visioneer

Lux Interior, R.I.P.

2009-02-06T16:43:00.000-08:00

He was one of two of my best and favorite subjects to photograph - Lux Interior... frontman and founder of The Cramps.

The noir lighting was my idea... the props were all his.

Lux was best known as a malevolent beast of a performer. He knew no boundaries... he wore women's clothes on stage, and more often than not, shed most of his clothing anyway. He'd fellate the microphone, dance around on super high fuck-me pumps and act like a transvestite Frankenstein and still, the ladies went wild for him.

Together with his soul-mate, life-long partner and wife, Poison Ivy Rorshach, Lux cut an atavistic path in a new genre's future. The Cramps music drew upon 50s and 60s culture and icons - b movies, monsters.... bikini girls with machine guns, Ghoulardi... they elevated bad taste from the underground sewer into the very same gutter that Oscar Wilde imagined being in while gazing up at the stars.

The unexpected passing of Lux Interior has struck a deep chord in the hearts of all punk rock fans. I don't know any death that has hit so hard. For all his dark side stage persona, Lux Interior was not an evil man. Far from it, he was clever and down right intelligent and kind. He gave so much to so many. And for me, he gave me confidence as an artist, encouraging me to trust my own vision and run with it.

The evidence of that is played out each day on punkturns30 and in coffee table books that feature the classic Cramps group portrait from the Tropicana, 1978.

Lux Interior, I will miss you.

Dear Ivy... there are no words to express how heavy my heart is for your loss, and how over the years, I have appreciated you sharing your man with the world.

Rest in Peace, Lux and give em hell in heaven.

the wall of death, part 1

2008-10-13T23:54:00.001-07:00

over the course of the last three years, whenever i go for a walk in east nashville, i stumble upon a dead bird. luckily, most of the times, i have had some kind of camera to document it.

its not that i am morbid or fascinated by death in any way. its not that i like that the birds are dead. but they are incredibly interestingly photogenic.

while the advent of cameras built into cel phones has really lowered the bar for the appreciation of the art of capturing images, you simply cannot beat the convenience.

the very first dead bird i photographed in nashville
photo taken with a real camera

i was taken by the way the dead birds blended into the sidewalk, as if they were integrated as a single piece of art.

pigeons in cleveland

living birds just don't appeal to me the same way dead ones do... where photographs are concerned.
add to these particular images the low resolution of the cel phone camera, the absolute digital look of the pictures... they're strangely like a crime scene photo that has been photocopied just one time too many and has lost the definition. the weaknesses of digital photography and low res cel phone images work together to elevate a certain "artiness" to these dead birds... a certain postmodern, i saw it on tv art, but i believe that's what art has devolved to. a dangerously political statement to be expounded upon further elsewhere. perhaps.

i know an artist in brooklyn - a woman in her early 20s. her name is rebecca bird. her real name. for real. and she painted dead birds, from models. dead birds she found on the street. whenever i found dead birds in brooklyn, their cause of death was freezing. like this sparrow here:

dead sparrow photographed with a real camera

apart from natural causes, such as hypothermia, i think that the birds i see on east nashville's streets are killed by feral cats. there are so many stray animals... a feral cat lives under my house and i know she leaves us presents from time to time... i mean - i know the dead birds and assorted rodents i find on the porch are offerings from her, thanking us for the shelter

ah the food chain

its always been all about available light

2008-04-02T17:51:00.001-07:00

self portrait at mimi's, originally uploaded by AvailableLight2008.

it doesn't matter to me if the light is crappy; if it is the kind of light that most people wouldn't shoot in without a flash or without bringing in extra lights. that's the light i like....

i like mirrors too. they are a great source of light

it will all come to bear in my 2008/2009 show and tell.... starting in september....

highway 304

2008-03-02T23:15:00.001-08:00

last week, i took a day trip to northern mississippi... drove around taking pictures, ended up at tunica to have a cheap all you can eat buffet lunch at a casino.

