Interlude

A second posting, evening or nearly.  Memorial Day.  Everyone I know is out of town.  Tomorrow I must return to work.  I hurt from various things.  The rains come and go, pouring then clearing, then pouring again.  Nearly summer.

I decided to go to that little stretch of beach today, the one I photographed last summer.  It was not the same.  Perhaps it was a holiday crowd.  I dared not take out my camera.  Have I lost something?  I wondered, but I will try again another day.  I limped up and down the beach, barely able to walk, my Achilles torn from yesterday's run.  Too fat, limping through the beautifully young.  Miserable.

After that, after the gym and a shower, I hurt everywhere, not just physically.  Going through the bathroom  drawers pulling out old pills, running them up on Google trying to remember what they are.  Dangerous, they are.  Don't take this if you are. . . never mix with alcohol.  I settle on a mild narcotic and an expensive champagne.  Earlier I bought a fine organic steak and some tomatoes and an avocado, corn, broccoli, etc.  Summer season once again.  I will celebrate alone.

The gas grill broken, I bought charcoal, but I cannot make it light.  Blighted.  But the narcotic begins to work, the champagne and the music I have not listened to in a year aiding the bliss.  Pain relief.

I cut the tomatoes and the avocado into thick slices and sprinkle chopped garlic on top.  Salt, olive oil, balsamic vinegar.  The steak will have to broil in the oven.

I am one hell of a monk alone in my den.  Just wanted to tell you.

The Palace

I must have lost some photographs, really.  I remember taking more than I have.  Better ones.  I will have to remember, and perhaps that is best.

We stayed in the palace of a long-ago Archbishop.  I think it not so much as far as palaces go, but I am jaded now and should not compare this place with all the others I might have known.  This one was lovely.

When we arrived, the air was gray, the light flat.  A slight drizzling.  Weather effects my moods disproportionately, a rainy day away from home the cause for a deeper than normal melancholy.  After storing my luggage in the room, I walked the grounds, the gravel of the walkways softly crunching.  Sculpted gardens, flowers now in bloom, algae-covered walls and decorative statues.  The famous mountain beyond the lake was shrouded, invisible.  "When the weather clears, you will see--it is beautiful," they said.  For now, though, there was only the gray lake reflecting a gray sky.

Days of meals: breakfast, coffee, lunch, tea, dinner, drinks.  A friendly staff.  A luxury of food.  Bottles of wine on every table, a bierstube downstairs, an indoor cafe letting out onto a garden terrace.  I linger on couches, in quiet corners at hidden tables by small windows where I write.  Or strive to.  Mostly I sit, trying to think, not thinking but feeling the light fall, imagining things, trying not to remember.

Through the big iron gates, across the park and up the hill, I go to town.

Destination

Don't wait for any good photos from Europe.  I haven't any.  I had one day, maybe a day and a half, to walk about with my camera.  What I got from those hours is more or less embarrassing.  And so it goes.

After returning to the hotel, we had thought to take a two hour nap and then go out, but I didn't wake until much later.  When I did, I forced myself up, feeling as if I had to keep the bargain, but the others were asleep and had no interest in going out.  Munich at sunset, walking, lost, cutting down interesting alleyways, over cobblestone and through parks.  Misty, cool, then dark, warm lights from shops that close early holding false promise, crowds drinking in open cafes and beer gardens.  Back to my section of town, what the guidebook called "a bit sleazy" where one could see prostitutes and "swarthy men with mustaches."  This was an Arab quarter.  Sex shops, nude dancing, women standing in doorways.  I was early to bed.

The next morning, we took the train to Salzburg.  Brilliant fields of rapeseed, electric yellow flax, then dark green.  Wooden sheds, cows and sheep, and then the Alps.

Salzburg station, a taxi to the schloss.  We'd arrived.

1st Day

I'm still not ready, but here we go.  Don't expect very much.  I have so little to report.  I cannot give you all the details and stay within my protective cocoon.  I had duties and could not be too much myself, though some of that is unfortunately unavoidable, inevitable.  And so. . . .

Crowded, bright airports.  Eating that food on hard seats, though in truth, much of that has gotten better.  Four of us try to make pleasantries, a piano player in a faux-lounge in the food court of Atlanta's airport.  We sit too long, then hurry to be the very last ones to board the plane.

