Thursday, September 17, 2009

STEPHEN HERO SPOKE TO ME
HE SAID, "WE'RE A LOT ALIKE, YOU AND I
BURNT AND TATTERED... NEVER HAVING
COME TO FRUITION
ALL WE HAD, NOT GOOD ENOUGH
TO BE THE NEXT GUY

AND I REPLIED

WHY WILL WE NEVER LEAVE?
WHY WILL WE NEVER WALK AWAY
TO BECOME A NEW PERSON; THE ONE
WE DREAM OF BECOMING?

IS IT THE PRICE OF THE TICKET?
IS IT THE UNCERTAINTY
THAT WE WILL NEVER BE
THAT PERSON?

IS IT THAT THERE ARE SO MANY OF US
LINED ALONG THE SHORE
POISED TO TAKE A STEP?

OR ARE WE, INDEED, ALONE

HE TOOK HIS FINGERS OUT OF HIS MOUTH
AND SAID, "I THINK YOU THINK
TOO MUCH ABOUT IT."


I had a dream last night, and I was thinking about doing portraits. I was photographing Groucho Marx, and I thought, how do I convey something about this guy that's not already there? (Being a dream, of course, we're all familiar with images of Groucho). So I said 'shoes'. 'Shoes make the man, or at least they say something about him'. And I had Groucho put his shoe on top of his head. It was a brown wingtip with a bit of a red cast to it, and it was polished, but it wasn't recently done. It was clearly a shoe that had given a few good years of service. And then I kind of woke up, and I thought, to myself, 'hey, that's not a bad idea'.


This is just a store front window in NYC. I liked the balance of it though, particularly the $5's on each side of the shot, and the way that the glasses on the one styrofoam head give it a point of focus. In fact, the glasses and the earrings and the hat almost give it a bit of personality.


This is from my incomplete 'museum' series. It's blurry in the low light, but that doesn't matter at all. In fact, it probably helps as it gives it a sense of motion, and the lighting makes the whole scene appear as a kind of theatrical piece. The connection between the stance of the sculpture and the stance of the man taking a photo is what gives it life; and the woman to the right acts as an audience.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

VERTIGO

What it comes down to is this:

TO HIM,
PASSION IS A FOUR LETTER WORD

_ _ _ _


TO HER,
LOVE IS UNOBTAINABLE LUCK


And she dreams of one day
driving them both off the side of the road
and
dying
in a fiery blaze
of love confessions...

AND HE DREAMS OF THIS TOO,
but of only her
being
in the car