More website declusterfuckering....

Self Righting is an admirable quality, don't you think?

The Photo Editor continues his daily postings and it seems I can’t just ignore him, dammit: He writes: “I’ve never met anyone as loyal as Martin Schoeller (here). To the subject, his team of people, the client, his agent, his style, his goals, the print… everything. It’s more than just being a nice guy and delivering consistently good work there’s honesty and integrity, and a devotion to the craft, and an incredible work ethic that adds up to, well, loyalty.

There was a point in his career where he was thinking oh shit, this big head style is not going to define me but over the last couple years he’s decided the market forces are too great and produced a book and several gallery exhibits of big heads”.

Commentum, humanum est:

Loyalty: I am going to go out on a limb here and throw the baby out with the bath water but I am of the opinion that Yankee psychology leaves little room for such august affectations. I might even venture to proclaim that in this country, as someone who has lived on three continents, Europe and Asia being the other two outside this one; that personal and economic loyalty are oft ridiculed personal and corporate qualities and attributes.

Martin Schoeller, besides being an extremely talented photographer probably owes much of his success to his temperament and character but also to the simple fact that Europeans are taught, at an early age, to stick by those who raise you up, and that to not return the favor is an abominably rude and crassly North American attribute.

Americans tend to take their entrepreneurial zeal a little too seriously and often dismiss budding friendships and partnerships for short term profits. Friends of mine who work in Europe, China and India dislike working with North Americans most of all for lacking these most natural virtues; knowing full well that if they do not give way to our commercial brutishness, that they, the ” Yankees”, will take our business elsewhere to save less than a few cents.

Business is based on personal character and on nurturing relationships, but these values are often ignored in response to brutishly attained profits; victims of our quarterly reported and greedish creed. The unflinching coarseness of the market has created increasingly newfangled, unemotional and unavailable beasts.

Nothing wrong with profits but profits without relationships will eventually diminish returns on those very real and coveted profits. Without lasting relationships the proverbial economic air slowly gets sucked out of the market and replaced with increasingly short termed and noxious speculative fumes (dot coms, sub prime shenanigans, dollar stockananigans, just to name a quick few…..)

Nonetheless, it’s nice to see that sometimes, humanity and simple loyalty can be appreciated, at least on a personal level. As for institutions, they are in the business of stripping those very human qualities to replace them with malignantly optioned algorithms and purposeful speculative economic rape and pillage.

As far as I am concerned business without values such as loyalty only leads to blindingly irrational exuberance, quickly followed by the digestion of increasingly depressing, manic, and loathsomely bitter pills. This seems to have become, not only the modus operandi of the North American economy, but more recently, the engine of its continued, rapid and possibly irreversible enfeebling.

Anyway, Americans are a versatile and flit footed people; let’s hope we can learn from our mistakes and regain some of our legendary humanity, which as of late has been sorely missing from the North American psyche. Nevertheless, I also wonder how quickly Martin might be forgotten should he falter to produce or fall pray to illness, age, cynicism or simple disgust?

Sorry, was that self-righteous enough for you? I swear I stopped reading Paul Krugman way back in two 0 two ! Sorry for the rant, I know it isn’t appreciated as constructive in this here “God’s country”.

Chuck Close is my kind of bitch.

I have always loved chuck close's work and I think he is one of the least recognized and influential of all the very best contemporary artists. Nevertheless, here is another reason to appreciate his work further still, I could not agree more with the quote below: "Photography is the easiest medium in which to be competent, but it's the hardest medium in which to have personal vision that is readily identifiable".

International Pink.

New Mexico: "Where photography goes to die".

More website peregrinations. I continue redesigning the redesign. Need to go to Ikea to pick up a full length mirror and work facing my reflection. I think I'll like that. The artist at work, peeking round the monitor to make sure he still loves him. Sweet.....

"New Mexico": Where photographers go to die.