PIG FOR SALE proclaims this sign on highway 304 in desoto county.
its like another time

thanks bobby for the day trip and the outrageously fattening lunch.

exploring the visual treats of mississippi is a project that could take months. i can't wait to take time off to do it...

the magic light of the photobooth

2008-02-08T00:12:00.001-08:00

because i am a photographer - and behind the camera nearly all the time, i am not a good subject in front of the camera. i make a pretty stupid face most of the time and try to open my eyes wide and as a result, i look pretty lame most of the time. i do a lame rachael ray thing with my mouth... which is big, so its a big crooked smirk-instead-of-smile that i do. big. stupid.

however.... that doesn't negate anything from the PHOTO BOOTH ITSELF. what a fantastic contraption that thing is. the lights just blow all the ugly details out of your face (that means wrinkles, blemishes, etc). you are BLASTED with bright light... and you never have red eye because the bright lights begin to flash before the shutter does. ingenious. i wish i had one in my house.

but i have embarked on a brand new project - one in which i've already gathered 100's of images... all of which i find stunning

taking a photo of a subject who is seated in and illuminated by the photo booth.

i received the most amazing compliment from this handsome gentlemen, who let me focus on his recently broken nose in this shot:

that is bruce bennett, know for both his work as a musician, a filmmaker, and a writer.

as a writer, he is gifted with a particularly witty turn of phrase whether he is writing criticism or creative... a confirmed cineaste with encylopaedic knowledge of the geeky thing that is my craft: cinematography... well, bruce knows his cameras, angles, exposures and lenses... you can't get anything past this guy... and while i went out of my way to focus on the singular physical fault upon that most handsome face (and one which i find makes him just that much more handsome), bruce was man enough to look beyond my elevation of the evidence of his injury to invoke the name of one of my favorite cinematographers (shooting elvis and bill holden in one career! i strive for that kind of thing) when commenting on this technique.

therefore, i know i have latched on to a winner.

i photographed bruce in one of our favorite bars, magnetic field. its photo booth emanates this crazy chartreuse light. at once it reminds me of carnies and of vermeer. crazy.

in a photo booth across the river, at lakeside lounge, an even darker bar.... i photographed kae who is a percussionist in the local whimsical band, mr badger.

the photo booth at lakeside lounge has a colder light and dark blue curtains that keep the cold. it would be all wrong to call this photo "hot asian chick in the cold blue light," even though in the most vulgar of worlds, that's what it is...

instead... i call this ECSTASY.

ECSTASY not unlike that of st teresa of avila (the one who spells her name wrong but who had the magical visions), ECSTASY yes... like in adult movies. ECSTASY, that as a photographer instead of a painter, i am able to capture in a fraction of a second, rather than remembering that fraction as i paint, or asking the model to hold her pose for an interminable period of time.

i am ECSTATIC about the light...

meanwhile, kae's bandmate jim donned his pirate gear for this fun portrait

the difference between the two photo booths is clear.

this is lee, one of the owners of magnetic field, in a photo booth portrait that for me channels vermeer... one of my favorite painters. i long to someday take a photograph that channels his "girl with a pearl earring" and i believe lee's photo booth can help me achieve that.

does this look like a storm to you?

2008-01-05T00:15:00.001-08:00

it shouldn't because it isn't but it does have OMINOUS borders... its been raining for about 15 hours non stop. normally, i like that sort of thing but its just caused so much havoc. i wonder if i will be able to get out of town and to the airport and on the plane and make to to ny for my show.

going lo-fi

2007-11-25T13:08:00.001-08:00

this photo of billy idol is actually one of the few of my punk rock images that i would call a fine art photo. there are so many fine art photography elements in it... the various reflections, the composition, the unguarded moment in which the subject was captured... and my favorite of all juxtapositional elements...a beautiful subject in gritty surroundings... the print itself is gorgeous... such beautiful tones, etc...

but when between susan arosteguy (the genius graphic designer who created the look of my tour materials) got a hold of the pix i would be using for posters, postcards and handbills, she took the pictures to even grittier levels... and when i sent this already deconstructed image to rosa guerrero, who organized the exhibit at sound exchange, she added to the vintage punk rock of it all by handwriting the show info on it....

and yet... i think the image of billy retains all its fine art qualities and i love seeing it juxtaposed with the hand written gig info and presented in a most high contrast, over-xeroxed way...

yes... punk rock imagery changed our visual palette for sure...

black & white is better. i already KNEW that...

2007-10-06T01:29:00.000-07:00

i have been tweaking these photos i took last year of jack yarber for about the whole year.

jack was trying on different hats - it was in the evening - already dark outside, and he was doing his hat tricks in an interior hallway in his apartment...dimly lit, and of course, reflecting all the greens and yellows in the place, casting a pall on skin tones as if the lights were the deadly fluorescent variety. i have battled with those tones...and today, it hit me like 16 tons...that which i have known all my life...PICTURES ARE BETTER IN BLACK & WHITE.

with a little help from photoshop, i just eliminated the color, and instantly, i now love the pictures.

i hope jack does....

the hat trick set is posted on my portraits page, the female gaze.

open all night stuff

2007-09-13T01:37:00.001-07:00

i wish the prius wasn't parked in front of canter's and also the car behind it. then this image would have been timeless... with the neon lights totally sending the colors off into the land of 1970s kodak chemical tones...

but because of the hybrid car and the "they all look alike" model behind it, this photo is wearing the scarlet letter of being 21st century. too bad.

what i like about photos and certain photographers and cinematographers is when you can't tell when the photo was taken, and it doesn't matter. like tim burton's edward scissorhands.

punk rock's inner circle?

