YOU'RE THE STAR OF MY MOVIE

On the 4th of July fireworks and rock n’ roll are must haves:

“A useful rule of thumb in judging art is how much is left once you remove all the received ideas and influences. Is there anything left?”

–Roberta Smith in her review of Joana Vasconcelos’ “Contamination” at the Venice Biennale

For the record I think the piece is wonderful. Judge for yourself:

I have new photo’s of  Karyn Starr (top) and Nina Freudenberger (bottom) who are featured on my wife’s blog LOVING.

I saw this in the June issue of Harper’s and would like you to know I am gladly accepting patronage too.

I’m reading “How To Wreck A Nice Beach: The Vocoder From World War II to Hip-Hop”. The author, Dave Tomkins, speaks in tongues: a highly caffeinated, over-educated, culture-at-the-margins, A.D.D. kind of language… He gets a gold medal for knowing cool stuff. With that in mind I’ve been in a Miami Bass state of mind. Start your weekend now! (Possibly your weekend includes the New York Photo Festival?)

You know that feeling when a Walker Evans, Dorothea Lange, or Russell Lee photograph isn’t up to snuff and you take a hole punch to the negative? No? Me neither, but Roy Stryker did when he ran the Works Progress Administration (check out this interview with Mr. Stryker).

Artist Lisa Oppenheim’s series of worked based on the killed negatives of Walker Evans’ pictures reconstructs the missing hole punch and displays it next to a print from the photograph which Mr. Stryker struck out. She neatly touches on photography, memory, history, hidden versus revealed, reenactment and other smart stuff if you take the time to unpack the work.

I shot Lisa for The Ladies of Castor & Pollux and I’ve met her before but it is always funny what you learn about someone when you are taking their portrait. Like she is friend’s with my sister. Small world, right? (or maybe just small semiotics department at Brown University.)

I know you’re a been there done that kinda guy, but holy shit Pete Souza this picture is unbelievable.

Zia’s Heleyos. You can buy it at Dusty Groove.

Here’s a new portrait of Johanna Fateman. She owns Seagull Salon which is next door to my wife Kerrilynn’s store, Castor & Pollux. Neighbors and what not. She is 1/3 of Le Tigre and writes and produces music for Christina Aguilera, among others. She looks like this and makes music with Le Tigre member JD Samson as MEN that sounds like this (watch the video: German romantic landscape + so much more)…

Designer Reece Solomon, was prepping for a trip to Paris, and I like to make all my shoots quick and easy, so I shot this around the corner from her Reece Hudson studio. She is easy on the eyes and that makes a photographer’s life simple…. thus no assistants, no bounce cards, one camera, two compact flash cards, 20 mins… No problem.

Reece is Lady number 26 for Castor & Pollux’s Loving blog. You can read about her there.