in the limelight

pink floyd: animals

yes, i have to say some things about this record. pink floyd has created an auditory explosion of guitar mixed with haunting animal sounds. there is something of an orchestral quality to this album that fixes tremendous emotional highs and lows on the listener. it is intensely quiet but loud at the same time. i love lying in bed and listening to this album. it is one of those for me. there is nothing like driving back from a long day of snowboarding in the colorado backcountry and listening to animals. there is nothing like sitting in the waist deep powder and enjoying it. there is nothing like having a dog trail you down the mountain, jumping and pouncing in the depths of the powder. there is nothing like purple skies. there is nothing like silence so crisp and empty. so innocent. so void of the constant noise and sounds that bombard your everyday life in the city. there is nothing like snow-covered trees. there is nothing like friends to sit on the top of a mountain with and not a single other person in sight. and then back to animals. there is nothing like the burn of leg muscles at the end of the day. there is nothing like taking your boots off. there is nothing like your next meal because you feel like you could eat a horse, though not literally. and there is nothing like the tired ride home with the barking of dogs and the oinking of pigs. if you know what i mean.

.: westerfield nudes :.

well, what can i possibly say about these drawings, except for they are mine and they were done at the most fabulous art party in san francisco. we were invited to attend a drawing party at the famous westerfield house in alamo square (once the home of ken kesey). the rooms are each art pieces in themeslves, a monument to early 1900s interior design. a few of the rooms were lit with photographic lights where nude female models posed in '60s summer of luv style. i can't even put into words the experience as a whole without writing a short (perhaps i will someday), but i am posting my drawings from the night. i haven't drawn a picture in years, and when i first put the pencil to paper it felt a bit foreign to me. but the pieces starting falling into place once i began to really listen to the dj spinning psychadelic 60s tunes. in shorter words, i got totally into it. it was such a nice release to draw a picture. who woulda thunk it. art works in mysterious ways.

in the limelight

david hockney

I love the photographic work by hockney, what he calls "joiners". it is a type of photo collage, a large grouping of many small photographs of a single subject. there is a certain affinity to cubism in his photo work, as shown in the above example "pearblossom highway #2"

i was introduced to hockney while in school and have always since remembered his pieces. this series are his swimming pool paintings from 1967. they are my favorite. i particularly like his vision of the way water reflects the sunlight. it is so simple yet designed. the colors are striking and the concept so exemplifies the grandness of swimming in warm los angeles summer heat. sometimes when i look at these paintings i get a feeling of nostalgia, as if i am really there at that moment. perhaps "the swimming pool" brings back many positive childhood memories. i also enjoy the art deco feel of these images. they remind me of julius shulman's architecture shots of l.a. homes. if you have never seen them, stay tuned. i will post some at a later date.

 

in the limelight

mark chien

this is a photographer friend of mine who spent the course of three years at the academy of art along side of me. he is talented at lighting and especially talented at photoshop manipulation. i enjoy his concepts and ability to make the model so comfortable behind the camera. that is a huge challenge when shooting. once the technical issues are learned, such as lighting, then the next obstacle is creating a connection between the model and the camera. everyone has their own techniques as to how to engage the subject of the photograph. mark was a master at this. unfortunately, mark has moved back to taiwan to pursue his photographic career, but we will see him back in sf again, hopefully soon. he is missed.

tokyo, the other end of the world

this is a video of paranoid android that i took at the show at saitima super arena in tokyo on oct. 5, 2008

my boyfriend and i travelled across the great oceans, lands, by plane, by train, encompassed by a language so foreign to us but so natural to them. this place was tokyo. we went to see radiohead. we were those awkward tourists that you can probably imagine in your head right now. oh were we them. 

we stumbled along the electric streets entranced by the lights, the people, the landscape, the sushi, the history, the energy, the customs, the gracious japanese spirit. the visual stimulation felt while walking the city streets was a photographic journey in itself. 

but mostly i wanted to post this to give a shout out to the set list for the oct. 5 show, the real reason we went. there is something about radiohead that is so otherworldy and universal at the same time. our seating section must have been reserved for foreigners because we met people from all over the world. some were american, others from europe, australia. we met two americans who lived in guam, went out with them after the show, and later sang karaoke in the same exact karaoke room as scarlett johannson in the movie "lost in translation". how cool is that?   

