Sunday 22 May 2011
fleet street fox: The very definition of a farce.
fleet street fox: The very definition of a farce.: "NEWSPAPERS in several countries not bound by an English injunction have identified on their pages a footballer who had an unreportable flin..."
Tuesday 14 December 2010
Saturday 7 March 2009
Thursday 1 January 2009
"Z" List
The night before Christmas Eve and i'm being threatened by Jodie Marsh's brother at her 30th birthday party at Sugar Hut. The desparation with which talantless people seek fame and then try to pretend that they don't want it is sad beyond belief. And this is the reflected, "emptiness" of nihilist irrelevance. What you see in the "media" as this blog is now part of a published "media" and what you see and experience with your own eyes never ceases to fascinate me. What is and isn't "real."
Sunday 14 December 2008
Fashion tests
Hopefully this blog will be a more active stream of consciousness as I did start doing one before but only got round to doing a few posts...but maybe it was or tried to be too serious. Before it was more media celebrity related, now I have no interest in celebrities and have shifted to more creative fashion/fetishistic photography. Being more creative is more honest and doing shifts takes the pressure off. There is not a lot to be said about being freelance these days.
Getting back into fashion is not easy, the last fashion editorial I did was 6 years ago and two years prior to that I had a studio for 4 years. At that time though I was really not focused on the concept of what I was trying to create and it takes time to have a creative output that is interesting. As a media photographer you expose your subjects and as a creative you expose yourself. Being totally honest with yourself and having a clarity in your work is not something that I have found easy. I am having small creative breaks at the moment and pictures are slowly coming together but it was a slow painful process to get through that initial creative "writers" block.
I lost my studio in June 2000 and pissed off with the amount of time I had spent setting it up, gradually let my studio gear go from lights and medium format camera. I though it was obviously not to be at this time. I knew in myself that it was not happening but wanted that perfect snapshot of the studio set up and ready to go which is what I got, at least I had done it and lost it to the landlord changing usage.
Before the studio went I started work with a photo agency and began getting pictures published. When you have not had a lot of work published there is an excitement seeing your work in print...any work. This is the danger, the soulless descent of making more money and getting more pictures with no real artistic merit published. There was then that drive to getting that ever bigger picture and story published, eventually getting destroyed by your own vanity and pride.
As they say in Hamburger Hill, "It don't matter a thing." Once you know you can be commercially successful it all becomes business and the pleasure goes...i missed the challenge of trying to create something beautiful...how successful you are at that is another matter...but you have to try to create something of beauty. Something that can inspire and elevate that hangs on a wall and inspires every time you walk past it or in a book that people constantly refer back to. Once you start doing this with other people's work you then know there is a purpose to your own work...not in just producing yesterdays chip paper that does nothing to inspire your own or anyone else's soul...if anything to corrupt. A price for which you only feel ever more empty until you can no longer move any further from yourself and something breaks and you invite the beauty, love and inspiration back into your heart. The point at which it can get no darker and the first light breaks on the horizon and you feel the warmth and hope re-entering your soul.
For me this was a very feminine re-awakening after spending too long on the streets engaged in "bloke talk." That dysfunctional insecurity, boredom and lack of purpose that only blokes can exercise with such justified impunity. Falling in love again after promising myself not to, broke that mould finally and forced me back on the journey of seeking, creating and projecting what I find beautiful and inspirational. That was finally to get back to shooting fashion but mixing it with a more profound fetishistic outlook due to my love interests nonchalant understanding of a world that I could not convey. Doing something for an alternate reason often brings you to what you want to do in the first place but you often need that strong shift to force you to want to make those changes.
So now I have a stylist rather than trying to turn someone into a stylist and I am testing and working towards fully developed fashion concepts. But in the vein of Roy Stuart I am not looking for "perfect" models...i like working with Mistresses and dancers and models with personalities with stories that I can relate to and develop. This is the challenge that I am now thoroughly enjoying working towards that gives my creative life purpose and direction. Developing my own understanding, exposing my own talents or possibly the lack of...who knows but at least I am back on that journey of creative self discovery where you feel you are constantly building and developing something of worth.
Getting back into fashion is not easy, the last fashion editorial I did was 6 years ago and two years prior to that I had a studio for 4 years. At that time though I was really not focused on the concept of what I was trying to create and it takes time to have a creative output that is interesting. As a media photographer you expose your subjects and as a creative you expose yourself. Being totally honest with yourself and having a clarity in your work is not something that I have found easy. I am having small creative breaks at the moment and pictures are slowly coming together but it was a slow painful process to get through that initial creative "writers" block.
I lost my studio in June 2000 and pissed off with the amount of time I had spent setting it up, gradually let my studio gear go from lights and medium format camera. I though it was obviously not to be at this time. I knew in myself that it was not happening but wanted that perfect snapshot of the studio set up and ready to go which is what I got, at least I had done it and lost it to the landlord changing usage.
Before the studio went I started work with a photo agency and began getting pictures published. When you have not had a lot of work published there is an excitement seeing your work in print...any work. This is the danger, the soulless descent of making more money and getting more pictures with no real artistic merit published. There was then that drive to getting that ever bigger picture and story published, eventually getting destroyed by your own vanity and pride.
As they say in Hamburger Hill, "It don't matter a thing." Once you know you can be commercially successful it all becomes business and the pleasure goes...i missed the challenge of trying to create something beautiful...how successful you are at that is another matter...but you have to try to create something of beauty. Something that can inspire and elevate that hangs on a wall and inspires every time you walk past it or in a book that people constantly refer back to. Once you start doing this with other people's work you then know there is a purpose to your own work...not in just producing yesterdays chip paper that does nothing to inspire your own or anyone else's soul...if anything to corrupt. A price for which you only feel ever more empty until you can no longer move any further from yourself and something breaks and you invite the beauty, love and inspiration back into your heart. The point at which it can get no darker and the first light breaks on the horizon and you feel the warmth and hope re-entering your soul.
For me this was a very feminine re-awakening after spending too long on the streets engaged in "bloke talk." That dysfunctional insecurity, boredom and lack of purpose that only blokes can exercise with such justified impunity. Falling in love again after promising myself not to, broke that mould finally and forced me back on the journey of seeking, creating and projecting what I find beautiful and inspirational. That was finally to get back to shooting fashion but mixing it with a more profound fetishistic outlook due to my love interests nonchalant understanding of a world that I could not convey. Doing something for an alternate reason often brings you to what you want to do in the first place but you often need that strong shift to force you to want to make those changes.
So now I have a stylist rather than trying to turn someone into a stylist and I am testing and working towards fully developed fashion concepts. But in the vein of Roy Stuart I am not looking for "perfect" models...i like working with Mistresses and dancers and models with personalities with stories that I can relate to and develop. This is the challenge that I am now thoroughly enjoying working towards that gives my creative life purpose and direction. Developing my own understanding, exposing my own talents or possibly the lack of...who knows but at least I am back on that journey of creative self discovery where you feel you are constantly building and developing something of worth.
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