The sexiest fashion photogs I’ve come across in a while. White guys with high cheekbones are totally overrated. GIVE ‘EM MASKS.
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{via JAK & JIL}
Posts Tagged: Photography
7
Feb 10
Princess Mononoke meets the planets.
There are a lot of reasons to love Natasha Khan (one word: LAYERS), only the first of them being that she makes really good music.
From her latest album, Two Suns:
Bat for Lashes – Sleep Alone
Bat for Lashes – Siren Song
But it’s not even about the music. This woman is a storyteller.
“Whenever I’m writing music it’s a very visual place in my mind. It has a location full of characters and colors and landscapes, so those two things really complement each other, and they help the other one to blossom and support the other.”
“I think it’s really important to give power to the world and the myth and the atmosphere that you’re trying to create. And if I was to just go out wearing normal stuff I’d feel like it was taking the power away and not giving others the same visual and symbolic references, and that excitement. For me, when I’ve seen other people take some risks with the way they look and do things on stage, it helps me to believe in that thing. I don’t think about that person having cups of tea and going shopping and being normal. I think about them as a performer and I quite like that; that people will look at me as a performer and this otherworldly thing.”
I worship that mind. That voice. Those OUTFITS. Don’t you?
…And she made these.
What else can I say? I’m a believer.
4
Feb 10
But you can wake up younger under the knife
Haitian Girl by David Choe. A limited number of prints are for sale online, with all proceeds going to Yele Haiti, Wyclef Jean’s foundation.
I have a hard time writing in here about things that are truly important… or tragic and incomprehensible to me. I feel like unless my talk is backed up by substantive action, it trivializes the very cause it supposedly stands by. Hence the disproportionate amount of tongue-in-cheekery and not much of anything else.
So this is why I really appreciate writers who take the time to thoughtfully analyze difficult subjects and attempt to bridge that gap between theory and reality. Catherine Traywick of Hyphen has a great blog series called Idealize This!, which discusses practical issues encountered by people working for change. The latest is on photography and relief, specifically in Haiti — something that I’ve (less articulately) pondered.
In the aftermath of the earthquake that decimated Port-au-Prince weeks ago, journalists have worked ’round the clock to keep the flickering screens and hungry eyes of their eager public perpetually engaged. And we, in turn, have consumed, without pause, photo essay upon photo essay of devastated Haitians climbing bloody out from under piles of debris, desperate Haitians knocking over little boys, and homeless Haitians sleeping without shelter, among many other startling images captured by news photographers with Pulitzer-sized dreams (after all, Haiti’s last disaster earned this guy one!).
And we are so moved by these terrible, suspended fragments of another’s life that it may not occur to us that the bloody woman we saw rising from beneath blocks of concrete probably saw a photographer’s lens before she saw the faces of her rescuers. Nor do we wonder whether she’ll get a dime if her photo wins him any awards.
But that’s nothing new. Photojournalism has always been an ethically shady enterprise. Whether Steve McCurry’s portrait of the reluctantly compliant “Afghan Girl” or Kevin Carter’s voyeuristic photo of a starving Sudanese baby, the trade has long borne a paradoxical reputation; while widely regarded as a public service, it nevertheless entails a level of detachment that is antithetical to most conventional conceptions of “service.” It’s a topic I’ve written about before, and one that I continually revisit, particularly as I get to know more photographers and especially as I strive to critique the ethical implications of my own journalistic projects.
She goes on to detail the work of orgs like PhotoPhilanthropy, which positions ethical photojournalism as a process rather than just an outcome.
And in the end, there’s no perfect formula for photographers or artists to both serve others and receive recognition for their work. It’s a personal, situational issue that requires, at the very least, a whole lot of self-reflection. Just finding out that the answer is that there is no answer is a struggle in itself.
As Eliza Gregory of PhotoPhilanthropy writes, “I think great art surprises us—it can come from anywhere, and be about anything. So I don’t think you have to be from a community to chronicle it with beauty and subtlety. But, it’s also very easy to become a hapless messiah, a benevolent imperialist, or simply someone who is not actually helping anyone. “
18
Jan 10
I prefer my eyes low
I’m not sure what Isabelle Lumpkin’s art is all about, but I do know it’s given me a renowned appreciation for the collage. And the full-body vag. Check out more of her work here.
15
Jan 10
Chhom Nimol is a rock star.
I experienced Dengue Fever on Tuesday night. It was TIGHT (literally… wall-to-wall people emanating the sweet stank of B.O. and ganj). But it was also tight in that it was like, really fuckin amazing.
Here’s 2 tracks from their latest album, Venus on Earth.
Dengue Fever – Seeing Hands
Dengue Fever – Tiger Phone Card
The music is inspired by Cambodian rockers from the 60s, many of whom where murdered under the Khmer Rouge. Below is a track by Sin Sisamouth, a huge artist of the time.
Before I went to the show, I kinda sorta had the band members pegged as major Asian fetishizers… history stealers… Silver Lake goons who happen to make good music… etc. etc. Which, given the creepy and condescending media coverage of the music and its history (painting Zac Holtzman, bushy-bearded guy, as the creative genius of Cambodian music… and Chhom Nimol as his fairy bride) is not that unfair.
In fact, right up until they came on stage, I was plotting to write a disapproving blog essay (with PROOF) about the colonizing mentality of Dengue Fever… but I can’t anymore! I’ve been converted. It’s hard not to fall in love a tiny bit when a band’s getting down and ugly for their music. Even when they can eat you alive with their beards.
But in all seriousness, the music is important. The history — which, after all, isn’t just the past but the driving reality of the present — is important. Maybe the band’s privileges are less significant than the people it honors and reaches out to (and I’m not talking about the hipsters). I’m still trying to figure it out. I’m not Cambodian or Southeast Asian, and it’s not exactly my place to be the judge in all of this… but I was thinking about how I’d feel if say, some white guys from LA came out with music inspired by “North Korean funk from the 50s”… how would I feel? Would I see it differently? Would I be happy to connect with a part of my history that I never knew I lost? Would I be creeped out at how said white guys are becoming the keepers of that history? A little bit of both? Something else entirely?
Don’t really know the answer to those questions. I do know its hella powerful to see Chhom Nimol rocking out like it’s no one’s business, though. For now, that’ll have to do.