Too small these seats, smaller than might be acceptable for a domestic flight.  Small plane, four seats across.  No center aisle.  Delta.  It gets worse.  We take what passes for a meal on plastic trays, plastic everything, plastic food.  I prepare.  A pill and some wine, a neck pillow and a mask mitigate the misery, barely.  A night flight spent dozing, waking, the jet's humming, the air's loud whisper.  Sleeping at just under a right angle, nightmares of evil seat designers, viscous airline executives who will never fly coach.  Only the drug can begin to palliate the outrage.

Munich.  We stumble around the Marienplatz, the open courtyards, the cafes, the shops.  It is gray, damp.  We take a train to the college district, sit for lunch.  A bright companion falls dead asleep, head on table. The waitress is more beautiful than a movie star or a cover model, small, perfect features scowling.  Americans.  She takes my order with disdain.  A lovely punishment.

We make our way through the gloomy day, back through the railway station, to our small hotel rooms now ready.  Two o'clock, two-thirty.  The rooms are neat and bare.  We sleep.

Euro Days

A few more.  Only a few.

Gone. . .

. . . but I'll post when I am able.

Preparations

I've noticed that many photographers are trying their hand(s) at making videos.  Too many.  I am not a fan. Surely it is a financial consideration.  I don't want to remember the world in video.  I want to remember it in pictures and words.  One frame per minute.

Here is another of the Fuji experiments.  I have more.  They are getting worse instead of better.  But when I return from Europe, I am going to renew my skills with the collodion process with Jody Ake.  I wanted to go to New York City anyway.  This time, I am coming home to most of the equipment I need.  I will finish getting what I don't have and begin on that long, slow process.  But it is better.  It is better to make fewer images rather than more.  I like my digital camera, don't get me wrong, but it gets too close to shooting video.  There is no reason to take so many pictures.  A few photos a day.  That is more than you need.

Yesterday I bought some very cool travel stuff.  Today is for packing.  And panicking as I think of what I have forgotten.  Then there will be the mad rush.  That is what I get for not traveling this year.  There are trips in the offing.  And that is the very good thing.

Summer Vacations

Soon, summer vacations begin.  I shall get an early start.  Heading to Austria Monday.  The next day is full of nervous preparations.  I will not have much time for myself while I am there and do not expect it to be a good photo trip.  But the air should be fresh and the views wonderful, and perhaps something there will recharge my batteries.  Business, not pleasure, but it is free.  I will make the most of it.

Departure, however, reminds me of all the things I am leaving undone.  Have left, that is.  They are overwhelming and impossible to do now.  When I return, I tell myself, I will put my house in order.  Much in my life is in transition at the moment anyway, major changes taking place while I am gone.  I will not come back to the same life I left.  Am I being vague?  Yes, yes.  Everything gives way.  Time erases it all.  I heard that in a trailer for a movie last night.  We only hear, of course, what we are prepared to hear.

I read yesterday that suicides now outnumber murders in the U.S.  Something telling there.  First time ever.  Do you wonder what that means?  The demographics shifted in that group, too.  Much younger now.  Another report on the same front page (New York Times) linked LED lights to insomnia.  Seems that they fool the brain.  Did anybody ever think, though, that they were good for us?  I'm sure we should quit it.  All of it.  But we won't.  I will, though, for awhile anyway.  Fewer movies and more books.  Less time with a computer, and never after dark.  I have other changes in mind as well.  I will work more with my hands.  I will be more primitive.

But it all starts with the trip on Monday.  I will post tomorrow, but after that, it will be intermittent until June.  By then, you will be on summer vacation, too.

Respite

I've just written a long, bitter-ish piece.  And deleted it.  I've just overworked myself.  That is all.  I just need some rest.  Lots of it.  For a long time.  Respite.  The word comes to me across some invisible expanse like a Siren's song.  Respite.

I want an easy plateau, 
Someplace to rest my head.


For awhile, for awhile, for awhile, 
For a little while.

Ryan Adams, "Easy Plateau"

The End of Paranoia

I'm stymied.  After the original success with the new alternative processing of Fuji film, I've failed to duplicate it.  I haven't had a useable result since.  I'll keep trying.  I've always figured things out before (I heard Ali say that in a documentary just before he fought Larry Holmes.  He knew he was not physically capable of it, and he ended up taking the worst beating of his life).  I'll figure out something.

But truly, what is going on.  Who is winning?  Everything is split down the middle, but somehow nothing adds up to 100%.  That is the story of the times.  No majorities, only contention.  Of it, I am weary.

