somewhere you've never been

just picked up CABINET 38, Islands

-
without fail, each issue of the culture quarterly
teaches me something strange  and compelling...
-

this morning I read about PULAU PEJANTAN, island of wonder. 

Singaporean photographer Zhao Renhui's images are from the 2009 Institute of Critical Zoology expedition.

-

IRIAMONDI CAT, DAY 60, 6KM OFF MADURA FOREST

GHOST HARE

PEJANTAN PARADISE BIRDS

PEJANTAN BLACK GEYSER, DAY 131, WESTERN END, MADURA FOREST

"AN UNINHABITED ISLAND IN THE INDONESIAN ARCHIPELAGO FIRST VISITED BY SCIENTISTS ONLY IN 2005, PULAU PEJANTAN...HAS RECENTLY DRAWN INCREASING ATTENTION FROM RESEARCHERS FOR ITS EXTREMELY UNUSUAL GEOLOGICAL FEATURES AND REMARKABLE BIODIVERSITY. TWO DISTINCT ENVIRONMENTAL REGIONS- A CENTRAL SEMI-TROPIC FOREST, RINGED BY PALE WHITE SAND DUNES AND DOTTED WITH GEOTHERMAL ODDITIES LIKE THE EXTRAORDINARY BLACK GEYSER- HARBOR SOME SIX HUNDRED SPECIES OF FAUNA, ROUGHLY SEVENTY PERCENT OF WHICH ONLY EXIST ON THE ISLAND. FROM CURIOSITIES SUCH AS THE GHOST HARE (A BLACK AND WHITE ANIMAL THAT SEEMS TO SHARE A GENETIC BACKGROUND WITH EXTINCT SPECIES OF BOTH HOUNDS AND HARES)...TO IMPOSSIBLY OVERSIZED FELINES SUCH AS THE HEAVY ONCELA AND THE IRIAMONDI CAT, PULAU PEJANTAN PROVIDES SCIENTISTS WITH AN EXTRAORDINARY OPPORTUNITY TO STUDY WHAT IS ESSENTIALLY A CLOSED ECOLOGICAL SYSTEM.

"CONDITIONS ARE DIFFICULT FOR OBSERVATION ON THE REMOTE ISLAND. ITS PECULIAR HYDROLOGICAL ACTIVITY AND LOCATION IN THE DOLDRUMS OF THE EQUATORIAL REGION ALONG THE JAVA TRENCH COMBINE TO PRODUCE A THICK BLANKET OF FOG THAT COVERS ITS LANDMASS ESSENTIALLY FROM SUNRISE TO LATE AFTERNOON, 365 DAYS A YEAR; AS A RESULT, MUCH OF THE WORK MUST BE DONE IN POOR LIGHT."

The zoological gaze is the driving force behind Zhao Renhui's work.
-
Japan-based Institute of Critical Zoology studies relationships between humans and animals, promoting zoological dialogue and research.

daily special

- 

I made a place to put my photographs. It's simple and it's a work in progress. Visit it >> here.
-

you're invited

o

SEE YOU THERE

This Saturday Branded Art is hosting an art exhibition and music event in Culver City benefiting the Witness to a Dream Foundation. A group of artists will exhibiting work in a converted, out-of-use car dealership, while Macy Gray plays a DJ set. (A little random) but I'm excited to be a participating artist- I will be showing a couple of photographs of the LA landscape. The event is open- no RSVP necessary, just a suggested $10 donation at the door. I'm told that artwork will be modestly priced so everyone can go home with something special. A portion of the art sales helps Witness to a Dream, a mentoring program for at risk, inner city kids.

The Cause:
THE WITNESS TO A DREAM FOUNDATION ENABLES INNER CITY AT RISK PUBLIC SCHOOL CHILDREN TO MEET INDIVIDUALS WHO ARE WILLING TO TAKE THE TIME AND EFFORT TO INSPIRE THEM THROUGH MENTORING. MENTORS ARE PROVIDED WITH THE WITNESS TO A DREAM MENTORING SYSTEM ENABLING THEM TO BE A PART OF THE COMMUNITY SOLUTION ENCOURAGING STUDENTS TO LIVE AND SUCCEED IN A LIFE BEYOND THE INNER CITY. THE CHILDREN ARE GIVEN ALL THE TOOLS THEY NEED TO DISCOVER THEIR DREAMS, IDENTIFY A CAREER PATH AND GRADUATE FROM HIGH SCHOOL. 