2007-09-02T23:57:00.001-07:00

i don't get out much anymore. really. i'll bet you think i jest, but seriously, i stay home plugged into my telephone (literally - with the headset!) and computer, talking to clients and also planning and organizing my upcoming photo tour.

however, last week, i ventured out in the hot hot heat to see my old, dear friends, the legendary british punk rock band, sham 69.

i don't go in too much for the live action photos anymore. i've shot at least 100,000 frames of guys with guitars. not that there's anything wrong with it - but anyone with a camera and some stamina can do it.

i prefer to capture a moment that resonates for me on a very intimate level.

portraits.

dave parsons looking like alain delon or jean-paul belmondo

not your standard portrait.

steve and ames, road crew guys for the dickies

i don't think i could actually do one.

but as the reviewer for the nashville scene wrote a couple years ago when my first punk turns 30 exhibit traveled, Kereakes' photographs, which are often (uncharacteristically) in color, have the informality of family photos - that is, if your family includes Dee Dee Ramone and Stiv Bators.

i liked that review.

punk rockers ARE my family....

the details and informal family photos of my day with sham 69 are at punkturns.30.com

summer fruit

2007-08-26T01:09:00.001-07:00

there is nothing so lovely as a tree.

on an overcast day, with the sky and the ground both shades of grey, these vibrant purple plums provide the signs of life.

yes, punk is 30

2007-08-17T00:16:00.001-07:00

i've been dropping the hint for a couple years!

but i still get excited when photo researchers and editors find me...like one from a MAJOR publication did today.

today (well, technically yesterday) was the anniversary of elvis's death. the king is dead; long live the king kind of thing.

google tells me that iggy pop is the king of punk rock. well, that certainly is a good thing and i do not disagree.

but did any royalty you know every look that good?

water, sort of...

2007-08-06T23:10:00.001-07:00

the street offers a panoply of beautiful images. i love the manhole covers and other forged (as in foundry forging, of course) metal coverings.

i knew i couldn't be the only one who was into this. while living in nyc and working in brooklyn, i took a different route each day, and noticed that all the manhole covers said "city of new york, made in china," or "made in india" and started photographing them. they looked like tribal tattoos.

then on my travels, i went expressly looking for manhole covers of interest, and found they were everywhere!

it wasn't until i saw this grate warning me to "dump no waste" in cleveland that i was aware any city had taken so much consideration! in los angeles, such warnings are painted.

perhaps this is the reason why cleveland was so pro-active in protecting its water supply!

across the street from carnegie hall, dracula could slip quietly from the symphony into the gutter and hide from the sunlight. that would be a gotham dracula, of course.

Pedestrianation

2007-08-03T01:32:00.001-07:00

its a word i made up. a noun with verb qualities.

"i go out walking after midnight..." and i go out walking at sunrise too. to catch the light.

i've been collecting images from my walks. its just odd stuff. but i like it.

it was in 1973 or so when my friend bill heiden, a wonderful photographer, and friend told me that you only needed a single roll of film to get all the great shots at a concert. well - we were teenagers then, and it was one of those grand statements that you make out of nowhere. a fact you made up because you could. but the idea of limitations and self-imposed restrictions rings true for me to this day.

available light is all i use. there was a time i used the flash - for actual photojournalism assignments or hopeful placements (and i was successful at this). but as you know, using a flash results in a flat image more often than not. i'm not talking about controlled lighting - i'm talking about that thing on your hotshoe.

available light on the other hand makes the game exciting.
here are some shots from twilight time... dawn and dusk.

daybreak over my backyard

bird houses at daybreak plus 5 minutes

these beautiful birdhouses are no longer there. the man who owns that house tore down his fence and covered the drive way with a wide swath of cement, making me think he's bought a boat and made a parking space for it. he still has those and dozens more brightly colored bird houses hanging on the wall in his garage. dare i ask him if i can photograph that wall?

flowers have long been a favorite subject for me. this was shot at daybreak as well and the photo looks so much better to me than the flowers, which were oozing with snail trails.

the whole purpose of my 6AM walking adventure was to photograph the union 76 ball before it was taken down.

