Lassal – photography
I will excuse myself from the blog for some time. I had a tough day yesterday, witnessing an heart attack for the first time. My father’s.
He made it through and will be released from hospital in a couple of days – hopefully. But I am kind of shaken – and I do not really feel like talking. Nor writing. I will have to digest the awful images first.
It was party time in the studio of a friend yesterday. And we had the most perfect evening (night)!
How long has it been since I have last danced? Too long!
Sometimes I do not notice how I slide into total working mode. Sometimes it is good to have friends who remind you that there is more out there than what a to-do list can offer. Sometimes I remember one of the reasons why I gave up painting and why I love photography.
No party images this time. Only a lonely reflective moment in a perfect row of pearly ones.
Continue reading ‘Please remind me to party’
I have never had a tv. Not ever. But of course I grew up in a household with tv and everytime I was living with someone, this other person had a seeing mashine, as people in Iceland call it. The fact that Tony also had one little old tv somewhere in the garage now really came in handy as I wanted to experiment a bit with the screen resolution. I always prefer experiments not to cost too much – because failure is part of it, and if there was too much money involved, this failure would hurt more than necessary. So I took my day off today to get some equipment wired up for the next test runs.
And I had a nice tea in front of the telly.
Strangely enough … even with the little tv I watch, and considering that we have friday evening, I knew the (good) stuff that was on. How can that be? Ended up watching ARTE – where they were showing scientists researching why the little DNA differences of 1% between humans and our closest monkey relatives do apparently make such a huge difference. Comes down that they assume that a huge part of it is due to a simple mutation in the human DNA that regulates musculature growth. This mutation decreases the size of our jaw musculature which in turn allows our scull & brain to grow and develop more than originally possible. Who would have though of that?!
It really IS interesting to watch tv sometimes.
Guess I will carry my oversized head to bed now.
…
Found this link to portraits of ape faces today – kinda goes with it.
While visiting friends in south Germany last year, we spent a night in a small hotel around the corner from their place. I could not NOT take a picture of the ceiling in the room … And just stumbled upon the image while searching for something else in the archive.
Ceilings are quite amazing because in general most people think they are not relevant. Walls are relevant and taken care of as well as floors, but ceilings commonly are neglected. Good for me!
Guess this one goes into the “my beauty is not your beauty” corner.
For those who have not been following: my dog is a little treasure hunter and I am showing some of the objects of his huge collection.
I think this was a rubber duck once. A found one. Hunter adores anything with rubber on or in it. A real fetish dog!
I tried to give him an intact ducky some time ago, but the new one would look just the same as the found one 1 min later. Guess this is the way he likes them. And not just him – guess most of the dogs love rubber ducks this way, because that is always how we find them. Unfortunately the shops have not yet reacted and are still selling ducks with heads and tails. So much for consumer orientedness – shame on them!
Sometimes it happens out of the blue that I notice that my way of seeing is a bit different than the way of seeing from “normal” people around me. I am not saying better or worse, just different. And I am sure that I do not stand alone with this notion. Why is this so? Maybe I – and others – are drawn to visual media like photography, to get the visual emphasis that we prefer? Subconsciously?
Maybe for some it is this way. For me it is more like what a moskito bite might do to you: you notice it peripherically and scratch a bit. The scratching makes the itching get worse which makes you react by scratching even more … until it bleeds. It might even get infected. But of course some people are more likely to scratch to the bone than others. And some use repellents to avoid the whole issue to begin with.
Continue reading ‘My Beauty is Not Your Beauty’
When the postman rings, it is generally to announce my (almost) daily Christmas time. Hardly a night goes in which I do not encounter an online link to a beautiful photo book that I have the urge to get. If in the future I am ever sent to therapy, then probably because of this continuously growing desire to buy books.
So much for that.
But what do I generally find when I open the packages? Damaged goods! And that is not funny considering the fact that most of the books are anything but cheap – and that the damage is easily avoidable. People really TRY to do good packaging, but they simply do not think it through! I recieve an amazing amount of bubble wrap every week. Too bad that bubble wrap does not prevent book corners from being damaged. Neither do 10 sheets of packing paper.
Last week I almost went bezerk when a 350EUR book arrived with bent corners. It was evident from the package that it had been dropped – but hey, this is what happens during long shipping procedures, and the content should be packed adequately! Bubble wrap simply is not enough. Basta!
So today I was overly happy to recieve my books from Steidl. Not only did they include a beautiful catalogue, that totally excites me, but they also packed the books in a way that shows that they truly and consciously care about them. And these protective corners do not only allow for simple and quick packaging, they also are cheap – cheaper than multiple square meter of bubble wrap.
The blindness is apparent when someone lets slip the word ’snapshot’. Ignorance can always be covered by ’snapshot’. The word has never had any meaning. I am at war with the obvious.
– From a conversation with Mark Holborn, Greenwood, Mississippi, February 1988
I quit painting some years before I stumbled upon photography. I quit because it was literally driving me crazy. It was too slow. Just much, much too slow for me – even though I was a fast painter.
In my mind I was always 20 paintings ahead because I was constantly thinking in series. Thus I was filling up my little notebooks with scribbles for paintings, while I was falling more and more behind with my output … After my first museum exhibition I quit it. I thought that it was a nice ending.
I quit painting also because of a number of additional reasons: I needed sleep, I wanted to meet people and have my life back, although the frustration of falling behind with the output was the ultimate trigger. Admittedly I miss painting a bit sometimes. I miss the smell, the texture of the paint on canvas … I miss mixing my colours and having real objects in my hand: objects with weight, smell, texture. That was one of the reasons why I started thinking about building a dark room and shoot some film …
I will get over it.
Meanwhile I will grab my camera and take some pictures.
Found this graffito down at the river. Different. Huge, too.
Somebody left it there on the night before the opening of the frankfurt bookfair – right where the hotel ships dock.
I would like to think that it is a statement.
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