So I get up at my usual time, before 4:00, I make the first double espresso, and I check the bookmarks for signs of life (and to see if I have a contract). Lohan behold, this pops up: http://projects.nytimes.com/lens-my-hometown
Read the whole thing, including the link. Methinks we’re all over this.
Phil Toledano says, “Here’s the secret about starting a project. START THE PROJECT.”
Be that as it may, everyone confronts a sort of writer’s block from time to time. Things can seem far less natural when one needs to meet the deadlines of an academic calendar. Read, and then follow the links within, http://www.fototazo.com/2013/02/how-to-start-project-susan-lipper.html
“Sometimes it is just abstract. There is no exact process. Ever. But these things are happening and circulating in my head all the time. That is the ignition process.”
“When I was a kid my mom taught me to make mental pictures and after all the rolls of film I’ve gone through, the mental photos still endure as a kind of living, invisible sketchpad. Many times before going to bed I run through all the things I saw but didn’t photograph. So when I actually pick up my camera, the real pictures are rooted in a kind of abstract place, like a distilled fantasy.”
‘You cannot want the pictures to be a certain way or the idea to be what you thought it was going to be, you have to let it unfold and show you what it is.”
“Even now, however, I still don’t know precisely what I am looking for when I go out to photograph. This situation can be either liberating or frustrating depending on my point of view at that moment.”
Here is the trailer for “Finding Vivian Maier:” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2o2nBhQ67Zc&feature=youtu.be
UPDATE: Ach, Ayun Halliday beat me to it. Maier and Darger, Darger and Maier: http://www.openculture.com/2013/02/finding_vivian_maier.html
“If you look at a photograph, and you think, ‘My isn’t that a beautiful photograph,’ and you go on to the next one, or ‘Isn’t that nice light?’ so what? I mean what does it do to you or what’s the real value in the long run? What do you walk away from it with? I mean, I’d much rather show you a photograph that makes demands on you, that you might become involved in on your own terms or be perplexed by.”
This is terrific: the Catlow Theatre will present a festival of the Academy Award-nominated short films on February 23, the day before the big ceremony. All ten films (the first five, animated; the latter, not yet rated) will be screened between noon and 4:00.
Here’s one of them: http://www.openculture.com/2013/02/watch_ipapermani_a_cgi_short_from_disney_that_looks_and_feels_like_classic_handmade_animation.html
Once again we observe the Month Of Letters Challenge by sending a postal missive every darn day for all of February. True to (my undiagnosed) ADHD form, I sent my first two on the 2nd, and the third will make it to a mailbox… certainly before the Monday pickup, so I can justify the first three as having been sent in some sort of a timely fashion. The next trick is to include alumni who are in a cyber mode, and who rarely think to share their snail addresses.
I’m tellin’ ya: sending and receiving genuine mail releases endorphins second only to developing film, and mailing your own photo postcards can come close to balancing form and content.
http://ttpatton.com/2013/02/01/henceforward-shall-be-free-a-forever-stamp/
https://www.facebook.com/LetterMo
Update: Ms. Patton has verified that there still is a mailbox in her shop. Use it in good health.
Come, one and all, to the reception for Nate Azark at the Clair-y Smith Gallery Gallera. It’s this Thursday evening (January 31) from 6:30 to 8:00.
Scheduled to appear:
The exhibit of concert posters and photographs continues through February 14. https://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/events/198337356971651/
If you have any contributions to this body of work, feel free to contribute.
Creative Camerawork 