that is gone now, too. where would our memories be without photographs?
there are more images from my 6AM photo adventure at pedestrianation.

no trespassing

2007-07-25T23:30:00.001-07:00

if you think for one moment that i would obey this directive, then you don't know me. intrepid photographer. the hidden treasures on a late summer afternoon were pretty cool and quite worth trespassing.

urban CORN! lots of fruit trees, cactus, all in a city setting.

city? not quite.

welcome to the wine ghetto on california's central coast.

i have always loved that contradiction in terms - contradiction in california at least - of "wine" and "ghetto." sure "ghettoes" have winos, but here, we are talking about a kind of non-glamorous place where some very fine, fine wine is made. no touristy visiting the vineyard for tastings or anything like that...

yeah, california has napa for that. but i always liked sonoma better.

and those of us who hail from further south on the central coast have our own secret vineyards and vintners. from santa cruz all the way down to santa barbara, we have the same coastal fog, we have the same temperate climes (except for paso robles, with excellent wine yet hot hot heat), we have a few different grapes and different soil. we have lots of oak down here and our chardonnay is sublime. we have tons of fruit trees, making our syrah sublime, too (sorry, none of that aussie "shiraz" pronunciation around here, ok? petite syrah. c'est un mot grenouilleuse. froggie. french word). we have a marked LACK of pretension, however. no hard-to-get-into restaurants. nothing like that. yet.

no, it would not be california without palm trees.
i loved that you couldn't tell what year it was based on the cars!

i like old cars. they are quite photogenic. later, walking up the road, i spied this big ugly RV with a row of what appeared to be corn. i'm not sure if it is corn, or just looks like corn, but i'm calling it corn!

um... i'm not sure if this qualifies for the "ghetto" part of "wine ghetto." but its doing a good job of fulfilling a certain.... class aspect? or novelty. i saw plenty of this corn stuff, though! so much that it made me grab the camera.

this is an example of what i spied through a hole in the fence next to the house pictured above. cactus and corn! we are in the southwest, its true...as far west as the actual coastline.

i love the way the iron bar across the top of their wooden fence has rusted. the color is gorgeous. and the fence, with its charcoal grey wood, its painted white and painted red wood panels all serve to highlight the green of the cactus.

who knows if the residents of this odd place realize what a photogenic home they have.

this cactus was peeking over the same fence.

i was walking up the hill when i saw this distressed property.

just on the other side of the no trespassing sign was this inviting empty drive.

another beautiful piece of rust

lo and behold, if you keep walking, you will find that there is more urban corn!

yes, we look for photo opportunites

2007-07-14T13:47:00.001-07:00

when sid vicious died in 1979, the one who told me about his passing was stiv bators.

he and sid were friends. in fact, whenever i was in the company of the two of them, it seemed to me that although sid was a member of the more famous and more notorious sex pistols, he was still quite a big fan of stiv's and the dead boys. others who knew sid would tell you that sid was also the world's biggest sex pistols fan. sid loved rock n roll and the people who made it. i think he was always a bit surprised that he was in the sex pistols for each and every day that he was in the band. sid used to hang on to stiv's every word and move with a sort of puppy dog like devotion, the same way he admired johnny rotten in the earlier days of their relationship in the band.

stiv loved the attention and the adulation. who wouldn't? but it is for all these reasons that i suspect it was stiv who painted this tribute to sid on the billboard for the big hollywood movie, heaven can wait, starring warren beatty and julie christie.

i was sitting around at home when stiv phoned and excitedly told me that there was a spray paint tribute to sid on the prominently placed billboard on sunset blvd., near the trendy chateau marmont. this was a photo opportunity that stiv wanted in on. so, i picked him up at his tropicana bungalow and, camera in hand, fired off a roll of film.

creem used the photo (without stiv in it) as the centerpiece of their sid vicious obituary. when i finally met creem's photo editor charlie auringer in person a few months later, he told me that the combination of "heaven can wait" with the "sid vicious r.i.p." was just great photojournalism. i thank stiv everyday for his keen eye for these things.

when hanging with the two of them - stiv and sid, i was regaled with sex pistols war stories such as the time that a texas cowboy called sid a "faggot" and sid promptly stabbed himself in the palm to show just how manly he was. in reality, sid seemed to be a pretty shy guy, but he loved to tell that story to anyone who would listen. its an example of the two distinctly different sides of his personality - not quite jekyll and hyde, but definitely, one side shy and quiet, the other side outrageous and prone to violent outbursts. i remember stiv and sid talked about music they liked and bands they had seen and girls they knew in common. they talked about solo projects they wanted to do. stiv told sid about the pre-punk days of cleveland rock n roll and sid was all ears. above all else, i will always think of sid as a big music fan, much more than as a musician.

