Shoe final

After reshooting this three times, I finally got the shot, with the help of friend and heroine Carolyn Drake. It wasn't easy to shoot this myself, while laying under the table with my feet in the air. I tried using others as models, but no one else fit the shoes or could get their legs in quite this position. All those pilates workouts paid off unexpectedly here. In the end, after lots of fussing and repositioning, Carolyn took the photo for me. I'm happy with it, and look forward to printing it big soon.
I bought those shoes while having an overheated fling this spring and summer. In this photo the shoes themselves of took on a comedic role as an embodiment of desire. Lust had turned me upside down, and perhaps now, the silly shoes were in charge..

Satomi Shirai

I first noticed the work of Satomi Shirai in the ICP catalogue of student work "SHIFT" from last year. She was not one the students I'd reviewed, and her photo "Breakfast" (above) totally knocked my socks off. I suggested we use it at Discover magazine recently, to accompany an article that discussed the case of a woman who suddenly developed an abnormal sex drive. This image caused quite a reaction in the meeting- in the end it was vetoed for being too racy.
Satomi told me the following about the work: "In my current work, titled 'New York in My Life,' I am exploring assimilation which, I think, is a psychological process of change of a person's mind-set and identity, and which leads a transformation of a culture today. In each image of my work I usually set lighting and arrange objects to photograph a story, and don't really do photoshop except for color correction and changing contrast."
She also went on to say that the guy in the photo was Polish, and the she had included Greek products to reflect her neighborhood in Queens. I don't see this work as being primarily about assimilation. Who cares if the guy is Polish? And is anyone really looking at the food? For me the tension is between the man and the woman, and the hilarity of the scene. Cramped domestic dimensions are a repeating theme in Shirai's work- she is squeezing herself into preposterously tiny spaces, disappearing and reappearing. The effect is a little like someone doing a striptease with a banana peel. Funny and sexy, too.

My Old Flame

These are two details from the big scans I recently made from my negatives. I was excited to see these so big on screen. Since my gallery closed I have sort of given up on printing- what is the point of having a lot of big prints around taking up space? This means that I'm never seeing the images full size, and I don't know what kind of detail is there, and therefore can't really make final selects. These are an example of two images where the texture and focus is important. So far my favorite is the one with the candle out of focus, and the curtain behind in focus. It leads the eye deeper into the picture.

Justine Reyes

I stumbled upon Justine Reyes's blog last fall. It was the inspiration for the creation of my own blog. I had never seen a blog anywhere like hers, and the format was revelatory. At that time she was in residency at the Center for Photography at Woodstock, and was working on and blogging about a series of lovely still lifes that incorporated objects that had belonged to her grandmother. Above are some of my favorite images from that series. I recommend taking a look at the rest of the series and her other finished work.

This past weekend Justine very generously helped me scan some of my recent work, and showed me all kinds of useful tricks. It was very exciting to see the images up close. This summer I've just been shooting so much, I can't even remember the last time I was in the darkroom. I realize I am going to have to spend some time now with post production- committing to seeing the images though, not just stockpiling contacts and negatives.

Why Is Black Hole Art So Shiny?

You would think, that with something that no one can see, there would be more variety in the visual representations. Apparently there is consensus, at least at NASA, about what black holes look like. Here are two that show black holes with gravitational waves.
Images courtesy NASA

Zachary Zavislak

Now that I've mentioned Zachary Zavislak, this seems like the time to post some of his gorgeous images. I'm a huge fan of his work, and hope to hire him to shoot something for Discover soon.

Collaboration

Zachary Zavislak emailed me the above version of my own image today. He cleaned it up and added the line as a continuation of the idea of the tension or connection between the hands. He says:" For me the hands were trying to contain/suspend something. Photographing the forearms/hands floating on black continues to support this idea. The magenta line represents a liquid pour..... couldn't do the real thing. liquid always taking on the form of its container...The hands can't suspend, or contain the liquid in that position."

This is the first time anyone has ever done anything like this with my images. He clearly understands what I'm after. It feels like a spontaneous collaboration. I am going to think about the idea of a vertical line inserted, instead of horizontal ones. I will work on refining.