In honor of my new position...

...noticed and loved on boingboing.net earlier today, I bring you Ms. Raquel Welch.

Awesome.

Gallery Night hijinks (Jan. 18 2008)

It was a last minute notification for me, so I just threw together some work for it. But a few pieces are from the 2007 set I've been working on. And the others appearing with me? Crap. I couldn't believe my good fortune. So stop in on your wanderings, perhaps after dinner at the Social or coffee at the Alterra - Foundry Cafe.

A blog about a blog

Yes, blogging about blogs happens everyday. Just not here. Really. But today I was looking for podcasts (for my zune) and found that Aperture has a series of lectures via youtube (see here). They unfortunately need to learn to mike these people, but it's a great idea.

Are there any more out there I should know about? Drop me a line.

The unknowing wisdom of my father

During last week's snow flotzing (a term I'm using since the snow stuck to the side of everything like the fake stuff you spray on window exhibits or model railroad trees), my father asked why I wasn't out taking pictures of it all.

"Dad, everyone else is already out there getting it," I say.
"Oh," he says and shuffles back inside.

I take my doggie for a walk, along the farm road where there are woods. The silence and the deep white and blue was crushing. There were no birds, wind, or other ambient noises or movements.

"Alright," I said aloud. "I'll go."

I took the dog back and grabbed my camera. Six hours of rustic wandering later I returned.

Cheese and Crackers

Holy Hill family, picture taking time 2007, Brian Jacobson

Is it possible to be on a break from photography. There shouldn't with few exception. In this case, life has been getting in the way. I've taken pictures, but they've been mostly family and Xmas-related. Even then, I let other sisters and mother steamroll over me with their 8MP point-and-shoots.

Oh, the Vanity of it all...

Today's fun has been going through the Vanity Fair pages, looking at all their Year-In-Review Pictures (both 2006 and 2007), then Copy/Pasting the photographer's names into Google Images with some added keywords and seeing what pops up.

For example, I've always admired the work of photographer James White (see picture, right). But finding it online and the commonality of that name makes it really difficult. Finding others like Norma Jean Roy is easier but it would be better if they all just grabbed their domain names right away would make it dandy. Like Mark Seliger did.

Anyway, this by associative branching I also re-discover forgotten sites like photography-now.com which tell me the latest haps in 10 countries.

bathing in Photography catalogues

For some delightful reason, in addition to the internet attention I get I also get print catalogs. Not just from Miles Kimball and Sears mind you, but from entities such as the Getty Museum (getty.edu) and the International Center for Photography (icp.org).

There's something about getting the physical thing to browse through at your own speed and see all at once instead of the nanosecond wait and framing of the internet. Also, it takes no effort to send something over the web. It takes a tree and some effort to send me this flippy book with Weston nudes and Gerda Taro, and another with large editions of Walker Evans and Julia Margaret Cameron.......and on a snowed under day like today? Priceless.

A book? Not too far out of the realm...

Let me just start off stating that I thought I got a bargain this week at the Boston Store making an investment in a digital frame. My intention is to get three or four and have them running as installation or gallery wall for a series.

What happened instead was that I got one of questionable quality. It was marked down to $109, but with my coupons that came down to about $70. Still not worth it. Why? All the pictures look like digital slush, when I expected a flatscreen TV quality. This may be the first item in awhile that I've returned to the store.

**Anyway, I am also thinking about investing in making a book (or two, or more based on orders) coinciding with next year's push for galleries. People seem to be bizarrely more ready to buy a $30 book than a $75 print. There are a lot of good DIY bookmakers shilling out there from Shutterfly to QOOP to Zazzle to Blurb.


This last one I am most impressed with for the sizes and prices. If I was a local printer or lab I would totally be hawking these books -- and not outsourcing the work either. The web software already does most of the hard work anyway.

Pat Graham's new book, appearance Dec. 18 at Schwartz

Noted punk art photographer Pat Graham will be showing off his new book, Silent Pictures, at a Schwartz appearance Dec. 18, 7 p.m (the 2559 N. Downer Ave. location).

From the book description: "Modest Mouse, Fugazi, Bikini Kill, Blonde Redhead, and Shellac are just a few of the subjects in Pat Graham's visually stunning first book. Many of these photographs have shaped the iconography of underground rock over the past two decades. Pat Graham has been a photographer for eighteen years. His work has centered on musicians and has been used on dozens of records, as well as in every major music publication in Europe and the United States. His work is part of the permanent collection in the Experience Music Project in Seattle. He currently lives in London."

Pat has collegiate roots in Milwaukee and it should be a welcome return for a native son.

I'll be there. Will you?

