In a recent Los Angeles Time’s column, Steve Lopez recounts reading about Los Angeles news while vacationing in Europe. Some highlights include Lindsay Lohan, a rapist, local multi-millionaires who pay no income tax, a serial killer, an earthquake, and Mel Gibson.
The circus always seems to be in town.
gerard wright
Gerard Wright is a writer, athlete, and genuinely nice guy. Here’s his story:
I played the sports a typical Australian kid of my background would: Australian Rules football (footy), cricket (incomprehensible to Americans) with much more enthusiasm than success, and, since they’re club, rather than college sports, long past my use-by date, as was also the case with rugby, after I moved here. You could say I came for the game and stayed for the company. I was gifted with teammates who became great friends, made sobering discoveries about my capabilities under pressure, and learned to recognise things about how individuals and teams perform that were invaluable when it came to doing honest work, which in my case was sportswriting. There is something about the expression of a player’s face at a critical moment, his body language, the hands that fumble the ball they once grabbed cleanly. It’s like looking at yourself in one or many, when the moment is beyond them. Likewise, you can recognize a player who just owns the ball and the moment and the result, before anything happens. I played against those guys. This is only worth knowing because sometimes, it informs what you see, what you remember, and how you tell a story. I don’t think it’s empathy, although that’s an invaluable quality in journalism and any real writing worthy of the description, but understanding: been there, did that – or didn’t, as the case often was.
Pasadena, CA
Not too long ago, in the course of catching up with a client via e-mail, I was invited to a birthday party for her 5-year-old. I’m not a bad person to invite to a party, I’m quiet, I don’t eat much and I’m almost always carrying a camera.
This is my favorite photo from the party.
I imagine a lot of people will look at it and think “this is a lousy photo”.
The more I look at it, the more general photo “rules” I see I broke, but despite that – or maybe because of that – the more I like it.
The first rule: Never shoot in midday light (see also: “The light at midday is awful”). From the shadows, it’s evident that it was midday when I shot this photograph. As a matter of fact the shadows are so deep you can’t see the little girl’s face.
Second, general rule: When shooting portraits, use a telephoto lens.
I used a 35mm lens (considered a wide-angle lens). Many people would not consider this a portrait and I might not either.
Third: Use a wide aperture to blur out distracting elements in the background.
I shot at f 11 or 16…. everything is in focus.
Fourth (again, a general) rule: Grain is often considered a bad thing, so I shot with 400 iso film in bright sunlight which makes for grainier photos.
Did I mention that there’s a lot of distracting elements in the background of this glaring nonportrait? I think the elements are interesting and add to the photo. As a matter of fact the highlight part of the structure behind the little girl actually helps to separate her from the background. Had that little spit of concrete that frames her tiny hands as the she reaches for bubbles not been there her arms and fingers would have been lost in the dark tones of the grass.
I threw up a gallery of photos for mom, didn’t say anything except, “Here are a few photos from the party.” She said she liked them: “I like how they capture ‘the party’. i love the bubble effect. i like the one of ‘A’ chasing the bubble by our giant outdoor soup bowl…i mean pool.”
It makes me happy when I find clients who think like I do… or maybe it’s that I think like they do.
Speaking of happy, broken rules or no, in the end it’s a photo of a happy girl chasing bubbles on her birthday…. what’s not to like about that?
Pasadena, CA
A new dance space has opened in Pasadena. ARC, A Room to Create, opened its doors on May 1st. ARC is a beautiful new facility for dancers, choreographers, teachers and lovers of dance. For more info: http://www.arcpasadena.org/
ARC is located at 1158 East Colorado in downtown Pasadena.
los angeles, ca
los angeles, ca
los angeles, ca
Here are a couple of photos from a dress rehearsal for the Spring Dance Concert performed by the dancers of the Professional Training Program at the Colburn School in downtown Los Angeles. The show is at 7pm Saturday May 15. It’s Free. You should go. More info here:
http://www.facebook.com/?ref=logo#!/event.php?eid=118275588197671&index=1
los angeles, ca
paris, france
…
Les mains dans les mains restons face à face
Tandis que sous
Le pont de nos bras passe
Des éternels regards l’onde si lasse
Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure
L’amour s’en va comme cette eau courante
L’amour s’en va
Comme la vie est lente
Et comme l’Espérance est violente
Vienne la nuit sonne l’heure
Les jours s’en vont je demeure
Passent les jours et passent les semaines
Ni temps passé
Ni les amours reviennent
…
Taken from Le Pont Mirabeau by
Guillaume Apollinaire (1880 – 1918)
cerrillos, nm
As you might know, an ongoing project of mine is to photograph strangers. I hate to admit this, being a cynic, but I’ve found that everyone who’s agreed to be a subject of my project is interesting. Of course, one could (and I would) argue that anyone that agrees to be photographed might be the type who is interesting. And because they are willing (and I would saying trusting) might also be adventurous and thus…. interesting.
The woman that belongs to this hand was more than interesting: I found her intimidating. I would say specifically to me, a photographer.
A cursory reading of this palm may lead you to conclude that it belongs to a beggar, a homeless person or perhaps a manual laborer. That type of person, of course, is popular with us photographers and even more reason for you to read into those lines what you already assume. But I wouldn’t be intimidated by someone like that. No, this hand belongs to a writer.
I love writers and I am intimidated by writers. They are observant, clever, funny, intelligent, they all seem to live big lives. They are everything I would want to be. But this hand is even worse for me. I just happened to run into this woman named Eugenia Parry who writes about photography and photographers. Steidl is the publisher of some of the most significant books on photography, fine art, and fashion. And this is what it says about Ms. Parry: Eugenia Parry is known for her imaginative texts on the creative processes of artists. Besides pioneering studies of mid-nineteenth-century photography, of photographers and of impressionists, her essays have appeared in books on many contemporaries from Joel Peter Witkin to Georgia O’Keeffe. Her meta-fictional Crime Album Stories (2000) received the International Center for Photography’s “Infinity” Award for writing on photography. She is Adjunct Professor in the Department of Art and Art History at the University of New Mexico.
So, yes, it’s magnificent that I ran into her of all people, and yes I love it when things like that happen, and yes they only happen when you actually go out there and walk up to complete strangers. But I was completely knotted up when she told me who she was…. because then I still had to make a picture.
This is it. And I like it.
Here’s the worst thing: Before I found out who she was, my question was, How would her best friend describe her? Which now sounds like a “Dating Game” question.
“Quick, bright, a little neurotic, talented, greek, writer and a doll-maker”
Okay the doll-maker part was cool to find out.
washington, dc
In an effort to make this blog only vaguely topical, I present to you my one and only photograph of Tiger Woods. That’s him in the corner, hitting out of the rough.
Of course, this is not a post about Tiger Woods, or golf. It’s about suddenly stopping, raising the camera and making a photograph of something that by most accounts doesn’t warrant a second glance.
I have no idea why I shot this photograph. It was long before Tiger Woods’ current messiness (proof of which is the fact that it’s a poster for Accenture, which cut its ties in December to Tiger Woods). Prescient? Nah…. I guess I just like ugly, scummy, trash-filled corners of dark subway stations.
tiger woods