Ever now and then, often really, I get nostalgic. Its not a bad kind of nostalgia, not like I associate with Heidegger’s hermeneutics of recovery; I’m not trying to recover the lost source. But my nostalgia does carry a wistful tone. Continue reading ‘Nostalgia’
Monthly Archive for November, 2007
Am I expecting too much of my class when I am disappointed and/or surprised that none of them were aware that the CIA has been using water-boarding as a form of interrogation or that none of them even know what water-boarding is? Continue reading ‘Water-Boarding’
I was looking through the NYTimes (online version) seeing if there was any interesting art/photography news to post about, when I noticed an article about music videos. So, I took it as a sign that I should post about something I’ve been struggling with in my work.
It isn’t that I have been producing demeaning images of women (which is what the times article is about), but I have been thinking about at what point my images could influence a young woman’s ideal of beauty. I’m not trying to be so egotistical as to suggest that changing my work could in any way influence the ideal of beauty which is created through the media, but I think it is hypocritical of me to be against the waifish anorexic ideal and at the same time manipulate images I make to make the subjects look thinner. I have already come to grips with manipulating images for a private order; if someone wants me to retouch their pictures and make them look a certain way that is their decision. However, when shooting fashion images for publication, I have decided not to alter the images in any way that will make them look like they weigh less. The problem with this decision, despite the fact that I am going to stick to it, is that it will probably not get me as much business as doing the opposite.
I had the opportunity to photograph the Governor of Mississippi, Haley Barbour, earlier this week. I was surprised by how smooth he was, and how well he worked the crowd, but I don’t think he changed how I’m going to vote in the upcoming election.
I found this pairing of photograph and poetry inspired by it a while back, I think on Alec Soth’s blog (which he is no longer posting to).
THE FLOODED GRAVE (after a photograph by Jeff Wall)
by Graham FoustIn what’s become this room
we are hostless
for the most part.There is infinite glitter.
There is earth.An open grave,
let’s say–not automatically
horrific–or
the not saying “raining”
in what is now this room.We tune and we fade,
not undetermined upon bloom.We shatter that way.
We don’t and then we do.