The earth trembles and erupts.  The ocean fills with oil.  Saturn has lost one of its rings.  Everything you feared turns out to be true.  It is difficult to be paranoid lately.

Permanently Famous for a Day

This is a wedding dress, but I'm still counting it.

I am shooting in half an hour.  No time for anything complicated today.  Simple shoot.  Girl, canvas background, dress.  Why am I nervous?  I will shoot ten to fifteen images.  That's it.  No sweat.  You'll see.  It will be fabulous.

I have to thank Rhonda again for making me famous for a day, only this time it is permanent.  Check this out.

"Oh, the Sisters of Mercy. . . ."

Existential Humor

I spent part of my morning trying to find existential jokes on the internet.  I thought it would be easy, and I needed some of that kind of humor.  I remember one.

A man sees his friend walking down the street.

"Hey, Pierre, how are you doing."

"Not so well," Pierre replies.  "My mother died at eight this morning."

"Did you say eight o'clock?'

Don't know why, but that one always picks me up.  Maybe I'm looking for something this morning because I went to a wake yesterday.  Open casket.  Awful.  I knew the fellow, but the guy in the casket could have been a thousand other people.  Why do they do that?  We sat in pews for awhile, looking, I guess.  Fortunately for me, I was sitting next to a reformed preacher.  I mean, he is no longer a believer.  But he presided over hundreds of funerals, so I let him be my guide.  Fortunately, the family was all on some overly-powerful anti-depressants, so they were fairly happy, feet not quite touching the floor, their left eyes all pointed at the moon.  They should have been passing those out, I think.  At least I could have used one.  I can never go to a funeral without seeing myself lying there in the casket.  In an empty room lacking adornment.  Perhaps one paltry flower arrangement.  I've been to those kinds, too.

After forty-five minutes or so, I said goodbye and made my escape.  The funeral is tonight.  I don't know.

I did find some funny jokes online, but they were not really existential.  The closest was Woody Allen's famous, "I got kicked out of NYU for cheating.  On my metaphysical exam I got caught looking into the soul of the fellow sitting next to me."

My favorite, though, was from Steven Wright.

"You can't have everything.  Where would you put it?"

Exactly.

I'd Prefer Not To

The report was this: that Bartleby

had been a subordinate clerk in the Dead Letter

Office at Washington, from which he had been suddenly

removed by a change in the administration.

When I think over this rumor, hardly can I express

the emotions which seize me. Dead letters! does it

not sound like dead men? Conceive a man by nature

and misfortune prone to a pallid hopelessness,

can any business seem more fitted to heighten it

than that of continually handling these dead letters,

and assorting them for the flames? For by the

cartload they are annually burned. Sometimes from

out the folded paper the pale clerk takes a ring —

the finger it was meant for, perhaps, molders in the

grave; a bank note sent in swiftest charity — he

whom it would relieve nor eats nor hungers any

more; pardon for those who died despairing; hope

for those who died unhoping; good tidings for those

who died stifled by unrelieved calamities. On errands

of life, these letters speed to death.

Ah, Bartleby! Ah, humanity!

Herman Melville, "Bartelby the Scrivener" 

Something Lost

Test Shot for the "Circus" Series

I've not had an adventure in a very long time.  I haven't listened to any music, either.  I wonder if those two things are connected in any way?  Music is the adventure of the heart, right?  I haven't read anything that makes an impact on my life, either.  Who is there?  Who does the Facebook generation read?  Who gives voice to their Zeitgeist?  Perhaps it is all on Twitter.  I'd not know.  Or Facebook either, for that matter.  It is not bragging.  There is something wrong with not knowing what everyone else knows, maybe not with intimacy but with a passing nod, anyway.

I was at a Cinquo de Mayo party for a while, a mandatory engagement, compulsory.  I sat in a lovely courtyard with many witty, more contemporary people than I.  Educated.  Sophisticated.  Funny.  Younger.  They laughed out loud, hard and strong.  Cackled, really.  They were drunk and irreverent.

At one point, there was a dissection of a T.V. commercial for Dos Equis beer, I believe, a goofball thing I have seen a few times in which a bearded older fellow is proclaimed to be "the most interesting person in the world."  I think.  I'm working on dim memory here.  In museums, they say, he is allowed to touch the art.  Something like that.  Now this was the conversation for quite a while, young professionals from "good families" and prep school backgrounds professing witty about the commercial.  I drank with a goofy grin on my face and took deep drafts whenever one of them would yell, "Stay thirsty, my friend."  And then the raucous laughter.

