Missy

   Missy is a drug-addicted transvestite streetwalker with a warm bittersweet personality.  She lives on the streets or crashes with friends in tumble-down shelters.  In an hourly-rate motel room, I pose her on the bed in front of the television.  I turn on the tube, looking for background.  Jesse Jackson's head addresses America.

   Eons ago, Jesse Jackson had been on the scene when James Earl Ray took Martin Luther King's life with a hate-directed bullet.  Yet here is Jesse still full of hope.  I tell Missy, I like Jesse Jackson.  I even voted for him one time.
   Missy tells me she has never voted for anyone because all politicians are liars and assholes.
   I ask her to look at me and think happy thoughts, then take three quick pictures but the flash only fires for the first and third.

   We went to an art opening downtown LA at the Pico House, different media, on the Day Of The Dead.  It was alright, a couple of nice pieces, good crowd, free food.
   One of the artists had a couple of black and white photographs.  I don't think they were bad, but they weren't good enough that I remember the images.  What I do remember, posted next to the photos, along with the titles, was something like this:  These photos were taken with a film camera and created in a darkroom without any digital manipulation.  This was not the first time I've seen this.  Now why, I wondered, would someone call attention to the fact that they were still in the dark ages of the darkroom?  Oh, wait, now I get it, this person, along with a lot of other persons, is under the mistaken impression that a film based photograph is more worthy of the art world than a digital ink-jet print.  Well excuse me but fuck you.  Nothing counts except the end product and how one comes to that end counts for nothing.

   I've heard these prejudices in the art world for as long as I've been aware of an art world.  When I was starting in photography only black and white photography was considered for art, color still had a couple more decades to be won over.  I don't think it's as bad as it has been; probably the guy whose pictures I looked at the other night is just a moron.  After all photography nowadays in galleries and museums comes in all manner of processes.  I guess I just get irked too easily.

   One of my favorite photographers is a dead guy named William Mortensen who, because he manipulated his photos, drawing on paper negatives, among other tricks, was ostracized from the group of real artist led by famous jerks like Arthur Stieglitz, and then later Ansel Adams, whose "straight photography" was really, after all, way manipulated in the dark room with his zone this and that.  Take that all you A Adams fans, the guy was a dick.

   I think I've gotten off the subject or maybe just tired of it.  I googled William Mortensen and came up with a link that features a good bit of his work. 

 http://ajourneyroundmyskull.blogspot.com/2009/01/monsters-and-madonnas-looking-at.html
   My father had a first edition copy of Mortensen's book Monsters and Madonnas.  I wish I knew what ever became of it.  I had copies of Mortensen's other books in the seventies.  I don't know what became of them either.

The Former Yugoslavia

Lobster man

Looking up

These are not really Halloween photos but from a series of magazine articles called Shopping For God that I did with my friend Steven Parker.

Irving Penn Died last week

Irving Penn died last week.  He was 92, a year older than my father who was a fan.  My father introduced me to Mr. Penn's work back when I was but a budding juvenile delinquent.  I always liked Penn.  His lighting was simple which I guess was refreshing back when he started, and guys like Steichen and Horst P Horst were still doing elaborate studio glamour lighting, which was dramatic but deified the subjects.  Penn was big on quiet elegant compositions with a simple background.  His traveled around the world with a portable tent north-light studio and he photographed pretty much everyone.  He was probably one of the greats of last century but not quite revolutionary like his contemporary, Richard Avedon.  He was alright.  I've got a 1st edition copy of his book Worlds In A Room, which I bought new in 1974.

As it happens there is an Irving Penn exhibit at the Getty, Small Trades, so we took the 134 to the 101 to the 405 and paid fifteen hard-earned dollars for parking.  The photographs were made in the early 1950,s in NYC, Paris & London, of trades people, along with their tools. 155 gelatin silver prints and 97 platinum/palladium prints.  At times identical images were paired to show the difference between the two printing processes.  I was less than awe struck and the sameness of all the images traveling room to room to room at the museum quickly became monotonous.  So we looked at another small show which was a grouping of antique photos that all had something in common but I don't remember what it was.  The highlight was a print by Joel Peter Witkin which I'd never seen before.  Then we went to the café where Linda had a sandwich and I had a brownie and a bad cup of coffee.  In all fairness, I really like the Getty.  It's a great museum, just don't get coffee in the café and oh yeah, the gift shop is kind of boring.

Jack and Jane have fun on skates while Sally sits alone - Sally thinks she is ugly.

Every so often, weather permitting, I spend a couple of hours taking pictures, along Hollywood Boulevard, of people making funny faces.