There are a lot of complaints about the computer generation being a generation of pirates or quips from the likes of author Jonathan Franzen who said that serious readers don’t read e-books. He fears that “it’s going to be very hard to make the world work if there’s no permanence like that”. Corporate lobbies complain and sponsor oppressive laws like SOPA. Copyright laws make it difficult for artists to create new works for fear that they are too derivative of another’s ideas, as if every idea is supposed to be totally unique. But while these people find ways to protect their works from this new world rather than embracing the change, some do find a way to use it all to their advantage. Technology and the internet can provide artists with avenues that allow for production that has never been available before. For example, musicians have more resources in their laptops for production than the Beatles had in Abbey Road Studios.
OK, wipe that grin off your face, this is a photography blog. This rant is directed primarily against photographers who believe that just because they have made their images large, that they are somehow better and worth more money. Now, to be fair, these photographers often are not good enough to even realize what makes a great image and are often guided by unscrupulous gallery owners who will take advantage of the artist by getting the work cheap and selling high, convincing its customers that the work is a quality piece that will hold its value for years (as I saw when one famous Hollywood Star bought a crappy wall sized mural for $110k at Art Basel. “there is a sucker born every minute” – P.T. Barnum). But in my experience, if you really talk with the photographer about the image, they know its shortcomings but rather than go out and shoot more, they blow it up and convince themselves it is good.
Its hard for me to express my general disappointment in the quality of work at the show this year. I am not saying that everything was horrible as there were a few bright spots. But, general, the sarcastic comments rolling around in my head so engulfed my brain that I thought I might pass out from over-excited synaptic firing. It was like being at the Coconut Grove Crafts Art Festival instead of a major artistic event. One sculptor, who clearly had a “giant ass” fixation, had mentioned that his sales were not good this year. I responded in my best deadpan voice; “Really, I am surprised.” He clearly did not get my humor. On the bright side, I was not able to find a stained glass mushroom lamp, which is my criteria for the bottom of the art bin. But I did see a cellophane and tinfoil scrunchy sculpture. Its probably hard to visualize what I am saying so here is a prop to help you:
I always tell people when I am shooting; “Don’t worry, I can fix it in Photoshop”. Most people don’t really believe it, or they humor me, but they are always happy with the final images. I always wanted to do a before and after to show people what can be done so they might actually believe me. When I saw this image, I thought it would be a good candidate for a before / after. I won’t go into all the details as to how it was done, as that would be quite a long diatribe. But I will say a few things. First, these series of shots were done to promote a book. You can see the book in the before shot. I had taken lots of other pictures of her as well, from various angles, all reading the book.
In the very near future, I will be publishing a new photography book entitled “The Cultural Landscape”. The book will include photos taken over the last decade or so. Interspersed throughout, will be short anecdotes discussing my philosophy behind shooting, ideas and people that influenced the work, as well as stories of how I came to be in some of the amazing places in the images.
Over the past few years, there has been great advances in neuroscience, allowing researchers to better understand what is really happening when the brain receives stimuli from the various senses throughout our body. As a photographer, I am particularly interested in what the eyes really see and how that information is stored into the brain. At a basic level, our eyes are not “seeing” everything that is in its focal area. tIn reality, our brain takes many shortcuts to produce an image. Our eye has a distinct focal point and much of the surrounding visual area is just stored images that fill in the gaps, just like the non-moving background in SouthPark. In that way Trey Parker and Matt Stone can pop out an episode within a couple of days of the the event they want to parody.
I am not sure how many of my readers were big Jonny Quest fans. Many have probably never heard of it. But to me, as a kid, this was one of the coolest show out there. The show was a Hannah Barbera mystery series in the genre of Scooby Doo and Josie and the Pussycats. The plot was based around Dr. Benton Quest, his son Jonny, his tutor / bodyguard Race Bannon, their super smart bulldog, Bandit, and Hadji, an Indian orphan who had special powers. Together, they investigated mysteries, performed rescues and battled villains all over the world.
On 9/11, chaos reigned across the City. All bridges, tunnels and trains were closed leaving millions stranded. Houston street was the barrier to downtown. Nobody could go past Houston street without ID to show that you lived there, or you were escorted by someone that lived there. By the evening of the 12th, several other checkpoints had been set up as you went further downtown. Canal street was the next checkpoint below Houston. And, closer to the World Trade Center, blockades completely closed off access to anyone. But for about 18 hours after the Towers fell; if you could get past Houston, you could go anywhere downtown.
How often do you see something cool, and say to yourself “i’ll have to remember to order that” or “Crap, why didn’t i just go there when I needed a replacement for my shattered Lava Lamp?”. Well, I may be one of the few with a shattered Lava Lamp but I am sure you all want to know where I found a Lava Lamp shop in Miami. But, of course, I didn’t write it down and I have no idea where it is. To fix this problem, enter Deja Vu, the iPhone app of my dreams.
In 1964 the Beatles came to the U.S. to perform on the Ed Sullivan Show. A few days later, the band played their first U.S concert at the Washington Coliseum, in Washington D.C. An 18-year old budding photographer, Mike Mitchell, was lucky enough to attend that famous event. He was on hand at Union Station when the Beatles arrived and documented the shrieking hysteria of their fans. Mitchell also shot the pre-concert press conference and was positioned at the stage for the entire Coliseum show. Later that year, he documented the Beatles concert at the Baltimore Civic Center. Unbelievably, the pristine Black & White negatives sat in a box for 45 years. Fifity of these photos were on auction last week at Christie’s Auction House. The collection sold for the unbelievable sum of $361,938. The photograph below, estimated to sell for around $2-3000 sold for an amazing $68.500.
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