00. Intro
01. 15 Step
02. Airbag
03. Just
04. There There
05. All I Need
06. Pyramid Song
07. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
08. The Gloaming
09. Myxomatosis
10. Faust Arp
11. Knives Out
12. Nude
13. Optimistic
14. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
15. Idioteque
16. Fake Plastic Trees
17. Bodysnatchers
18. Like Spinning Plates
19. Videotape
20. Paranoid Android
21. Reckoner
22. Everything In Its Right Place
23. Go Slowly
24. My Iron Lung
25. How to Disappear Completely

haight space

here are a few more images that i have been working on for my thesis. the name i have revealed in this post, so perhaps there is an understanding of where i live. one of the first photographer's i met in my life told me to shoot what i know best. i don't know if i quite understood what he meant at the time, but i do now. i am finding with this project that my attachment to my neighborhood has really changed the meaning of photography for me. the connection that i seem to have is deep and i am enjoying myself in this picture taking part of my life. 

the first is an image of a shoe taylor in my neighborhood named carlos. he runs a good business and is so friendly to the neighborhood people. it is a neighborhood with many skeletons in the closet, intense historical references, cosmic energy and artistic release. 

.: bang bang you're dead :.

this is an image i shot recently for my environmental portrait series. it is coming along slowly but surely. i have now narrowed the series down even more to my neighborhood. i am not going to name the neighborhood where i live in san francisco except to say that it is historically very famous. so this is my modern day interpretation. can you guess from the imagery? probably not at this moment, but there will be more to come. 

in the limelight

Ted Warnell

http://codepo.blogspot.com

this guy's work is super cool. i discovered him while browsing blogspot. this whole experience of blogging has become exciting because it is almost like getting a sneak peek into someone's psyche. though you don't know them, you know them. i think it is a very interesting platform. i realize when i read these blogs that there is so much artistic expression in the world, which i believe to be a necessary part of being. 

in any case, back to this amazing artist ted warnell. his blog is called 'poem by nari code poetry & other'. his blog page and his website are cryptic and difficult to understand but visually beautiful at the same time. he has made an artform from simple html coding. check it out in the above link.

in the limelight

wolfgang jaiser & claus winder for 

radiohead's in rainbows video contest

videotape

i so love this video. it was put together by the german team wolfgang jaiser and claus winder for the radiohead video contest. the animation in it is so clean and but in a way somewhat psychedelic at the same time. also, since radiohead is my favorite band in the world, i am personally more attached to anything that involves their music. in fact, i am about to jump in a plane and head to mexico city for the shows this weekend. yeah, i only wish. (only wish i hadn't seen that $200 flight deal from sf to mexico in my inbox, just kidding...ha...ha...ha). or am i?  

.: suspended above thin air :.

this is a tryptic of a dancer i shot in the studio. she is a friend of mine in san francisco. her name is michele kitchen. i plan to photoshop her into cityscapes, but have not shot the right images to do so yet. but i wanted to post these because i really love the feeling that she is suspended in midair. the flexibility and grace of the ballerina is such a beautiful thing to me, perhaps because it seems so difficult. when i do finally find the ideal locations in which to photoshop her, i will post those as well. photoshop compositing is a complicated issue. the lighting and perspective must be exactly correct or the eye will subliminally understand that something is wrong.

in the limelight

birthe piontek

i recently discovered this photographer, birthe piontek. she was born in 1976, the same year as me. her work plays with the themes of the familiar and the strange, the vulnerability of youth and innocence. she was named one of the pdn (photo district news) top 30 in 2008. this is a prestigious nomination for a young rising photographer. she lives and works in vancouver, bc. 

i am attracted to the strange tension that i feel when looking at her work. she mixes portraits with still life images on her website, and though they are different subject matter, the emotional impact that the viewer gets is the same. also, i continue to look for photographers who shoot environmental portraits to reference in my own work. the environmental portrait is a tricky photograph to take because there are so many factors to take into consideration, many elements of design that must be considered. also, the lighting must look as authentic as possible in order for the image to maintain a context of the "real".

in the limelight

banksy

the next artist i want to talk about is banksy. he was born in bristol, but due to obscurity, it is not now known where he resides. he is the infamous and anonymous banksy, an artist known for his street artwork.  though he publicly stencils his compelling street art, he has never been seen or heard. no one knows his identity. this means he has never been caught, i am assuming. he even put up one of his pieces on the wall in a well-known museum in london, dressed in costume from head to toe, in broad daylight. he was caught on tape in full beard and mustache, hat, trench coat and sunglasses. the museum left his piece on the wall. banksy plays with controversial and political topics in his pieces, such as the one above: the blatant statement about the evolution of man from caveman to mcdonald's big mac and fries. he is a cool cat.