Dave Jordano

Lens blog reacquainted me with the work of Dave Jordano  who has an eye for revealing the epic in the mundane, be it church interior or prairie landscape. From his earliest B&W portraiture to his latest color landscapes, his photographs capture and highlight those details that penetrate both subject and viewer alike, forever rendering them timeless. I don't think this guy could take a mediocre shot if he tried.

Two Lousy Movies

I remember when the second Matrix movie was coming out and Laurence Fishburne was yappin' away about how unbelievably great the car chase scene was... The first movie took us to worlds and realities we could only imagine in our wildest- yet here he was talking about some... car chase?! No, it certainly did not bode well, and the second of the Matrix trilogy did indeed prove to be the lamest of the lot. 

Recently, the second installment of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo trilogy also suffered the sophomore jinx. Actually, it wasn't all that bad- until the very end. Any action movie will stretch the boundaries of reality, but when they have her literally returning from the dead, after being shot one, two, three times and then being buried (alive?)- it really went beyond even the Hollywood (in)credulity factor and into complete comic book superhero land...

Friday, I finally got to see Inception, which I'd been dying to see for weeks. Yes, it appeared to be Matrix Redux, but pretty classy, cool and visually stimulating in its own right. At least that's what I hoped for... Alas, it was not to be (even in Imax). The non stop en masse shootouts were like early Bond movie climaxes on meth, and I found myself anxious for them to be over and done with to return to the real plot- only to be again reminded it was so absolutely piss poor to begin with, which is why they needed the mindless shootouts in the first place...

I guess that's three lousy movies.

Yet Another Republican Finest Hour...

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
I Give Up - 9/11 Responders Bill
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor Tea Party

And then there's this...

TGIF ll

General Purpose Vehicle

F-Stop

 Some interesting new portfolios up on the latest edition of F-Stop...

2010 Photography Book Now!

Well, despite the fact that every imaginable poll has predicted my book the uncontested Grand Prize Winner of Blurb's Photography Book Now 2010 competition, I thought it would be nice to glance over a few choice picks of what others somehow thought would present "competition."

In all seriousness, there's a very good chance I missed some real winners amongst this year's competitors since I selected the following only upon entering a self induced hypnotic state allowing me to tear through the 2,000+ listing in one sitting- hardly the fair means to an end. And I hope that's the case, cause in my much admitted haste, I really didn't see all that many that impressed the hell outta me- so please, please, please feel free to mention your faves. But if anything has been made abundantly clear- we definitely do need a workshop or two on naming book titles (eg- Glimpses Of Shadows And The Echoes Of Light- made up, but look for yourself, 'nuff said).

Anyway, books that kicked butt, incl:

The Donovans  by Gina Brocker- Absolutely gorgeous color images of Irish Travellers, full of frenetic energy and reminiscent of a young Nick Waplington's Living Room, except with more poise and grace. One genuine visual tour de force!

The Woods by Emily Shur-  More a collection of single images than anything to do with "the woods,"  and no problem there- I'll take a strong collection of individual photographs over an essay with a few winners and a supporting cast of mediocrity any damn day.

Time and Space On The Lower East Side by Brian Rose- An interesting look back with some remarkable images of the sights, smells and sounds of New York's Lower East Side in the early eighties highlighted against the backdrop of  today's more genteel incarnation.

Covered by Barry Lewis- Awright! Who freakin' let this guy in? Here's a guy who kicks my ass in my own friggin' "demographic." Although there are a few images added solely for content, most of these photographs stand up quite nicely as striking compositions. Cars under wraps never looked so damn good, nor funny...

And speaking of Blurb- wouldn't it make sense that if you or I can get certain bookstores to sell our Blurb books on consignment, we could then merit a more substantial "Bookstore Discount" from Blurb to offset the store mark up? Few people will choose to pay prohibitively more for a book by an unknown artist, rather than get a known artist's book that is also cheaper- but if they were competitively priced... Wouldn't that provide Blurb with added exposure and an avenue into perhaps another stage of their business where they could somehow compete, or align themselves with the "legit" publishing world? Isn't that the most obvious and logical component missing in this whole self publishing equation? Soon many a book store could have a small, separate Blurb section. Just sayin'...

Roderik Henderson

Incredible portraiture by Roderik Henderson that once again proves how sensitivity to one's subject matter combined with a good dose of imagination and a modicum of equipment can create absolute wonders- in a car, on an elevator... (via NPR: The Picture Show)

Sometimes, I Really Don't Know...

How to follow a post like yesterday's, which ultimately involves a real, live, flesh and blood human being- not just some theoretical concept, moral premise or politic du jour. A human being forced to endure that which others cannot even gaze upon, let alone explain. If only it was just her- instead she joins the ever expanding list of humans who prove just how truly abhorrent we as a species will always be, a list as long as it is forgotten.