Polaroid Stand

I once went to a live Milwaukee government surplus auction, before the internet made them unnecessary. There were stolen and recovered bicycles galore, electronics, and government castoffs. Most recently, I could have gotten a heavy-duty snowblower for $150.

But my curiosity, spurred by an article detailing the surplus sale of items that don't make it past airport screeners, returned and so I sought it out and found it. Apparently, they must sell everything fast because there is nothing current. Or they don't update it. But here's something I missed out on as a photographer earlier this year:

http://itmdapps.ci.mil.wi.us/CityAuction/ItemDescription.jsp?id=331

Communication Arts "magazine": Photography Annual 48

Why, yes. I did just spend $16 on a periodical located in the Barnes and Noble magazine section.

"Communication Arts: Photography Annual 48, August 2007"

I occasionally splurge for the off-title; well-known in art circles probably but unknown round here-ah. This is how I encounter Aperture, JPG, Art in America, and others.

I am in wonder and awe. This. This is what I should be doing, even if it means selling art as stock, as advertising, for clients on spec, for National Geographic and Time. All are masters at their craft, which is the part I need to catch up to but have no money for equipment.

But I also realize (looking at every year's Nohl Fellowship winners) that I should be back to my "artsy" art roots instead of the rough art, the simple simplistic and minimal contemporary work that I've been doing. But I digress. Please, look at this series from Baldomero Fernandez (who is in the big book):

The zoogoers

This weekend I scooped up my three nieces and sister and travelled down to Oak Park, IL to visit my other niece and nephew and sibling. To boot, my other sister and bro-in-law came along. It was a big truck to the Brookfield Zoo where Halloween stuff was going on. So I have no art pictures this week. well, maybe this one -- even though it's family.

Where have all the flowers gone?

Milwaukee publications are annually in the habit to grasp or claim the art collectives, innovators, and scene in the city. Most recently, MKE took a shot at it but essentially pared their big headline claims to a text profiling what they could fit and who they knew.

Every journalism agency does it, but it's unclear how or why. Do they pick people based on what instructors at UWM and MIAD say they are? Do they pick people they know? It's murky.

This is something that occured to me as I happened upon a group photo taken in 2001 of the artists in residence. How many have stayed here? About 55%.

http://www2.jsonline.com/onwisconsin/arts/apr01/shawblb15041301.asp

Theresa Columbus and Stephanie Barber: gone.
Chris Smith and Sarah Price: still call Milwaukee home, but often away
Peter Doroshenko: England gone
Sonia Kubica: Madison (?)
Scott Reeder: Chicago (back, and partially)
Gabe Lanza: Chicago
Peter Druecke: unclear, but article calls him 'former Milwaukee-based'
Naomi Montgomery: ??
Marilu Knode: Scotsdale
Russell Bowman: Chicago

You get the idea. Year later the J-S would give it a photo shoot and article centering around Scott Johnson and Leslie Monetmurro. Most recently, the MKE art collective story.

I just don't know how I feel about the whole thing right now. Maybe more later...

Lord, please hear my prayer...

I want to learn portrait photography, but I cannot afford it.
Please bless me with money to buy lighting equipment and time enough.

"The New Portrait: A Study in Three Parts"

Bree

Oh, the stories I could tell about this girl were I not a gentleman. She was my neighbor and a drama in my life for a period back in the late nineties.

A Nebulous parade picture

Ah, summer. Where have you gone?

shudder (in a good way)

The latest print issue of American Photo magazine had a preview of Nikon's D30 (retail, about $5,500). It's their first D-SLR with a full-frame 35mm-sized image sensor. ISO up to 25,600 (What?!), 3" LCD screen, 51 focusing points, 12.1 megapixel, and there's more. God, how can a camera get me all hot and bothered?

http://www.nikonusa.com/template.php?cat=1&grp=2&productNr=25434

Photo for the Day

For me, the best pictures always happen when you don't know it at the time you're taking it. Something innate takes over when at the scene of candid street photography, and you can see the lines and frames and angles in your head. But the best photos are the throwaway ones.

Behind me in this picture is an immense grandstand watching a demolition derby. No one wants to miss the first bout.

Boo Cookie

What -- exactly is it that I love about this picture so much? It was a throwaway when I took it, one of hundreds that day. Somehow, wedged between future versions of herself, she is a great self-styled personality on the verge of adult troubles...smashing worries down in a halloween cookie.

Henry Wessel

I have a new hero recently, and his name is Henry Wessel.
It's one of those cases where I'm last to the party, but I still feel delusionally happy to be holding such a secret. First saw him referenced in Aperture last month.