those guys were no different than the guys i always hung out with, and still hang out with.

that sid was not such a competent musician is really irrelevant and totally beside the fact that he is a great anti-hero hero. its nearly a fairy tale that a band's great fan gets to join that band. what kid brandishing a guitar in his bedroom or garage doesn't dream of the same thing? his cover of "my way" - frank sinatra's signature song - is so appropriate to sid's life, as a young man and as a punk rocker, and ultimately a youth culture icon. he did, indeed do it his way...no regrets.

mirror moves

2007-07-11T22:44:00.000-07:00

i completely forgot about having taken this picture of pleasant...she and i took so many. this was taken back in 1978 when we were hanging out with the mumps as they made their "muscle boys/rock n roll this" single in los angeles.

photos in mirrors present both amazing possibilities and a load of challenges. but i think the upsides definitely outweigh the downsides.

shooting in a mirror suddenly gives the image a whole new layer of meaning, not to mention light - both reflected and refracted.

there are the up and downsides of the photographer being caught in the image. while the alfred hitchcock in each of us may find this appealing, it grounds the photograph as a photograph. on the other hand...the viewer sees the image being made, and that act is immortalized together with the vision of the photographer, and she becomes the viewed as well as the viewer.

in this photo, taken backstage at the whisky a go go, you can see not only the subjects, clem burke and john browner - but you can see my flash, you can see another photographer snapping the guy sitting next to browner, and in the mirror, above clem's head, you can see the reflection of jeffrey lee pierce.

moments later, i turned around and took a sweet portrait of him, before the trials and tribulations of being jeffrey lee pierce of the gun club kicked in. despite what all his friends and i have said about him, i do believe that particular image is the true mirror image of jeffrey lee pierce.

shakespeare, he's in the alley

2007-07-10T17:35:00.001-07:00

this is an alley off western avenue in the logan square - bucktown/wicker park section of chicago. i discovered the alley while i was looking for a place to park, naturally.

even in may, chicago was already hot, sticky and humid when this photo was taken in 2006.

this particular trip to chicago was to go to the final horizontal action blackout. i'd been to chicago twice previously in 2006 to visit family - both times in the winter, in january, and late february/early march. i have to wonder when exactly is the weather nice in chicago. probably like ny, there's a small window in the spring and again in the fall when its too lovely for words.

i love that there's a street called "shakespeare avenue."
western avenue, the main drag off which this part of shakespeare is found, is one of the longest streets in the united states - 23.5 miles in length. i used it as a main thoroughfare commuting between my cousins houses on either side of chicago. it also moves constantly, unlike the freeways.

chicago is a fantastic world class city; it has everything you could possibly want in a city...including so much traffic. its worse than traffic in los angeles because los angeles is such a populous city, you expect the worst traffic. regardless, chicago is one of my favorite places in the USA.

my father was born there and just about all of my relatives from his side of the family still live there.

my grandfather owned a soda fountain/candy store on the south side when it was a big european immigrant neighborhood. a couple years ago, one of my cousins took me to the house where his dad (my uncle) and my dad grew up. well, actually, its an empty double lot on the corner of wentworth and 106. these days, the food purveyors in our family are in LA and own mcdonald's. postmodern greek diner people i guess. the men to the right are the stoes, who are my late aunt maria's brother and nephews. maria was married to my uncle pete, my father's brother. gus owned johnny's snack shop since 1971. it was at the corner of milwaukee and wabansia, just north of the big triangular intersection of north, damen and milwaukee. a hip and popular part of town these days, back when gus opened, it was not so hip.

but it was on a drive on western avenue all the way from the south side suburb of oak park to johnny's snack shop in logan square that i found shakespeare avenue.

on that may visit to chicago, my first night in town, i went to see demons claws at cal's. i know my way around the downtown area where cal's is. i often take the train into chicago and stay at another cousin's greektown condo. but this time, i was staying in the 'burbs, and was given freeway driving instructions...to take the 55 to the 94, etc. well, there was a baseball game going and construction on the 94 and i got all turned around. i realized that western ran all the way up and down from every part of chicago i was going to be visiting and it became my thoroughfare of choice from that late night onwards.

finally, chicago has some great manhole covers. that is perhaps a topic for another whole post for another day...

detroit streets pictoral

2007-07-07T15:28:00.001-07:00

detroit detroit... they'll be dancing in the streets, right? detroit is rich, rich, rich in photo opportunities on the street! this photo, "no war" was taken in the winter of 2004 - february, i'm pretty sure. i was driving by and this guy was there and now you see him.