And we seriously want to go out into space to spread our human grandeur throughout the universe? If we had any of the humanity we're so fond of claiming, we'd wipe ourselves clean off our own planet and let evolution start anew. Humans are the most failed of experiments, forever scared beyond reason and forever doomed to repeat our own miserable, short sighted, self inflicted mistakes. It is who we are, and there is nothing inherently noble, sacred or redeeming about continuing and intensifying such a history. And if god by any chance did indeed make this world in but six days, I seriously suggest he consider putting the necessary time and effort into his next attempt. For those wise enough to listen, our planet has already begun the process of ridding itself of us, as we have so grievously injured it. This time it aint waiting for no meteors. It just can't.

About TIME!!!

Prescription For Sanity...

TGIF!

Craters Of The Moon

This giant cinder cone at Craters of the Moon National Park is quite the impressive and minimalist natural structure (can't appreciate it's height or girth here), not a plant or living thing on site. Barren, bleak and very, very black...

Whatever Happened To... The Magnum Blog?

Well, it's been exactly one year since Magnum last posted anything on their blog, nonetheless promising us all a bigger, brighter future if we just held tight, remained patient... and uh, continued to do so, pretty much... indefinitely.

Can't almighty Magnum find some poor wretched intern somewhere who'll suffer and labor for free, or maybe (just maybe) man up, dig down deep amongst themselves, and draw straws? Or at very least- put it permanently out of its misery and get the remains off line instead of having it just fester there like some withered parasitic twin.

The Real Question Is...

Not how much your negs will be worth at the garage sale, but...

Who will store, and keep restoring your digital files for the very chance of being (re)discovered?

Anthony Hamboussi- Newton Creek

 
Like many photographers with an eye for documentary landscape, I love the post industrial vista- particularly on weekends, when devoid of its temporary populace. It's filled with the melancholy and ghosts of eras great and fleeting, a telling preview of our own temporary passage from this mortal coil. Unfortunately, this particular genre has gotten somewhat of a bad rap of late with the glut of Motor City ruin porn. 

Anthony Hamboussi's Newton Creek extensively documents a still functional waterfront area in New York that still manages to eke out a fragile existence, economically if not environmentally. Although the book is more concerned with presenting a faithful documentation, many of the photographs, as you can readily see, go well beyond just that...

 

Clueless In America...

While everyone's abuzz about the WikiLeaks Afghanistan disclosure (and rightfully so), here's another article in the prestigious NY Times reporting on the outbreak of Dengue Fever in Key West, Florida- yet nowhere in the article does it research how the hell it got there, courtesy... the CIA. Remember a time when newspapers would investigate and research the news themselves? And you can't put this one on cost cutting measures brought on by cable and the internet- the smoking gun article was online all the time...

This is so very characteristic of why we have a populace oblivious to facts, ignorant of cause and effect, and vulnerable to every threat, lie and rumor.

Alien Research Center

A rather recent addition to grace The Extraterrestrial Highway (at its southernmost entrance), the Alien Research Center was, unfortunately, closed upon our arrival- so just how much "research" occurs there, and where it is all leading, still remains a mystery in my universe.

Stephen J. Morgan

Restrepo

Being the rabid documentary film buff that I am, I couldn't wait to see Restrepo. And now that I've seen it, can only ask, "What the?" I really went in wanting to, and full well expecting to love this film- especially after the waves of hype, praise and hyperbole. So I anxiously sat down and proceeded to watch on site footage that looked like edits from the cutting room floor of some hopefully better film interspersed with studio interviews that were, well... standard, at best. I learned nothing new or revealing about war, its participants, its victims (aren't they all?), or Afghanistan; I did not see any great cinematic framing, pacing, or story telling; nor did I see any innovative leap forward of any kind in documentary film making. The soldiers leave at the end of the film thinking they were sold one woeful bill of goods, wondering what the hell they ever accomplished there- yeah, I left asking much the same.

Time And Space On The Lower East Side

Brian Rose has released his latest project, Time And Space On The Lower East Side, as a very affordably priced Blurb book (particularly when you see all the great images within). Sometimes you really need a view camera to get that particular feel of a street landscape that  smaller formats just cannot deliver, particularly in a city infamous for its lack of horizon lines- and Mr. Rose certainly knows how to handle one (as further evidenced in The Lost Border, one of my favorite photography books of all time).

The book depicts NYC's Lower East Side in the early eighties (the city I once knew like a used tattoo- ironically, we lived on the very same block unbeknownst to each other)  juxtaposed against more recent work depicting its current day veneer. 

Atomic City

A still inhabited ghost town named after the insidious unseen power source whose deadly legacy will long outlive any earth bound ghost.