Here is an example of an abusive mind thinking aloud, itself the result of an overactive mind unable to stop itself from marveling at other minds cluster fucking themselves into their own personally abusive and mindfully cluttered and redundantly descriptive bits. While brushing my teeth last night I read:

Take the feeling of clean to the extreme:

* Showers your whole mouth - teeth, gums and breath. * Dynamic foaming action seeks out hard to reach places - even the back of your tongue - fighting the sources of bad breath. * Teeth feel clean & smooth. Your whole mouth is energized with an icy cool, sparkling feeling that lasts long. * “…..product name….” Extreme Clean Whitening Mint Experience (all capitalized) also whitens your teeth.

and then I think:

I don’t know why but reading this makes me want to overeat, stop brushing my fucking teeth, move to New Mexico and feast on the rotting carcasses of fat, bearded, behind the counter Calumet photographic sales associates. Makes every contrariant hair, bristle on the back of my horse’s hair. I think the mind works in wondrously mysterious and hypnotic ways.

Tags: adverse, antagonistic, antipathetic, clashing, contrariant, contrary, disconsonant, discordant, discrepant, dissonant, incompatible, incongruent, incongruous, inconsistent, inconsonant, opposed, opposing, paradoxical, unfavorable, unmixable

SMSessing around.

I had never enjoyed texting until I got the iphone. Here is an excerpt  from a recent conversation with a special someone. Yeah, yeah, I know I am supposed to be blogging about photography but I am a multi faceted human being, what can I say, I have other interests ! O(that's me): "Brunch with captain hairy" Z: "Jealous, Have fun"! O:"Look how she writes back when she wants to....!!!!" Z:"It's the weekend" O:"Whatever, I'll give you the weekend. What if I just wanted to chat it up with you, wench?" O:" ...., not so interesting!" Z:"yippeeeee!!! Z:"oh, and I'd chat anytime wit jew...Reading kathy ryan's rag right now." O:"you mean NYtimes?" Z:"yup...." O:"Whata fuck? Where you at?" Z:"gone, u need something?" O:"Some skanky pussy!" Z:"No problemo!" O:"Happy saknkping, get some dickie o! We tally monday." Z:"24"definetely! Thank you muchly..-xo" O:"you all set up with the lap dog. At a special price. address and credit card." Z:"OMG!Ok, headed to my next mtg and will email in a fewhrs, that ok, or do you need info texted for asap?" O:"later iz okay" Z:"Gaciass Olau". O:"Arnut basat kilo !" Z:"Quoi? Limited intelligence, remember?" O:"I know."

The End.

This is why I had children.

A year or so ago, I turned my boys on , Raphael, 12 and Gabriel 9, to South Park. That's right, call social services. Of course they ran with it, quite the little YouTube ogling freaks they are now proving to be.

Anyway, this morning, while looking out the window, a more than usual stream of obsenities came wafting out of the computer's sound system. Being the concerned father that I is, I quickly rushed over, to participate in the festivities.

Anyway, from my boys to yours. Enjoy, the Fred Asstair bit in particcular. The English version with nordic Swedish looking language subtitles, and of course the all importantFrench Canadian clip.

Happy Halloween, à la Jurgen/Teller/Richardson.

Couldn't quite get the dong in there, as I had to do this myself. Next time, I'll use a wide angle and get it all in there. Tomorrow, I'll tell a funny story about Halloween, Fins, Helsinki, vomit, urine, windsheer, minus 35 degrees and long haired dirty hippies. So please drink responsibly.

http://www.seansmangledarm.com/

Please visit and hep if you can. Lets do something nice, for once. And think of it this way, it's a tax deduction.

Positive thinking: Just another overused platitude, brought to you by the self-help industrial complex, in your neck of the woods.

The shortest blog entry ever. Nevertheless, I just can't help it, here is a little bit more and a little it more, and if you come back soon, I show you my very own special bits, a la Terry.  So, see you soon....! But If you just can't wait for, go ahead, just Google it. You don't really need a link, do you?

" Aie Caramba! -- Art world erupts as Iceland bedlam bitch slaps Jeff Wall".