The Details:

SATURDAY AUGUST 7 2010
8810 WASHINGTON BLVD

CULVER CITY CA 90232
5PM - 1AM

this (almost) never happens

o
Ansel Adams negatives found at garage sale worth $200 million
>>via cnn.com

ANSEL ADAMS WITH HIS 8x10 IN CALIFORNIA, CIRCA 1960

the things I save...

...a tag from a pair of jeans I bought back in 2006. I've always loved images of cowboys and the desert, epic adventure in the wilderness.  These cowboys are smoking pipes and wearing turbins. I wonder where they are going... 

Beverly Hills, recently

o

BACKYARD, NORTH BEVERLY DRIVE, 2010

LION, AROUND COLDWATER CANYON, 2009

  

CHESS PIECES, DOHENY, 2010

DRIVEWAY, OFF LEXINGTON, 2009

POWER LINES, COLDWATER CANYON, 2009

new gig

o
I've started writing about art and photography and design and books for Space1520. Today's post, my first, is on Todd Hido's photographs in his new book A Road Divided. Read it >>here.

The Legs

o

UNPUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 1979 PHOTOGRAPH BY GUY BOURDIN.

Photographs are never just photographs. They have this way of adapting, their meanings changing with personal events and history. I've always loved this 1979 Polaroid by Guy Bourdin. Like much of his work, it is illicit and fantastical, cartoonish, even. It's minimal too. The Legs have a kind of understated confidence. But where it was once just an admired photograph, now it is loaded with meaning.  

On July 3, 2007, I was hit by a car while crossing the street.  As I recovered I collected photographs that somehow acted as metaphors for that event. I'm a visual person, so pooling together these seemingly random photos was my way of visualising the freak accident. This one by Bourdin was the paradigm. 

Three years later, a little tattered and scarred, yes. But, like the The Legs, I am indestructible.

Happy July 4th. 3rd.

Happy Father's Day, Dad

o

JOEL STERNFELD'S CANYON COUNTRY, CA 1983

>> here's what I got my dad for father's day. He's the greatest.

upcoming: Luigi Ghirri in Monaco

o

             FROM ATLANTE, 1973

o

I recently had a conversation with Christy Lange, a writer and editor at Frieze Magazine. To my delight I learned that together with Thomas Demand, she is curating a show on Luigi Ghirri. Opening in September, La Carte d'apres Nature will take place at the Nouveau Musee National in Monaco. It's a group show, featuring the work of Demand, Rene Magritte and others. "It may seem like a weird combination but actually there is a certain surreal strand that runs through the three artists' work that I think makes total sense," Christy reassured me. Actually, it makes perfect sense- there is a dreamlike quality about Ghirri's photographs. Magritte and Demand create fantasy worlds too.

some photos by Warwick Baker

o

+          +          +

I picked up this booklet today, a collaboration between Australia based Perfect Black Swan's TB Hemingway and Warwick JP Baker.  Warwick's small, haphazard-like photographs from New & Used and other projects amuse me.

BROOME, WA 2009

 

VIRTUAL REALITY, CA 2008

 

WICKENBURG, AZ 2008

about New & Used and Perfect Black Swan

"TOBY'S STORIES ARE A DIRECT RESPONSE TO THE SCENES CAPTURED IN WARWICK'S PHOTOGRAPHS, AND TO THE PEOPLE TOBY AND WARWICK ENCOUNTERED ON THEIR JOURNEY THROUGH THE DESERTS OF CALIFORNIA AND ARIZONA, IN THE SPRING OF 2008. THIS BOOK IS A LIMITED RUN OF 500 NUMBERED COPIES." 

o
"PERFECT BLACK SWAN IS THE COLLABORATIVE MUSIC, PHOTOGRAPHY AND FICTION PROJECT OF SINGER/SONGWRITER, PRODUCER AND WRITER TOBY BURKE HEMINGWAY. THE BOOK NEW & USED IS TOBY AND WARWICK BAKER'S LATEST COLLABORATION."  >>via

>> Warwick JP Baker

>> Perfect Black Swan

Eggleston, double fisting it

o

      JUNE 8 BOOK SIGNING // tokyo  >> VIA purple diary

o

WHAT A GUY

o

crossing my fingers

o

0

Last week I submitted a portfolio into the Philadelphia Museum of Art's Photography Competition:

JERRY'S LIQUOR, SANTA MONICA, 2010

HYDRANT, 2009

GALLERY, ECHO PARK,  2010

LAW OFFICE, BEVERLY HILLS, 2010

BUSH, SILVER LAKE, 2010

8888 W OLYMPIC BLVD., BEVERLY HILLS, 2009

DOG, ATWATER VILLAGE, 2010

EDIC PROFESSIONAL CARPET CLEANER, ATWATER VILLAGE, 2010

 

