Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Obama As Muse






I'm so jealous of the photographers, and his daughter with the camera, who get to be around that iconic form, and rock star presence that is Obama. As the media has shown, and we all know, he's bigger than life...and damn it, I want to have my camera in there too! I want him as my muse, too.
Over my years of shooting, there are a few people in my life that I never tire of looking at, both in reality and through a lens....that spark a dance of spirit and creative possibilities. The images come forth, sometimes through perseverence of waiting and looking, sometimes in a flash of recognition, sometimes as a collaboration as both of us leap into the "zone" creating something combined. The experience of working with a muse is exquisite.

So how can I work with him...satisfy this longing?...... TV screens!

I'm not too sure about copyright laws on this, but it seems to me that pulling a 1/60th of a second from a video feed is more about appropriation than copying....I hope to hell that's the truth of it, anyway.

I need my fix.

Sunday, January 11, 2009

THE SHMOOTZ* FACTOR


*"Shmootz." Those of you who haven't spent time in NY or aren't Jewish, might not be familiar with this wonderful sounding Yiddish word that translates as "dirt" in a wider context. It isn't dirt, like ground from the earth (unless it's all over your face or clothing, as in "What's that shmootz all over your clothes?" kind of way...it's messy or dirty stuff that shouldn't be where it doesn't belong.

Like the greasy fingerprint a small child got on my lens when I wasn't looking!


I was in LA last week for a family event which is where the shmootz got applied. Later, driving through the West Hollywood area, I did a few "drive-by shootings" ...shooting while in the car, sometimes at a stop; sometimes while still moving along. Generally in LA that means not moving too fast because the traffic is abominable, which is how this series began when I lived there. It was so frustrating to be sitting in traffic so much of my life that I took to photographing out of my windows or windshield to feel more productive or at least to keep myself from traditional road rage. Also, street life and real estate is visually interesting there. As an aside, I have to say the series came to a halt when I moved to North Carolina. Anyway, I didn't notice the fogging in the photos until later that night when I was having supper with a friend and looked at a magnification of a shot I did of him across the table; his nose and mouth were blurry. A quick look at the lens told the whole story.



Examining earlier pictures, including a bowl of fruit I shot before leaving to drive around, struck me with a sense of wonderful serendipity...how cool it was that the shmootz added an element of soft focus shifting for the eye to enjoy as it wandered around the image.

I love when life offers little surprises and shifts to encounter and make us slow down for an instant......May they all be enjoyable and uplifting.