entrenched… numerous states depend substantially on the oil and gas industry for jobs and revenue… we should be better at adjusting but the market capitalist system often makes it difficult to do what is beneficial in the long run…

… a sweet story about Gertrude Tate and Alice Austin love affair in Brain Pickings… Alice Austin was a pioneering photographer… Maria Popova describes her work as brilliant, i am not as clear that it was, but she was both pursuing photography and loving a woman when both were difficult to do… i think her genius was in just getting out and doing it, recording people, in dignified portraits… here is an example…

Street-cleaner at 34th Street, New York City, part of Alice Austen’s 1896 series Street Types of New York. (Alice Austen House archive.)

… trying out Craft after a high recommendation from a Micro.blog community member… trying to see where it might fit into my workflow…

… the internet is so freaking slow this AM… that is what i hoped i was leaving behind when i came home… what gives?…

03 Scenes From a Walk

… meanwhile, back in Beacon…

06 Scenes From a Walk

05 Scenes From a Walk

04 Scenes From a Walk

03 Scenes From a Walk

02 Buson

… i keep searching for a name for this daily 02 slot post, which i like to be based on readings that are inspirational or in some way dealing with bigger questions… i intend the readings to be a moment of centering and contemplation, a meditation perhaps…

… this morning i continue with the haiku of Buson as translated by Robert Haas…

… as i open my book, i turn to a reproduction of a painting by Buson… Two Crows in Winter (the left panel)…

… i am reminded of Masahisa Fukase’s photo book, Ravens… an acknowledged masterpiece… i have a copy and look forward to looking at it when i get home…

… a poem about a quilt, stained with urine, drying on a line in Suma Village… Buson has no qualms about mentioning urine or shit, in his poems… we shit, we pee, and not always with decorum… an example of the down to earth nature of his poems…

03 Beautiful Morning