Choosing a Nan Goldin photo to recreate seemed appropriate since she just made the Kick-Ass list and I have her on the brain. I love this photo, called "The Hug", and although she often uses ambient light, I love it where she sometimes uses a flash like a spotlight.
Homage to Nan:
I know it doesn't seem to get more goofy than this, but my other usual participant was sleeping at the prime witching hour. It did give me a chance to pull out and practice with the old flash, since I'll be using it for a wedding I'm shooting this weekend.
I played with this in post quite a bit, trying to mimic the skintone and color balance with Nan's...still didn't get it right. Here's a camera-geek question: do you set your white balance in your camera and leave it alone or do you play with it some in post too? Do you remember when you had to buy tungsten balanced film or have the appropriate filter or light gel and if you happened to show up with none of the above in an unexpected tungsten-lit situation, you were screwed? Happened more times than I can count. Good times.
Because I can...because I have to...because I love it, I'm editing through about 550 photos from a wedding I shot this weekend. Many miles before I sleep. Or maybe it's sleep and many cups of coffee at 4am. Canned predictability...and I have a pantry full!
There are things that some women feel uncomfortable talking about. These 'things' I am referring to are changes that some...well, all...women go through when they reach and surpass 40. I feel the need today to dispel any illusion that the JLos and the Jennifer Anistons of the world are putting out there. And if you are younger than 40, consider it a friendly warning. If you are my age, let's commiserate, shall we? And by the way, we're just going to skip over the obvious gray hairs and readers and get down to the really unfortunate business.
1. Sometimes after only two glasses of wine (or more embarrassingly, totally sober), you can trip over the dog, bust a groove and hit the floor or just stub your toe and totally mess yourself up so bad that you will go to bed, not knowing the extent of the damage, and wake up at 4am with injured body part throbbing, swollen as big a bratwurst or Dachshund (depending) and may not be able to get out of bed.
2. Even in a house of total silence, even if that house resembles a hotel room, you cannot sleep past 8am.
3. Sometimes something as seemingly benign as brown rice or an antibiotic can make you constipated for days.
4. Some months, your period is so severe, the bathroom resembles that scene in Poltergeist where the steak inches off the counter and starts to explode and the guy starts peeling his bloody face off in the sink.
5. Speaking of wine, a couple of glasses used to make you sleep like a baby, but now, unless you drink the whole bottle and pass out, you have to take a melatonin/ambien/night-night pill. And the 'whole bottle' theory probably isn't a good idea (see #1).
6. Toenails now fall off randomly and without explanation.
7. Lying on the couch all day and watching bad TV (even if you could get away with it) does not bring the same joy it used to.
8. Exercising sometimes makes you want to take a nap. And then you do.
9. 3x magnification make-up mirrors don't tell the same story they used to. The blackhead search now involves a black hair smack-down.
10. Your internal filter used to be as tightly weaved as a coffee filter, but now it more resembles a sieve. Inappropriate things just fly out of your mouth and you aren't even embarrassed (see #3 and #4).
11. You can no longer listen to loud music mixed with kids talking and drive at the same time.
12. Strange things can happen when you sneeze.
13. Hairs can grow IN in the most unfortunate places.
14. That naughty but fun Dr. Pepper and Funyun run that you used to enjoy every so often will now give you heartburn for the rest of the day and sometimes into the next.
15. "Yes, I did fall last night (see #1), but that is actually a spider vein."
Well, these are from my personal repertoire of calamities and misfortunes, and it is certainly not an exhaustive list. Feel free to add your own in the comments!
Addendum: Life sucks and then you blog and then you laugh out loud until you really do roll on the floor because you tripped again.
These are Nan Goldin images, and it was really hard to narrow it down to even three of my favorites. She is an American photographer that began shooting in Boston as a teenager then onto New York, where she started documenting her friends and lovers through the 70s and 80s. Calling them her "tribe", as they've traveled through cities and decades, she has continued to archive their lives. At least those that have survived, as many of her subjects have been taken by drug addiction or AIDS, which she has provided a face for through her photography.
