This fat little creamer has been in my studio for years, and this is the first image I like using it. Milk has been something I've photographed a lot over the years, but here I've used thread as a stand in. I think I need to find some other colors I can credibly use for background. The dark blue (looks black here) is good and very dramatic but I think it gets to be a bit of a crutch for those same reasons. Although I suppose I could make some of these images shot on the same backdrop into a series.

I keep thinking of terrible puns for this one like "need a hand with that bag"? I shot this over the weekend. It needs some refining, it would really help to have someone else's hand besides my own to shoot here- things got pretty gymnastic when I was trying to shoot with one hand and model with the other one. I like the idea of a disembodied agent, working mischief. It reminds me a bit of those looney spirit and "ectoplasm" photographs that were so popular with the Victorians.

This image was taken the week before last. I am a bit suspicious of this one because the pleasure I get from looking at it is very uncomplicated. I have to remind myself that it is OK to make images that are simply beautiful every now and again.

I LOVE NEW YORK

Never mind the guy falling asleep with the toothpick in his mouth. Today I saw a young woman with no pants riding on the subway. She came into the car with friends who were pretending nothing was was out of the ordinary. She was wearing a hat, boots, black underwear (and the regular girl kind- not boy shorts), sweater, and shirt.
My first impulse was to offer her my seat. I tried not to laugh too loud. Lots of people on the subway didn't even notice, but of course many did.
It was amazing, amusing, incredible. What a miracle of audacity. When I got off the train at Union Square I saw a guy dressed in a costume entirely in plastic bags, but he looked like yesterdays news.

I've been thinking about different kinds of ways of making images lately, and today I experimented with making images using a scanner. I'm hankering after more immediate results, and experimenting with mixing mediums again. The top image above is a finished photo, the below is the "drawing"/collage that I made before shooting. The finished version here has baffled me because people rarely noticed that the "water" coming from the fawcet is actually blue paper. Was the illusion that was too successful? It always amazed me that even when looking at a giant 30x40" print people didn't notice that crucial detail. Maybe I should have just finalized the collage instead. I am going to think about doing this more, and what the final presentation would look like.

These images are by Finnish artist Tuomo Rainio. I haven't posted any work here from another another blog until now. I discovered these images initially on the "i heart photograph" blog http://www.iheartphotograph.blogspot.com/ . These images remind me of some of the "invisibility technology" images I have seen. Some of these technologies involve projections onto surfaces (like a coat) of surroundings. The more promising technologies involve nano-scale surfaces bending light..
Of course I also like them because they remind me of some of my interests in my own work..the unseen, the invisible, a layering of time and space.

Photos courtesy © Tuomo Rainio

See more of this work here:
www.tuomorainio.fi

My flight back to NYC from Santa Barbara was cancelled due to the fog you can see offshore here. I was perfectly happy to stay in California another day. As I was running on the beach on that last day, the fog was so dense that I almost ran over a giant pelican that was sitting alone on the sand looking wild and prehistoric. Got a few minutes in the studio back in Brooklyn before the light died on Sunday, shooting a kind of hot air balloon I made out of a plastic bag. Photos to follow.
It is good to be back in New York. After all, who needs sunshine, surf and sand when you can watch a guy falling asleep on the subway with a toothpick in his mouth?