Stupid, right?  And yet I felt as if I had been left out of something, had been in a hermitage for a long, long time.  And it is true, in part.  My existence has become hermetic in many ways.  I've filtered and pared my existence down to a few essentials.

But something got lost along the way.  Adventure.  Music.  Laughter.  Maybe it has happened to you as well.

I am making a commitment to recapture some of those lost things. Music first, of course.  It is the easiest. But the others, too.  Adventure.  Really.  It is just a state of mind.

Insouciant

I felt kinship with Sir Richard Francis Burton and his ilk for too much of my life.  It is not wholly my fault. The images with which I was filled as a child and adolescent by movies and television shows reinforced much of what I saw as correct behavior.  Free spirited individualism.  That's what they told me in elementary school.  What would the world be like, they said, if everybody was alike?  Be adventurous.  Explore.  Oppose despots and tyrants. But there have been few like Burton.  If you do not know of him, you must.  I fell upon this bit today.

These allegations coupled with Burton's often-irascible nature were said to have harmed his career and may explain why he was not promoted further, either in army life or in the diplomatic service. As an obituary described: "... he was ill fitted to run in official harness, and he had a Byronic love of shocking people, of telling tales against himself that had no foundation in fact." Ouida reported that "Men at the FO [Foreign Office] ... used to hint dark horrors about Burton, and certainly justly or unjustly he was disliked, feared and suspected ... not for what he had done, but for what he was believed capable of doing". Whatever the truth of the many allegations made against him, Burton's interests and outspoken nature ensured that he was always a controversial character in his lifetime.

 You know how that worked out for him.  No?  Oh, you must.  You must.

Money and Time

"Dark Circus"

No time to write this morning.  I am working with someone early today, so of course I slept past dawn.  This is my second experiment.  I have only scanned two so far, this one and the one from a few days ago.  This one solarized a bit, and I'm pretty sure it has to do with exposure.  Still much to do to learn how to control it.  Money and time.

And thank you Rhonda and Ulf for this.

I am turning the comments back on today.  I get the negative feedback anyway, so at least this way I can bark and whine back.

A Day Gone By

"Prom Dress"

I thought not to post today.  I have been shooting and scanning and experimenting and working to exhaustion.  I have had three people cancel shoots at the last minute three days in a row now, and that wears on me, too.  I am anxious for a day before it happens.  All that energy, and then. . . . nothing.  So I am worn and frayed just now.

But I cannot bring myself to let the day go by without posting something.

I sent out the first images from the "Prom Dress" series to see if they will be included in a big show and week-long event.  I was embarrassed and will be mortified when I'm not included.  It is a big deal.  But one must start if one is to go.  Yes, I will go.

Whatever Happened to Jessica Rabbit

"Prom Dress"

All these photos of women in gowns remind me of Jessica Rabbit.  This gown is from the '40s, so it is from the era.  Something, really.

Yesterday, an obscure Picasso painting sold for $106.5 million.  What does that mean?  Art is important, no doubt.

I shot with a catalog model yesterday.  She has a great looking portfolio.  There are a lot of talented photographers.  I wanted to make something else, darker, etc.  She was a nice girl.  I think I need to work with people who are troubled.  Perhaps it makes me feel better about myself.

I'm probably just worn out.  Let me tell you a good one.

An older gentleman is looking for a place to sit when suddenly he notices an attractive women alone at the bar. . . .

Undaunted

Yesterday I tried an experiment.  I did it quickly and blindly having no time to do it properly and having never done it or seen it done before but being anxious to see if it would work at all, I did it and got this result.  It is only a beginning and a long way from being correct or complete, but that it worked at all has me trembling.  I can see the potential in it.  I am imagining whole new series, which is good because I have reached the end of shooting "Storyland".  Organically, I am finished with it.  I have five more (shoots? sessions? collaborations?) in the next week, and then I am done.  Then. . . onward.  And this new process has me trembling.  I shouldn't post it here, probably, but I couldn't wait.  Let me know what you think.  Oh yea. . . you can't.  Just as well.  My enthusiasm will be undaunted.

As Bill tells Jake in "The Sun Also Rises":

"Never be daunted.  Secret of my success.  Never been daunted.  Never been daunted in public."  

