Collected Images

Odilon Redon

Collected Images: White

Jacob Sutton

Henri Cartier-Bresson

Antonio Carrillo López

NASA (public domain)

Collected Images: Light

Sam Javanrouh

Jones Oliver

FFFF-ck ffffound!

I'm so tired of having to look at sexist, exploitative images on ffffound! Here's some inspiration images for you, from ffffound and elsewhere without the T and A and crotch shots.  Luckily, Pinterest is edging into the image collecting space, which obviously has a much different dynamic since it's so female dominated and doesn't allow nudity. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against tasteful nudity or an honest exploration of the human body, but that's not what is on fffound and its always women who are spread eagle or rearing tits heaven/lens-ward, and very occasionally men. I think I can hear the diehard fffound devotees now scoffing into their hipster mustaches about how cheesy and commercial or just plain ditzy they find Pinterest.  Not for people who are "serious" about art. And that's fine. The what is art conversation is a whole different ball of wax.  I would agree that for a certain guy posting endless "artsy" pictures of naked women may not seem too different from some women posting endless images of shoes and chocolate.  But shoes and chocolate actually are objects... whereas the naked women aren't.

 

Waiting for Lightning Poster

Poster for Waiting for Lightning, designed by Yogi Proctor. Should have posted this before.

Good first screening this morning.  Very happy and excited with SXSW so far.  Three more screenings of Waiting for Lightning to come.

PREMIERE SCREENINGS

SATURDAY, March 10, 2012
11:00am - 12:20PM
Paramount Theatre

SUNDAY, March 11, 2012
9:45Pm - 11:05PM
Alamo Village

TUESDAY, March 13, 2012
7:45Pm - 9:05PM
Canon Screening Room

SATURDAY, March 17, 2012
2:45Pm - 4:05PM

Stateside Theatre

The Water Goblin

I've been obsessed with finding a text of Karel Jaromír Erben's Kytice (Bouquet) a collection of rhythmic poems based on Czech folklore.  I first become interested in "Vodník" (The Water Goblin) when doing some research on Romantic composers.  I came across Dvořák's Vodník, a composition called a symphonic poem, which is a single piece of symphonic music illustrating a work of literature.  The basic story is about a Water Goblin who abducts a young girl and takes her to his home in the lake to be his bride.  They have a child and she eventually persuades him to allow her to return to land to pay a visit to her mother. He agrees on the condition that she will return and keeps the child as a hostage.  When the time comes to return, the mother will not let her daughter return to the lake and the Water Goblin take his revenge.  I was enchanted by the music and when I read that the words to the poem fit naturally to the music I wanted to read the poem.  Natural response right?  Listen to the composition:

The Water Goblin Part 1

The Water Goblin Part 2

The Water Goblin Part 3

So I began searching everywhere for a translation of "The Water Goblin" and found nothing...   I searched Amazon, I searched everything all I could find were discussions of the work but no actual texts in English.  I came across this transcript of a English language Czech culture broadcast discussing Erben and his works.

Susan Reynolds Interview on Radio Praha

A British literary scholar Susan Reynolds from The British Library was working on a translation.  Below are excerpts from her translation.  If you listen to the music, you can hear how it would go rhythmically with the words.

[excerpt 1 ]

On a poplar by the pool
The Goblin sat at twilight cool:
'Glow, moon, glow,
That my thread may sew.

For myself new boots I'm sewing, 

On dry land and water going:
Glow, moon, glow,
That my thread may sew.

'Thursday now—tomorrow's Friday—
sew a coat all trim and tidy:
Glow, moon, glow,
That my thread may sew.

Coat of green and boots of red, 

For tomorrow I'll be wed:
Glow, moon, glow,
That my thread may sew.'

This translation © Susan Reynolds 2002.

[excerpt 2]

On the lake the storm is shrieking;
In the storm the child screams shrill;
Screams that pierce the soul with anguish,
Then they suddenly fall still.
'Oh, my mother, please, oh, please!
At those cries my blood will freeze—
Mother mine, oh, dearest mother,
Fear of him my heart does fill!'

Something fell—beneath the doorway
Moisture trickles—tinged with red.
When the old one went to open,
What she saw filled her with dread.
In their blood, two objects lying
Sent cold terror through her flying:
Baby's head—without a body;
Tiny body—with no head.

This translation © Susan Reynolds 2002.

This poem is macabre and chilling and naturally I want to read the other poems now too and share them with my friend over in The Devil's Playpen.   This interview was in 2002 but there is still no book by Susan Reynolds.  But I did find this post on The British Library page of Academia.edu from Susan Reynolds three months ago:

Final stages of preparing translation of Karel Jaromír Erben's `Kytice' for publication by Jantar to mark his 200th birthday..."

Unfortunately Erben was born in 1811... It looks like she didn't quite make it.  Hopefully she plans to finish it.  You can read some more excerpts from her translations on the Radio Praha link above.

If anyone knows where I can read these poems in English let me know.

Retouching Eyes

Okay, so I am going to take some portraits soon, so I'm practicing my Photoshop enhancing.  I used this really good eye retouching tutorial: Eye Retouching Tutorial and just pumped up the contrast and whites and blacks a little bit.

P.S.  The image came from this blog: souvenirs.  It's kind of cool.  Much prefer this stylized beauty to the nearly pornographic stuff passing as visually intriguing on fffound.com these days.

"Restrepo" Co-Director Tim Hetherington Killed in Libya

Tim Hetherington, co-director of the documentary film Restrepo, was killed today in Libya during an explosion that killed another photo-journalist and injured several others.  Hetherington's photos have a fine art quality to them, bringing an aestheticism to chaos.  I have heard people critique the notion of making decay and despair look beautiful, but I think in many cases he brought a humanity to his subjects by photographing them in this way.  He also used his style to create contrast that is poignant and sometimes achingly sad.

It is not surprising that he was killed in the field, considering that he frequented the world's battle grounds, documenting the human suffering he encountered there.  However, it is even more tragic to lose a principled journalist whose stated purpose was to document the reality on the ground, without being tainted by politics.  This is the spirit of journalism that media needs.

Stay tuned for a review of Hetherington and Sebastian Junger's film Restrepo about American soldiers defending an observation post in Afghanistan's Korengal Valley.
Below is more of Hetherington's work that can be found on his site.

LA Times: "Libya blast kills photojournalists Tim Hetherington and Chris Hondros"
Vanity Fair: "Tim Hetherington, 40, Killed in Libya"
The Atlantic: "Tim Hetherington in Sierra Leone"
Tim Hetherington's Website

Inspiration: "Scissors" Gallery

Scissors is one of many collections or online galleries of photos and images collected from various sources and updated on a regular basis. It's similar to the popular fffound.com, except its images are collected only by one person instead of a social network.  I love Scissors because the curator Adam Miller usually chooses images that appeal to my aesthetic, that feel honest and visually interesting.  Like fffound, Scissors does have a lot of imagery that I consider exploitative as well, but there are some gems amongst them.  Both are a good resource for treatments and mood boards.  Here's some of my recent favorites from Scissors (talk about a meta post).