 901 CENTENNIAL ST., CHINATOWN, 2010

ATWATER LARCHMONT TILA PASS LODGE #614, SILVER LAKE, 2010

 

SPIRITUALIST CENTER, HOLLYWOOD, 2010

[What] controls the past controls the future.  George Orwell

This project involves photographing residential and industrial facades and details- signage, address numbers, telephone poles and bushes- in a changing Los Angeles landscape. The building types and details have been chosen based on their graphic quality and the relationship they have with the city's history. Attracted to the perpetual existence and endurance of the city's aesthetic character, I am interested in mapping out and cataloging Los Angeles based on its dated forms.  Composition emphasizes color, form and structural minimalism. The photographs are taken in the 6x6 format to further underscore the subjects' pictorial nature.

I'm crossing my fingers because: 

+ one photograph from six artists will be included in a 16"x20" portfolio, published in an edition of 25 in fall 2010.

+ one additional curator's choice entry will be sold as an individual  limited edition print. 

+ the Museum will exhibit the portfolio and the individual print in the fall 2010, and an event will be held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art to celebrate the production of the portfolio. 

+ the winning photographs will become part of the permanent collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

+ Jurors include photographer Tina Barney; Melissa Harris, Editor-in-Chief, Aperture Magazine; Peter Barberie, Curator of Photographs, Philadelphia Museum of Art. 

>> pmaphotocompetition.org 

succulent fetish

I've doing some gardening lately, planting succulents in old paint cans I found in my parents' garage.  My roommate, an aspiring landscape architect,  has  definitely rubbed her green thumb off on me. (Thanks for the inspiration, doll.) Anyone who knows me knows I love a good arts n' craft project- getting my hands dirty with this one has been fun (and kind of addicting).

victory!

               LAW OFFICE BEVERLY HILLS, 2010, PIGMENT BASED COLOR PRINT, 14"x14"

The photo I had up in the MOPLA group show sold to one of the curators of Smashbox Studios! That earns me bragging rights, right?

Magazine: Dear Dave does Larry Sultan

DEAR DAVE 7 COVER IMAGE: PICTURES FROM HOME, LARRY SULTAN

Larry Sultan has become a legend. His name constantly seems to find its way into the conversation- it's like everyone has some story to share about that one time they smoked a cigarette after lecture with Larry, or when they worked with Larry in his studio until 5am, or how they got their hands on one of Larry's printer proofs. The impact he's has had on young photographers is really special. This month's Dear Dave Magazine features three such anecdotes from a couple  of Larry's close friends and one from a former student.

>> Dear Dave is a new triennial publication of photography and writing published by David Rhodes, (President the of Visual Arts), and Edited by Stephen Frailey (SVA's Photography Department Chair).

older posts  >>Larry Sultan     >> the h/b Book Club 1 

 

moops

o

"...while I fully support all things MOPLA, I can’t help but think of the Bubble Boy episode of Seinfeld every time I hear or see MOPLA in print. I’m sorry, the correct answer is Moops. Moops."
- Emily Shur, My Four Eyed Fantasy

It'll be a Smash

You are cordially invited: If you're in Los Angeles on April 29th, join me at Smashbox Studios where I'll be showing a photograph in the MOPLA Group Show. I'm excited to be a part of the second annual Month of Photography Los Angeles, plus I hear Smashbox events are fun for all! So be there (or be square).

about MOPLA

"IN APRIL 2009, THE INAUGURAL MONTH OF PHOTOGRAPHY LOS ANGELES (MOPLA) SHOWCASED THE ENORMOUS PHOTOGRAPHY COMMUNITY, INCLUSIVE OF COMMERCIAL, FINE ART AND PHOTOJOURNALISM. AS THE SECOND LARGEST PHOTOGRAPHY COMMUNITY IN THE UNITED STATES, LOS ANGELES PROVIDES A DISTINCTIVE BACKDROP TO THE CELEBRATION OF THE PHOTOGRAPHIC IMAGE...MOPLA'S TWO-FOLD MISSION IS TO ADVANCE DYNAMIC PROGRAMMING DESIGNED TO ENGAGE AND STIMULATE THE PHOTOGRAPHY COMMUNITY, AS WELL AS TO PRESENT A COMPREHENSIVE RESOURCE OF EXHIBITIONS AND EVENTS IN APRIL."

MOPLA GROUP SHOW at SMASHBOX STUDIOS

Featuring selected photographers of L.A.

8549 Higuera Steet / Culver City, CA 90232

7 - 10 pm

RSVP: >>groupshow@monthofphotography

>>mopla.org