Her love, mutual admiration and shared compass with those on the fringe, I have always related to. When I discovered and began studying her work in the early 90s, my company was slightly less subversive than junkies or drag-queens (and not saying that all drag-queens are subversive), but freaks and exhibitionists were always a-plenty (still are). Her saturated, raw intimacy was particularly hypnotizing for me, so personal and revealing through her photos and in hindsight, seems almost trite now with nearly everyone's lives on display via social media. Though technically she is (self-admittedly) un-technical, it was always fun to try and mimic her style with a role of Kodachrome...maybe some cross-processing or a Cibachrome print. And she's always made me want to own a Leica...still saving for that!
Timeless style tip from Nan: 'tis most rich to be identified with your tribe, as you bring out their beauty and them, you...as heartbreaking and as joyful as that can be.
I love you, Nan.
Sometimes on Fridays I like to publish a little poem on the Twit with #PoetryForLushes*. And since I only have 6 followers over there, I'd love to grace you with these little gems as well. Because you know, if a tree falls in a forest, thankfully there are cams and speakers set up so everyone can hear, right? I totally bastardize a line, snip or entire poem from distinguished poets, and yes, they are really bad.
Here goes Thoreau:
My life has been a drink I would have drunk,
But I could not both drunk and mumbled it.
Or perhaps a little e e cummings tribute:
Me up on floor
quietly Giggle
a tipsy lush
but still alive
and asking What
did I do well
that was fun.
Just Sayin'
--not by William Carlos Williams, but by me...ahem.
I have drank
all the wine
in the box
and you
were probably
saving
for dinner's fancy sauce
Forgive me
I was thirsty
Not really a poem rip-off, but something to do with John Donne:
The wine bell doth toll for me in the happiest of hours.
Consider me involved.
Also consider following me on the Twit @NaughtApropos...I know, none of you do that.
*Not half the lush I claim to be on the internets...I have kids...or I have kids, therefore I am. Either way, it's funny.
Yes, I realize. Not a closet relic per se, but this guy has hung out in my many different boudoirs for at least twenty years. He's a snail, and I've recently and finally referred to him as 'he'. He, with his delicate features, pixie hair and real nails for antennas, he's more androgynous even shirtless, but sometimes you have to pick a pronoun. He sat in a shop window in Nuevo Laredo, Mexico and I longed for him so. Granted, we were about 3 hours away from Mex, but a couple of trips South he still sat, and I promised myself on the third I would bring enough stretched college pennies to purchase him. Or a sweet guy bought him for me...I can't remember, it was a long time ago. The point is, I have glued his arms back on in no less than five different places, one nail/antenna has to be twirled time and again so as to not be completely askew, but there he sits...patiently by the bed...eyes affixed and stern as in, "Get up, do something, now!". And I must say, most mornings, I have diligently obliged. Today was rainy again, but the sun peeped out for a minute as I was for the umpteenth time gluing his arm back on to restore his slippery self, as he's always on the move.
And just when you think you've caught him, he glides across the water.
I guess I did set up the sporadic nature of this project, so I am sticking to that...sporadic consistency...and those words go together like 'always never'.
I have loved Mr. Newton forever and I was fortunate enough to have just seen his retrospective last summer. I can hardly narrow down his photos into even a short pile of my favorites, but this definitely ranks in the top ten (choosing not to publish here as to a bit of nudity, but please, if you are safe, click because it's beautiful).
There wasn't so much of a tricky lighting issue as a logistical one...I have two models and needed three. Enter playdate, and I had about four minutes.
Homage to Helmut:
The first shot was the winner, and that usually only happens with children and maybe animals. Mr. Newton's photo is a self-portrait, yet he seems so small in his environment...he was a true master of execution. Qu'il repose en paix, Mr. Newton.
