THERE WILL BE BLOOD

These matadors look particularly young. Perhaps because they are Portuguese and not Spanish. And maybe that's also why their costumes are less ornate. I decided a week or so ago to go as a bloody matador for Halloween. The genuine costumes are thousands of dollars, so what I ended up with is not quite that and more similar to a boat operator at the Pirates of the Caribbean ride. 

But aren't these Rineke Dijkstra images the best? She is so gifted at at attaining the uninhibited moment, so concise in her clean and quiet portraits. I read her quote that "people go into a sort of trance because so much concentration is needed from both photographer and the subject when you're working with a 4x5". I've certainly found this to be the case when I use my Master Technika to take a picture. It must be so boring for the subject, the process is so slow, and tedious, but the boredom is disarming.

WHAT ARE YOUR REFERENCES?

As of this year I've begun teaching photography at Parsons. One of the aspects I'm usually stressing is the importance of clear communication and strong references. I did this shoot as an in-class demo with the inspiration of the crumpled canvas backdrop and some hats. But it sort of developed into something else, something that I found myself having trouble adequately describing. I kept saying 80's glamor shot, but I hate that reference and it totally misses the mark. Also, I should hope this has more sophistication than that. Plus, you never want a straight reference, you've got to mix them. So just now, quite after the fact, I realized what I was going for; a sort of Timothy Greenfield-Sanders portrait meets Yugoslav portrait studio, after and before a mob funeral.

A TRUCKSTOP NEAR BORDEAUX

I dug this print out of my archive to go on auction for the Society of Publication Designers, the only organization specifically dedicated to promoting excellence in editorial design. It'll be November 16th at MILK Studios. I didn't set any sort of amount for its opening bid, so maybe you should think about buying it, huh? It's real nice and it's real film.

WAYS OF SEEING FEMININITY 1972

I think about this all the time.

INVOCATION OF MY DEMON BROTHER, KENNETH ANGER 1969

It's hard to remember what limited access felt like. Before youtube, widely available DVDs, netflix. If you wanted to see something obscure, you had be lucky enough to know when and where that thing would show and it probably wouldn't be very often. When I was in college in the late 90's I took a class in cult and underground film. My instructors went to great lengths to track down prints of Stan Brakhage, Jonas Mekas, Andy Warhol etc. Then, they were good enough to show us the work of Kenneth Anger.
I was k n o c k e d o u t.  As though the gorgeous, vivid, transgressive films weren't enough, this was also the human being who had written a book I had always been fascinated with, "Hollywood Babylon". I started connecting the dots and the dots connected further: I met someone who knew him, I learned that he lived somewhere in Echo Park, where I had lived until 2000, he was from LA, as am I. His sensibility, mired in tinsel, occultism, glamor, the macabre and corporeal. These private worlds- this is pure Los Angeles and it's no wonder I liked him.
I mentioned I met someone who knew him, and that dear person, Walt Cassidy, was responsible for taking him out and showing him to the art world, when, in 2004, he curated a show of film stills from "Invocation of my Demon Brother" at Stuart Shave/Modern Art Gallery in London. A selection from that I am showing here.
Then came youtube, his entire collection of films were released on DVD, and this year he shot a Missoni ad and I bought a piece of his work.
Welcome to the 21st century, where cultic obscurity is a thing of the past.

LEE FRIEDLANDER'S MADONNA 1978

A few months ago I posted a deathbed picture of Marcel Proust. About it I wrote something along the lines of being surprised, not that a deathbed photograph of Proust existed, but that it was in fact made by Man Ray. Today I had a similar experience as I came across the 1985 issue of Playboy featuring Madonna. I had never seen it before. The photographs are beautiful, a bit awkward, and I knew they were special. What I didn't know, and was surprised to find was that they were shot by Lee Friedlander in 1979. She answered an ad, and he paid her 25 dollars. 6 years later, he sold the sitting to Playboy for a 100 grand. The most explicit one sold again at auction last year for somewhere around 37 thousand bucks.