he's sitting in front of a building with the address 1515 broadway. i worked for many years in a building also numbered 1515 broadway - in NYC. that's where the mtv networks are headquartered. that's where whether you or i like it or not, i contributed some wacky things to the popular culture. some things i produced became visual shorthand for pop culture... and other things became all too ubiquitous shortcuts for television programmers. but hey - i did my job; did it well. i left a mark, like it or not.

this is the famous kerns clock. its on woodward ave., and i don't think the kerns store has been there for years, but their clock reigns supreme, performing an important function for all in the motor city.

here's another clock, its on broadway, not far from the "no war" bum at 1515. its nothing like the kerns clock, but i was in an horological mood that day.

these tokens are for detroit's people mover. its a monorail that goes in a circle around a very small area downtown that goes from the renaissance center (GM headquarters) to greektown (casinos; tourist biz) and downtown (by tiger stadium and ford field). i ride it all the time, but rarely see detroiters on it... just other visitors. i think it may be a big mistake on some mayor's legacy. i like it. its odd. its like the monorail ride at disneyland. it goes in a circle, and if you're going somewhere along that circle, well, you're in luck!

when i go to detroit, i visit mostly hamtramck, and the people mover for sure does not go there! public transportation in detroit is kind of non existent. that's pretty much why i ride the people mover. its an anomaly.

hamtramck is home to sandy kramer shaw, pictured here, dancing at the belmont lounge. she cuts my hair better than anyone has ever cut my hair. i used to be able to afford to fly to detroit from NYC on a regular basis just for a hair cut. then northwest airlines got wise and hiked the rates for a round trip flight from $139 to over $200. no can do. sandy's salon is barberella, and you should let her cut your hair too.

sandy's salon has a beautiful palette of dark wood and fuschia curtains. fuschia and dark brown are the new red & black if you ask me! the hamtramck neighborhood that surrounds barberella is filled with duplex houses, two story side-by-side duplexes, lots of chain link fences and polish restaurants and shops galore. last year, i visited hamtramck on two occasions - one coincided with mardi gras polish style - pacski day. its what they do the day before lent begins... they carbo-load on these fabulous filled donuts. people line up around stores and bakeries for their bakers dozen. eugene found the best pacskis right at the end of one local shop's day. apricot filled. mmmm. the next 2006 visit took place in early june (for 666 day - and today is coincidentally 777 day). it was a hot dog eating trip...and a photo session hell. hell michigan, that is. photo report to come....

memory

2007-07-05T18:03:00.001-07:00

in my circle of friends, when you say the word "memory," they immediately reference johnny thunders and his "you can't put your arms around a memory" track...one that probably plays at every memorial to the guy... yes. memory is intangible. that's why i'm so glad i take pictures.

i always used to tell people the reason i never wrote down phone numbers was that i'd forget them if i knew there was a written reference somewhere. i guess the same goes for photos. details i leave to the film to tell. isn't that what a photographer is supposed to do?

actually, i'm not really sure.

the mind i think tries to make a linear order of things in this non-linear chaotic world. mind you, i'm a complete subscriber to chaos theory, and i believe there is more to chaos than the effects of a butterfly fluttering its wings in china and hurricanes in the gulf of mexico. i actually think that everything is chaos, and the whole of our lives is a way to characterize it into an order that we alone comprehend.

there. i have created chaos existentialism

give me tenure in the ivy league!

that photo is of my mother and little 2-year-old me around easter, 1960 in madrid. i know the time and place because the slide is stamped APR 1960 in that inimitable kodak imprint. i know that from 1958 - 1961, we lived in madrid, so its not really a leap for me to say we're in madrid.

of course i do not remember my father taking these photos. and i do not remember first hand the snow that fell in the winter of 1959...although it did. i know it did and i'm told it did, and somewhere, there are photos attesting to it.

so, i'm doing this book version of my photo blog, punkturns30.com and everyone interested in it is as interested in the stories behind the photos as they are in the photos themselves.

its no problem to tell a lot of the story. i remember lots of it loud and clear. but the details sometimes morph into each other...

i was pleasantly surprised to receive an email today from the wonderful and colorful local gentleman, chuck e. weiss, whose presence in and around the tropicana and other west hollywood hangs was the kind of thing we sought to find. anyway... chuck gave me some clarity on things on which i had been fuzzy...but published anyway.

and it got me to thinking about memory and what makes it work and what role photographs play in all that.