Yesterday, I made my way to the San Francisco MOMA to see the Jeff Wall's retrospectiva. Despite there being beautiful sunshine, I chose to go downtown and see what all the fuss-zzz-is about. I tend to go and see art when the sun’s a shina; it’s makes for better vibes when stepping back out if there ain’t none shining on the insides.

I had earlier panned him but I am always ready and willing to change my mind, especially when I have based my opinion on less than adequate internet digitals or the artist’s monograph (there’s a fucking ridiculous name for what most of us call ” a book ” ! Who comes up with this shit anyhow, Lexus of America ???. Is everybody still gunning for petit bourgeois, didn’t they read Zola? ).

As an aside and for future reference, just think of me as Tourrette’s blogging equivalent to rye, spouting expletives, unable to control my grinds. For the record, I have always been quite fond of that syndrome, even-thought I presume those afflicted with this terrible affliction would beg to differ and do so without actually sounding inappropriately and shockingly crass, for once……As for myself, I’m still looking for a therapist saddled with this less then pleasurable condition: Childhood introspection, bitch, ass ?

As was saying, I made my way downtown and checked out Jeff Wall’s oversized trans-whatever whats? and to my surprise, I still did not like his art. I can’t really put/point my finger on it but I just can’t trust him as far as I can throw it, and considering how big the fucking things are, that wouldn’t be too far. As for the curatorial blurbs introducing his craft, I wasn’t sure how to react, which depending on my mood, makes me want to streak through the galleries dousing museum guards and screaming: ” You ain’t no Condoleezza Rice “…. or, hang my head and cry.

So much for Jeff Wall and onward to Olafur “Son of Elias”. I had a few more minutes to devote to art before rejoining the sunshine outside so I decided to check out what was going on upstairs; there seems to be a generally giddy hum coming from the fifth floor veranda, which as we all know, isn’t exactly the sort of thing museums sound like; unless of course you happen across the after hour Cisco System team building drinking contest, corporate bedlam, run to the W and shit where you eat, sort of flap !

I decided that investigation would the best exploration to these inner introspections and off I went, three by three steps until there he was: ” Olaf-ur Elias-son”, Iceland’s answer to conceptual art. Dem is great art and to put on my best critical thong, I shall broadcast: “That was fucking awesome….“.

If you are in San Francisco or plan on visiting go to the SFMOMA and check it out. The only thing I will add to my less than researched and well thought out curatorial blurb-out is that the difference in mood between the “appreciation of art crowd” haunting Jeff Wall’s great halls of Canada and Olafur Eliasson’s second and fifth floor extravaganza was…….. Here is a metaphor to exemplify: “Jeff Wall’s galleries was to zombiarts what Olafur Eliasson was to a pole dancing Cinderella “, which would you rather watch?

In other news: I also saw Alec Soth’s fashion Magazine in da " Olde Museum gift shoppe". Nicely done but I just can’t help myself, I keep seeing Joel Sternfeld’s American prospects when I flip through this latest (Brent, how you like me now?).

A little something called "Dead".

While eating pork larb today with Adrienne, I was once again reminded that some day I won't be around to feast on minced piggy. Someday, I'll be long dead and burned to a crisp, released from the clean and warm embrace of a crematory's furnace; my ashes covering my children's faces (knowing them, they won't remember to piss downwind and I love them for fucking it up already). Poor little piggy is, and will forever haunt my dreams, there to remind me, that this current space-time continnuum will someday, blow my head clean off, and into a thousand little blue-grey, powdery bits.

I find myself more than unusually attracted to the morbid when I hear of a suicide or a particularly depressing and accidental end:

One of my girlfriend's co-worker's hubby committed himself to the deep, on the 25th, and there it is again, staring me in the face. I did not know him, or her for that matter, but my feeble mind, has an exceedingly difficult time, "comprehending" and knowing this day, the 25th, you can wake up and know that: you will end it.

I mean no disrespect or judeo-christian contempt but to take ones life goes against life's tenuous hold on life itself, as to be as incomprehensible as death itself.

