Proof

April 13, 2005

I think my favorite portraits are those that omit part of the face. The diminished visage leaves more to ponder and more to assume. In classic portraiture the intent was to not only represent the sitter but to please the patron. With the advent of cheap photography however we are under few (if any) financial obligations to those we photograph, and while vanity may still be a major factor behind why we take pictures, the need to memorialize events is just as important for a short-sighted culture. Portraits now are proof. Proof of youth. Proof that we visited someplace exotic. Proof that we loved someone. Proof that we were happy.

Memory, it seems, is a poor substitute for proof.

The Sun and the Failed Portrait

April 9, 2005

The Spring sun really lent an ethereal grace to the studio mess that plagued our LA digs. There is no chaos so dismal that it can't be improved by a strong natural light source and the dramatic contrast it engenders. 

Looking at this image reminds me of how fortunate I am to have a studio space separate from my home where I can make cheery portraits like this:

This is also derived from a Spring morning, but one many years ago, in the worst little bathroom I ever had the misfortune to call my own. The original photo was an early Photo Phazer test, and I've had it set aside for years to transform into a drawing. Now that I've done it though I find myself disappointed. It seems vapid. The composition is bland. The flesh tones in the photo (a motley assortment of pale pinks, blues, and greens) are gone, and only the skull- like black hollows of the eye sockets provide any real intrigue.

Not everything you make can be a success. I understand that reality— I just wish I had more time to make things so that sheer quantity would take the sting out of my periodic lapses in quality.

The Edges of Life

March 7, 2005

My favorite pictures of people do not involve faces. I prefer to see the figure in passing; swallowed by the promise of a continued reality beyond the edge of the composition. Someday I will devote myself to a series of such portraits— where shoulders, arms, necks, and feet orient your mind away from personality and towards an implied experience.

Self Portraiture 2.0

February 17, 2005

There are probably millions of photographs online showing a person taking their own picture in the mirror. Many of them have a massive glow of white where the flash reflected in the mirror and obliterated all other reflections. When I see such images I'm always reminded of the throngs of people firing off flash bulbs in the Louvre with the hopes of taking home their own postcard picture of the Mona Lisa*— didn't they know that nothing would come of such images. At best they could hope for a poorly composed ball of white light radiating from behind the rows of heads also jostling for the same useless photograph.

* * * * *

While chatting with a salesperson at the Apple store one day he revealed his utter disgust with the iSight camera that had been placed on every Mac,** for it made his work day a living hell. Countless adolescents would stroll into the store to camp-out on the demo computers and take dozens of crummy digital photographs of themselves. This was often accompanied by hours of incessant high-pitched chatter, silly faces, and giggling. The mall had provided yet another avenue to foster vapid narcassism among tomorrow's future leaders. . . and this, in some great degree, is what passes for the next chapter in the history of self portraiture.

* * * * *

So I'm a hypocrite, right? At the top of this post is my image in the mirror. I've posted it on the net for all to see. And without any context it's probably as easily dismissed as any other online portrait. 

Some context is in order. You should know that on this night I was at a loss for what to film. I didn't see the point of the daily project. The TV was buzzing on the ground level of the house and I was alone upstairs trying to justify this creative endeavor that had no relevance to anything I'd done before. And I was very, very, tired. I stared at myself in the mirror and my neck muscles began to spasm. My eyes burned. I started to sob.

And I turned the camera on.

*Or, whatever passes for the Mona Lisa, as theories abound about the authenticity of the image on display behind layers of glass at the Louvre.

**This ties in nicely with a topic I've broached before. . .

Forensic Portraiture

February 16, 2005

There are more than a few instances of Photo Phazer images serving as the foundation for finished drawings. Some of them have a presence that I can't quantify. They may be crude and jagged, but they express something about those fleeting possibilities for beauty that we so often miss. 

* * * * *

What is it about an x-ray on the light box that is beautiful? Is it the subconscious reaction to associate anything glowing with the mystical, or is it the subtle colors that ribbon around the junctures of dark emulsion and transparency? Is it the memory of lingering pain behind the molars where the plastic-coated film cut into the gum as radiation hummed behind my ear? Maybe it's just the fact that it generates a memory at all— that this one moment has been elevated to importance among a sea of forgettable days and months.

And does finding the "why" really matter. I love the off kilter composition and macabre implications. It becomes a meditation of mortality; a dualistic record of the transient moment and the timelessness of carbon. It is a self portrait. It is artistic forensics.

The Second Vision

Bri had already left for school and I was running about trying to gather all of my things in time to catch the bus. As I was closing the door to the apartment, the click of the lock catching to wish me goodbye, I had a sudden premonition that if I turned around and rang the doorbell then I would be inside the answer the door and let myself back in. Ridiculous as it seems, at that moment in time I believed it whole-heartedly, and so I faced my door and rang the bell.

And waited.

And during the wait all sorts of thoughts crept through my head— What does it mean if I do answer the door? Will there then be two of me with the same ambitions, capable of completing double the amount of work in the same quantity of time? Can one of me lead another life completely, separate from the ambition of the one I'm currently living? Would our lives be interchangeable: each of us waking up from time to time wherever the other one laid his head down— unaware of where we are and what brought us there?

I fully believed that I would answer the door and let myself in. But after five minutes it hadn't happened and so I shrugged the thought off and went to catch the bus.

All of this and I was entirely awake.