among the things chuck and i exchanged in our emails were memories of the tropicana.

i remember vaguely spending a good few months in this bungalow with stiv bators. but they're all pretty much a blur. we took tons of photos. i think that was the purpose. there was a whole day we did photos in an homage to art kane's photos of jim morrison.

frank secich, who is pictured in the bath tub with stiv bators has a fantastic memory. a couple years ago, an author asked me for the story behind a different photo from this particular day of shooting.

i honestly didn't remember a lot, but frank remembered everything. all i knew is that i had to deliver alot of shots to the european licensee of the record that stiv and frank were recording the day i was shooting. frank remembers everything about the day. thankfully, he contributed to the author!

don't get me wrong; i remember LOTS and i remember lots acurately... i kept a journal in journalism style - very factual stuff, and kept newspaper clippings. archivist? diarist? memoir-ist? its just that sometimes, i think it is so damn random that we create our dots to link the random things.... one thing chuck told me today is that duke's closed early - around 8 PM... yet i remember being in there during the dead of night... but chuck reminded me that it was more like 5:30 in the morning! and once he said that... memories all came flooding back. the race to get home and in bed, curtains closed before the sun actually rose... because then i would never be able to go to sleep. you know.... like a vampire.

the extreme close up and blue tint

2007-07-03T14:27:00.001-07:00

this legend is forged into a manhole cover on the corner of sunset blvd and fountain ave in los angeles. "city of los angeles made in mexico" is a whole critical essay in and of itself.... but i want to talk about extreme close ups and blue tint right now...

the manhole cover is a dull grey. its metal, but its been trod upon for years and lost whatever lustre it may have had. no problem. i mess around with chromatics all the time.

i stumbled upon this fantastic memento of all things LA in the winter of 2004 - december. it was both fantastically sunny and torrentially rainy in LA. which is normal.

i always like to photograph odd legends, signs, juxtapositions.

i also always like close ups.

the can of peanuts is from when i bought my first set of close-up lenses in 1973, and here are some tanks that i saw backstage at the mercury lounge in NYC, circa 2003.

they're all quite beautiful to me.

thirty years in between all those photos, yet...the sentiment and motivation for taking them is the same.... plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose

my first camera

2007-06-30T15:47:00.001-07:00

it was this pentax. well, its not exactly my first camera... i'd used instamatics, polaroids and movie cameras before... but the pentax was my first SLR.

it was a christmas present from my parents in 1972. my first pictures were of the family dog. then everything in the house was fair game. i took this photo of myself in the mirror.

then i went outside and started taking pictures of everything in my path. some local kids posed for me and i really like the way this image has aged. i don't think i knew those kids back then...and now, 35 years later, who knows who they became?

i'm really glad that i shot everything i looked at. i found this shot of traffic on wilshire blvd. in santa monica, circa 1978. not sure if this was taken with my pentax, or with my second camera, my preferred (the one i still use NOW) nikon fm.

i still take pictures of every interesting thing i see, even if it isn't human... i mean... doesn't every photographer?

backstage: who are these people?

2007-06-27T13:16:00.001-07:00

john hiatt, a critic's favorite singer/songwriter is backed in a corner of his dressing room at the whisky a go go in 1980...it was an industry meet n greet... a function at the junction...DJ's, journalists, contest winners and what have you crowd the star of the evening to have their 15 minutes of a brush with greatness...maybe i'm cynical after so many years of doing this. but to me, hiatt seems tentative and on guard.

so may years of doing this... the people you photograph get used to you; they know who you are; they know you're a professional. there are backstage naifs though...they're either super fans and can't believe they are there meeting you, and end up telling you their whole life story and how you figure into it... or they want a little photo opportunity. that latter is easiest, if they pose and then go.

backstage is a weird place. it is at once your sanctuary before and after you do your show. you have your friends come up and see you there. then you have your duty...your record company, your manager...they come up; that's fine. then you have your job. meeting the public. that's the variable you can't control. that's the contradiction of the backstage space. its meant to be your sanctuary, yet, you have to open your door to strangers...because they are the ones who got you on that particular stage. one other shy guy, a critically acclaimed fellow said, "its hard to be a saint in the city." he knew what he was talking about.

