Lesser Koodoo and Mountain Nyala

Lesser Koodoo


Mountain Nyala


This is an experiment in webtraffic (made up of bad science). Thank you for visiting. The Nyala is hosted on the Daddy Site and the Koodoo is hosted on Flickr
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I've Been Holding Out On You

So the gallery that was my one best (easiest) shot at a show was passively interested, so for the time being the fate of the Museum Project (lame working title) is in my hands... and I don't know what that means. I have a good 40 or 50 photos laying around that I was withholding for exclusivity's sake, holding off Flickr and the Daddy Site until I got word back and now that I have the word I have, I'm sort of torn as to whether I should unleash them all or not. An alternative to a show involves self-publishing, which is something I have a similar level of advising-access, but also a similar limit to help that that implies.

There is no conclusion to this thought at present.

Ironic Photos of Monticello New York Kennel Club Dog Show, Secaucus, NJ, 2007

This is another series that came about from a work situation, and the pictures I took might hint at my frame of mind more so than I'd like to make public. I speak of course about my great dislike of most people and fondness for animals, who are of course innocents in all of the nonsense of this world. And at the dog show, both my likes and dislikes collided in spectacular fashion.

There's a Bresson quote about a connection that needs to be made between "...the eye and the heart" and while it may be true, the question is what I see in my heart when I take something like this:



Bresson and Avedon and Penn and Edward Steichen and all the other great photographers had and have a great fondness for the people of this world and the connection to their place in it is what made and makes them great. My distrust and distaste for people shows through, I think, and I wonder if it holds me back creatively. Suze (see previous entry here), in one of her finer moments said that I can't take pretty pictures of people, that I took 'warts 'n' all' pictures and that my inability to do an unselfconciously flattering portrait was a great talent that I should embrace. It's all well and good, I suppouse, to be gifted (if true) with a predisposition to recognizing ugliness or some God-awful truth about humanity, but it doesn't really sell. Even Natchwey sees something beautiful in the struggle. I don't know if I do.

And back to my previous thoughts about the Flickr web-hit flow of traffic. Assume for a minute that I take unflattering pictures as a rule and that someday I am great at it -- I wonder if someone will see these pictures, and know a person in them and understand that I take unflattering pictures. Or if they'll see them, and ask they be taken down because of it.

Obsession Leads to Compulsion

WHO



ARE



YOU?



Thoughts on marketing:

There's more of those on Flickr, of course. I had originally thought that the Flickr site would draw more hits to the Official Richard Gin Site and the Official Richard Gin Blog (I Fall To Pieces) and it has, to a point, but not in any sort of impressive way. I think it takes a certain kind of person/Flickrwonk to bother to check in the profile page to find the link here and I may have to re-think my posting strategy. In a way, I'm more interested to see who finds this site directly, rather than those who make the trip over from the Flickr halfway house.

All the same, I would like to extend a warm hello to visitors from the UAE and United Kingdom who have come here.

Sea Otter Skulls, Santa Barbara, CA

I'm making a few mixtapes for a friend -- the playlist being a skill I've sent packing into semi-retirement. Long story; not very interesting; traditions are hard to break. I give good tape though, if I do say so myself. Plus, The nice thing about having expensive toys is using them to print your back catalogue for frivolities like liner notes and tracklisting graphics.

These little buggers were part of an exhibit put on by the Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History of errata that isn't on display; obscure stuffed birds, Native American oddities, dead shit in jars of fluid. From the press release,

Over a span of 90 years the Museum has collected more than 2.5 million artifacts and specimens to preserve, document, and promote understanding of the fascinating diversity of the world around us. TREASURES provides a glimpse at some of our more eclectic and rare collections. Also enjoy a video that gives a virtual "behind-the-scenes" tour of the Museum's collections and research areas.

These are Sea Otter skulls, and apparently the bones acquire a tint over time due to the purple pigment in their favorite food -- sea urchins.

In another one of those you-can't-go-home-again moments, this exhibition was set up in a hall that used to have an expansive display of small stuffed local birds in wall cases, as well as rows and rows of floor cases containing sample nests and blown eggs of the various California species. Of course, now it's cleared out for this particular traveling show and I suppose the bird exhibit probably wasn't as cool as I imagine it would be now (it was pretty boring back then; not as cool as the mammoth skeletons, anyway).

Animals, Animals, Animals

When I first got my Holgaroid (after much searching and hand wringing and research as to whether the stock would be discontinued* or whether I could even find one in the tri-state area), my first thought was, "OMG NOW I CAN MAKE ART BLABLAZOOBOYYARLYNOWAI!" which I think is a fine attitude to take with something like this. Of course, having not had a darkroom since college, any sort of immediate gratification when it comes to appreciating your own crapulence is... appreciated. Plus I love toy cameras. So when I combine Favorite Number 1 (toy camera) with what may be my favorite place in New York (North American Mammals wing; American Museum Of Natural History), I get happier than a fruit fly in an orchard.

More at the Flickr site here

*Of course, the stock was discontinued as of the first of the year. An unfavorable start, to be sure. I'm doing the math to see if I can easily adapt the back to take (what I guess would be...) the 600-series. Any ideas?