Old Bill was a fan of irony.

"Irony and pity.  When you're feeling [shitty].  Oh, Give them Irony and Give them Pity."


Yes, plenty of that.

Weather Report

Gray clouds scooting quickly across the sky.  Purple on gray.  We are like primitives now.  We must fear the weather.

Sometimes. . .

"Prom Dress: The Series"

Sometimes the best things happen when you don't know what you are doing but you have prepared yourself well for doing it.  I shot this on Thursday.  I didn't want to.  I was worn out and uninspired and had a bad feeling about this date for the entire week.  The woman I was working with (I hate saying "model" and "shooting") called and said she would be late.  Her MUA (oh my!) had crapped out on her at the last minute and so she had gone to a friend's salon to get made up.  She said something about looking like a '50s drag queen which was not the era or the style I had intended, and so my heart sunk a bit further.  I had nothing around to shoot her with.  I lay on the couch in my studio and wanted to go to sleep.  As I lay there, I decided the only thing for me to do was to place her against the empty canvas and photograph her there.  She was bringing two dresses with her, she had told me.  I would simply shoot a pack of film with each dress and say goodbye.

She was tall and strange, young and wary, and she definitely wanted only to shoot what she wanted.  Whatever.  The first dress she pulled out was a vintage 1940's two piece purple gown with formal gloves.  Well, at least there was that.  She wore a wig and looked a bit like Jessica Rabbit.  You'll see in the coming days.  And then, she changed into this--her mother's prom dress from the mid-1960's, she said.  And she put on a platinum wig.  I must admit two things:  I did not hold up my end of the conversation, and I was beginning to like some of the Polaroid images we were making.  I asked her to remove the wig if she would.  It was best, I thought.  Now she looked real.  And I was laughing at myself heard what was coming from my mouth.  Suddenly, I was talking like a movie version of a photographer: "Put your left shoulder back more and put the other hand on your hip.  Tilt your head up just slightly."  She had seen my images lying around the studio.  "You've done this pose too man times," she told me.  "Nope," I said, "I want the repetition.  I want a hundred photos just like that."  I felt she had no confidence.

During the making of pictures (I almost said "shoot"), my old Polaroid 600 SE began to ruin film.  And so, after shooting (oops) with her that late afternoon, I felt fairly ruined.  And that night, as I've already reported, I felt hopeless.  Sell the cameras and close up shop.

But yesterday, I finally finished processing the Polaroids the way I do, and brought them home.  I chose a single image at random to scan and work on to send her knowing I have many other photos to work on before I get to hers.  And this is what emerged last night late just before I went to bed.  I was knocked out and went to sleep feeling a hopeful relief.  Could it all work out?  Am I ready to do this?  Possibly.  There was a feeling, if not of hope, of possible relief.

I'm glad I have my comments turned off because I am in a moment of crisis and could not stand any helpful criticism just now.  I don't want to hear, I don't want to hear.  I am listening to the imaginary viewers in my head.  "Yes, oh my, this is wonderful," they are saying.  "You are on to something there."

It is a self-defense, a necessity of the psyche to hold itself together for the moment.  I have four more people with whom I will work this coming week.  I am all fear and doubt.  But maybe. . . I'll get lucky.  I mean, I've been preparing myself for this. . . right?  Sometimes the best things happen when you don't know what you are doing but you have prepared yourself well for doing it.

First Impressions

I go to Aline Smithson's Lenscratch blog every morning.  It hardly ever disappoints me.  But today, I was thrilled and wounded at once, for the images I saw there broke my heart.  She had posted some of the recent works of Hisaji Hara who, in a tribute to Balthus, recreated some of his paintings with photographic imagery.  They are lovely.

I cannot critique them yet.  I am still personally overwhelmed.  And, I think, that is what makes art art.  It is personal and overwhelming.  It doesn't make it good art, and later you may change your mind, but that initial impression is hard to shake.  I have been embarrassed by my first impressions many times, and usually I think it is best to hold off on your public appraisal.  But heck, this is a blog and I put up my first thoughts of the morning just about every day along with my own photos that I am still pondering.  I think Hara is a better bet.  Once I get over the shock and the disappointment (that's right, I have to fight pettiness) that I have not done this, I will get back to work.  With fervor.

Once I get my camera fixed.  Or once the film is all gone.  Or. . . or. . . or. . . .

Balthus. . . of course