Happy, Happy, Halloween.... little minced Piggy.

You ain't no Condi, part deux...

To complement the post below as well as announce my intentions of personally redesigning my site, I had just wanted to add a few comments to the post below, to further refine my thoughts. When I tuned in to "A Photo Editor" this morning I was getting a haircut. Knowing full well that the potential for hits and track-backs had been greatly heightened I promptly tore off the stylist's robe and rushed home to post below. The resulting "do" was less than symmetrical but Jennie got a kick out of it, and besides I quickly returned so she could resume and make it just so.

As I was saying the hardest part of survival as a photographer is accepting your work's failure to produce results. You keep repeating to yourself that some day, somehow, they will all come to their senses and finally understand what it is you think you are doing. Unfortunately, we cannot work in a vacuum, divorced from the times and the fashions which so often dictate how we must think and create to earn a living.

All is great under Heaven's banners but financial recognition* rides a very thin line, and the more there are of us, the sharper and razor thin it is.

A more perfect metaphor for this condition might be better explained by drawing upon a non too subtle parallel with the Amazon: As you may know, there are no "large" predators in the Amazon as the diversity and abundance of rain forest life can only survive and thrive if, and only if, it becomes, over eons, smaller and more specialized. The Amazon is a desert full of life and only those who can reduce their size survive: There are only a few large predators in the Amazon because the ecosystem cannot sustain them, as a result, random selection favored smaller, more nimble predators. These are well know facts to biologists and zoologists but little observed by artists and other such parasites.

So, until you somehow manage to become the creative primate's equivalent of "The Jaguar", you will have to learn how to stay small, nimble and specialized. Those skills will come in handy when self doubt, failure, life, death and the Santa Anas burned down you little piggy's house. Until you manage to reach the top of the food chain, you will need to feed on the canopy's lower terraces. The trick is to accept failure promptly and adjust to the never ebbing cultural tsunami that is "Sparta". May be some day you'll make waves of your own but in the meantime you will need to be able to run for the hills and distill your moonshine with no other company but your own.

As stated below, I have no intention of stopping the work I am presently doing but I need to find alternate ways to fund it. A new, more "visually acceptable" and "a propos", body of work is a good way to do so, as long as it let's others in, on the festivities. Car jacking will have to wait until I am good and ready.

I have put considerable amounts of thought into this in the past few months and have come up with a plan to rescue this faltering financial house. If I stick to it, I'll be fine, but that might be the hardest part of this upcoming trip. Staying happy in this business is learning to dance the very fine line between the ideal and the mundane, insults and promises.

* There are other forms as we know but without capital there is little chance of continuation, especially as a photographer. This ain't no cheap profession.

You ain't no......

Today, one of my comments is the subject of the "Photo Editor's" post so I'd better write something quick. I wrote that comment in response to my experiences with my most recent work, work I started developing 6 years ago or so.

I did so in response to what I saw was the writing on the wall; photo-journalism was about to take a serious hit and if I wanted to continue making a living I might very well do something instead of bitch.

The resulting work was and is 100% me. It is not derivative of anybody's, it is self expressive and personal. Something we all hope to achieve. For a brief moment I imagined it would be successful and bring me the cashes and riches I needed to continue expanding and developing it.

Nevertheless, the best part about change is that it forces you to innovate, adapt or switch and bait. I consider my work unique and ground breaking (go ahead disagree, I don't give a shit), but apart from a few dedicated friends, editors, art directors and a smattering of the cognicenti, this new work has been a dismal commercial failure and I know it and I know why.

I am OK with it and it's almost a blessing. I will continue working it on my own and take it as far as it will let me. In the meantime, I will work on a new, "less personal and eccentric" body of work and will use the cash I make from it to fund this decidedly "un-visually acceptable" photography.

The best thing about reverses is that it often forces you to discover who you really are as a photographer and as an artist (if I may ever so presume to call myself such a thing).

