Parlor Scouts

Back when I lived in Ohio and played in a band, I happened to meet this strange, talented, and hysterical girl named Autumn. She lived in a house in Youngstown with only a partial roof, random animals, and in the winters an industrial gas heater named Blasto, (the Flying Carpet People later nipped the name, blasto for a song title). Autumn once had me push her in a large fountain in a crowded public park and we were kicked out, giggling. Anyways, she moved on to DC, and now fronts a band called the Parlor Scouts. The Parlor Scouts are pure genius, and sound like circus music fronted by Lene Lovich. If I were still in a band I'd want to be in theirs. They play tonight in NYC at Joe's Pub PARLOR SCOUTS, ROUGH STARS, AND BELLFLUR WITH DJ HANDLER 425 Lafayette St. Wednesday June 29 11:00 PM $8

1000 Pix

I've never taken so many exposures in such a short period as last week. Shooting the Next Fest for Wired magazine, was like covering the olympics with one photographer. From Wed. to Sunday I shot about 1000 exposures using a hasselblad w/ a Phase One digital back. Yes one of those $30,000 ones. Wired rented it and prefered it to speed up the delivery of the images. I'm not really a fan of Hasselblabs' but once I got used to the it, it wasn't so bad. Was very interesting working with the digital back. For some reason the back would not register an image shot below 1/8 of a second so I pretty much had to work with that shutter speed. But all seemed well though I'm not so sure how I can use these files in the future. They are high quality and about 127mb when processed in 16 bit but the last day I had to just bring along the 4x5, seeing a negative from the field camera still seems hugely different than digital (even 30,000 dollars worth). As well, for most of what I am doing in low light, the digital back is generally unforgiving when it comes to shadow detail. I'll post some details from some large files to compare soon.

Techie Talk

Shot w/ a P25 digital camera back on a medium format hasselblad. I've rented one for an editorial shoot. More on the results later.

We're not just paranoid

NPR discussion on increased security attacks on photographers nationwide. Listen here In the name of 'freedom' citizens with cameras are bullied, arrested, detained, and threatened simply for pointing a camera, (or not). Scary stuff. Link from the excellent PhotoPermit.org.

Art Trio

Matt Siber, myself, Jon Gitelson (w/smooch)

'Go paint a bowl of fruit or something'

Sad events at the power of the media and my friends' attempt to promote himself. As always the thing people miss here is the irresponsible way the media, specifically the NY Daily News, went to lengths to exploit the grief of a national tragedy. Sensatonal headlines sell, and slamming a performance and work by an artist which few actually witnessed or have seen the work, i'm sure gave a nice boost to the GDP. In addition the political careers of a few. I can see it now: 'Mr. Bloomberg, an artist made a performance mocking the events of 9-11, care to comment?' and later 'Governor Patacki, Mr. Bloomberg says this guys a chump, care to weigh in?' Makes me think how defenseless anyone is from a becoming tomorrows headline. Whether an artist or the Runaway Bride, how can one deal with the weight and barrage of phone calls, not to mention the long line of insults and threats? Several of which showed up here on a previous post on Kerry. Not one intelligent response or criticism, just the usual 4th-grade line of name calling. People are certainly entitled to agree or not with Kerry's work, i've had many discussions about it with him. But it's his choice simply. I spent the day along with other helping him document this 'event' and not once did we hear any negative responses from any crowd members, that's not to say his piece isn't controversial but simply that if you were a witness, you would understand it was far from what the media is presenting it as.

Germans

For those of you in the vicinity of Mannheim / Ludwigshafen Germany, you should most definitely check out the 'Month of Photography', Internationale Fototage Festival. I will have some work exihibited at the Faktorhaus in Ludwigshafen. Quite a list of intersting photographers there as well, some friends; Justin Newhall, Karen Hoyt, Melissa Pinney, Fredrik Marsh and superstars; Alex Webb, Beth Yarnelle Edwards, Lauren Greenfield, Jeff Mermelstein, Mark Klett, Larry Fink and about a hundred others! Take a look at the website, and if you're in the hemisphere visit the exhibits.

Sunday Pictures

Spent yesterday out in Gurnee with Greg Stimac photographing with the 4x5 and medium format cameras. Working on some new things and generally causing trouble at the mall. Greg and I spent too much time in some gaming store yelling 'wog' with some kids playing some war game and taking pictures. Strange, strange, world...Other notable incidents: -Lost my dark cloth -Convinced store manager that we were nude photographers and models -Mall Maps -Convinced another store manager that I was just 'cleaning the mustard off my lens and not taking pictures' -4x5 portraits at Great America amusement park -Driving around suburbs listening for Greg's new secret project Afterwords headed to a little gathering in honor of Kerry Skarbakka MCA event tom. Which i'll be helpng photograph. Good conversations with wine and spirits at Burt Michaels' home. Thanks Burt.

Eggs and Church

Last Weekend

Chase Browder I realise it's Tuesday already but had to comment on the openings from last Friday. First off, Michael Schmelling's exhibit The Plan at BucketRider gallery blew me away. Michael kept things a bit secret and for good reason. The Plan is a series Michael has been working on that documents a 'crisis management' clean up team called the Disaster Masters. Combining OCD and a consumerist psychosis the pictures represent the overwheled apartments and living spaces of people who can simply throw nothing away. The BFA/BA Columbia Photo exhibit opened as well and some great stuff there as well. Each year seems better and better. Some standouts and people to keep an eye on: Chase Browder Heather Johnson Erin McClellan Marta Sasinowska Greg Stimac (mentioned below) Katie Toscano Stephanie Willis John Zychowski

From the Archives

Not sure why I never really posted this one on the main site, but I've recently rediscovered. Gatwick Airport, 2003

Chicago Housing Authority Jammers

So encouraging to see people this organized in their activism. The history of low income housing in Chicago has been almost as mired as it's education system. Though why make changes when you can simply launch a PR campaign to sway public opinion? Thankfully activists are doing their part to uncool the campaign here.

Greg Stimac

Ok if you didn't have enough to do this weekend, another good friend/excellent photographer (are all my friends photographers?) Greg Stimac has work from his ongoing Recoil project at the Columbia College BFA Photo grads. Greg has been working on this project for about 2 years, subjecting his camera to danger by placing it in front of rifle and gun shooters at ranges across the midwest, and as far as the west coast. I put together a sampling of pictures, follow the link above or here. Opens this Friday Juune 3rd during the Manifest event.

Michael Schmelling

Amazing photographer and super nice guy, Michael Schmelling has a show opening this Friday, June 3rd here in Chicago at theBucket Rider Gallery. Looks like there are lots of good openings this weekend esp. for photography (see Columbia MFA students below), but Michael's is one not to miss.