In the words of a Time editor whom upon seeing this new work exclaimed: " You found your voice, now you've got to learn to sing ". I can only learn to sing by having the capital to devote to it. One way to do so is to get back to work and shoot something a little more" visually contemporary".

You ain't no Condoleezza Rice....

Overseen in San Francisco: On Castro and Market, a homeless man pulled out his member in front of "Pottery Barn" and tried spraying the crowd with a perfectly formed jet of urine. All the while screaming: "You ain't no Condoleezza Rice, motherfuckin' bitch...!". This gives new meaning to Colin Powel's famously adage to W: "You break it, you buy it".So, "Condi", I guess that means, in a cosmic sort of way, " that if the man tries to piss on your diplomacy, you 'd better get out of its way"; but it seems that you probably already knew this.

In other news: A gratuitous and graphic image to complement above post. NOT AT WORK...! I just thought it had some, how to say, psychic similitudes to the afore mentioned scenics. I'll have to admit, I collect ridiculous images like these. Upon viewing, please reverse roles immediately to appreciate as it is truly meant to be. I just couldn't find a similarly graphic image where the sexes had been flipped to illustrate my point appropriately.

If an erection lasting more than four hours persists....

Nice article in the October 8th issue of the New York Observer. I think we could replace the words "Ad Biz" with any number of other creative businesses and there you have it. Can I lick your middle ground, please?  Yawnnnnn....: "Insert priapus here*" “There aren’t enough personalities in the business anymore,” said adman Richard Kirshenbaum, who founded Kirshenbaum Bond + Partners with his former J. Walter Thompson co-worker Jonathan Bond in 1987, when he was 26. He was speaking as part of a panel on how to start your own ad agency, in the Time-Life Building, as part of Advertising Week 2007. The assembled hopefuls twittered.: Continued here:

Another one bites it...

Robyn Color, in San Francisco, will be closing their doors at the end of October. As far as I was concerned they provided an invaluable service to photographers with their museum quality on demand Digital C41 prints, for a price which made you feel like you were not being fleeced. If you have 300Ks to invest in buying the business, a profitable and viable one I hear, contact them.The building was bought out from under them and they will be tearing it down to put up condos facing magnificent highway overpasses. Hopefully someone in SF will have the presence of mind to either buy them out or start a similarly successful business based on the same concept.

This 2 bit town has done it again. I should move to LA when my kids graduate high school, and get out of this second rate city and county. Nice place to work and live if you like coding for a living, but not much good for anything else. Personally, I don't feel like moving to London, New York or Paris. That leaves LA as a possibility. See you there someday.....

El señor Martin...

I am going to quickly take advantage of this unique opportunity. Timothy has me on his blog and I know I'm gonna get some hits so I figured I'd say something nasty about Martin Parr, quick! Martin Parr was first brought to my attention after I did a story on "Windows of the World", back in 1995, just before my son Raphael was born. I thought to myself, "I got it, I am going shoot a body of work on global tourists. They are so fucking funny, how can I miss"? I like shooting social conflicts and all that shit but I really like a good bit of ridicule in between bludgeonings.

Mind you, this was back in the days when if you were not a "concerned photojournalist" it was hard to be taken seriously. You know you had to be concerned and care deeply. Care about your subjects while you trampled them underfeet.Anyway, my friend Ed Kashi, I think it was him, mentioned: "you should look at Martin Parr's work, you'll like him". I did and I was pissed, that motherfucker had stolen my ideas back in the early nineties. I had to give up on it and go back to being a concerned photojournalist. My one and only chance to be funny, and I blew it..... no, "HE" blew it.

As I was saying Martin Parr is one of my all time favorite photographers but lately his work has severely diminished in quality. His Mexico work sucks and so does most of his recent work. Check out his other work, from let's say 1990 to 2000 and you'll see what I mean. May be he is just going thru a shallow period or the lecture circuit has got him thinking he's the shit. Eyes on the prize baby.

See what I mean go to his site and click on recent work and if you happen to disagree, tough shit. More weight to my bullshitt.

And BTW, I really don't like Radio Head either, so be it!