Jack Nitzsche, friend, Hiatt

Jack Nitzsche - now that was a backstage visitor Hiatt wanted to see, and you can see by his demeanor that he's happy to see Jack. and Jack, so accustomed to the Hollywood backstage hustle, looks at the camera to give the final photo a focal point...as he knows John's not looking at the camera.

the late Jack Nitzsche was working with John Hiatt on a track for the soundtrack to William Friedkin's movie in production at that time, Cruising, starring Al Pacino as a cop working underground in the gay subculture looking for a serial killer striking that scene. the soundtrack to the movie was completely produced by Nitzsche and features many contemporary and at the time, heralded underground artists, like Willy de Ville and The Germs.

these backstage situations - where the labels host a meet n greet - these are the ones where you have to fire a flash. you need those flat, brightly lit photos for the trades. i got some of those from this function at the junction...but i couldn't bear to post them because they are flat and brightly lit.

instead.... i give you one of my favorite "backstage" photos that i've taken with a flash:

Fragile Light at Night........Nasvhille

2007-06-26T12:46:00.000-07:00

There's a bar/restaurant in East Nashville called The Family Wash. It was made out of a former laundromat, hence the name. East Nashville is a cozy enclave of artists and musicians, and The Family Wash is one hang out friendly to them as well as to families.

Part of the coziness results from the nice and friendly people; another part comes from the wood and the magnicifent available ambient light that wafts in but never directly from the big windows at the front. And of course, candles during the night time hours.

Here is my friend Spock, tending bar - these photos were taken last year, in May 2006 when I was staying in Tennessee for a couple months. First, Spock went on vacation to Mexico, and I stayed at her wonderful house and sat with her lovely dog, Shelby Todd, and her cat, Spice. When she returned, I stayed and we planned her house-warming party to celebrate her first year in Nashville. We are both LA natives who moved to NYC and neither of us are in NYC now...

Here's Julia, basking in the glow of the candles and low ambient lights. She watching Warren Pash perform some songs on acoustic guitar. Warren is the man in the shadow below. Illuminated is Reeves Gabrels, the guitarist. He has a regular gig at the Family Wash on Sundays. Loud Sundays, that is!

I don't like using a flash - not even at night or in dark situations where everyone else wouldn't hesitate to flash. I like capturing what my eye sees. Of course, the human eye compensates for darkness...the iris opens wide to let in more light. And you can do that with your camera too. Its become such a preference for me, that I'm not sure I even like fully illuminated vistas. I certainly don't like bright television lighting of sets.

I'm an available light lover all the way.

The photos of Warren and Reeves were taken outside, late at night. They're illuminated only by the street lamps, moonlight, passing car headlights and the sole light above the entrance to the restuarant.

Again...this kind of situation really calls for the film and camera to push themselves to their performance limits. My Nikon FM - the same one I've been using since 1973 - has a fast lens - 1.8 is the widest apeture. I used Kodak Professional BWCN400 film stock for these shots. Normally, I do shoot Tri X or T Max, but this is the kind of film you could get processed anywhere, as it is a C-41 process. So, you can do it at any 1-hour photo place. Its great when you're traveling. And as you can see, it performs exceptionally well in low light situations.

Interiors are my preferred locations...and I'll look to any source for illumination.

pushing the film in hamtramck

2007-06-25T14:53:00.000-07:00

PUSHING THE FILM

the sky and its fragile light

those cloudy skies were directly overhead in hamtramck, the old polish enclave of the detroit metro area. this is what the skies looked like on 666 - june 6, 2006. i came into town to see my friends, and since mike walker's new band, cuckold were playing with steve nawara's new band, a sort of rocket 455 reunion on this date 666...how could i not attend?

my friend, eugene strobe not only picked me up, but he put me up in his cute hamtramck house for the few days that would be in town.

eugene is a host with the most hospitality...he took me around on photo safaris, and i took some photos of him, and also of our friends, marty morris and dave shettler of the band, SSM when an "s" and the "m" came over to borrow a kick drum pedal. the other "s," john szymanski aka johnny hentch was not around that day. too bad! he's pretty photogenic.

i like to take pictures at twilight - at the moments before sunrise, and after the sun sets...the light is fragile and changes quickly. when you shoot at those times, you really push your film, your camera and your skills to their limits. i like to shoot with the iris wide open. it makes for a shallow depth of field, and allows me the focus on a narrow vista within the frame. everything else is soft while one specific part of the frame is sharp.

that's kind of the way i see. i have astigmatism in my right eye, and i don't know if that's why i see things that way, or if i just look at the world as if i'm shooting a movie. i understand that the painter known as El Greco suffered from astigmatism also and that's why his paintings look the way they do. it makes sense to me. el greco, though he painted in spain, and is considered a painter of the spanish school, was actually greek.

eugene on his porch after sunset

dave shettler with eugene’s kick drum pedal

the twilight is flattering to everyone – and although these guys are handsome, young and photogenic and would look good in any light…the twilight makes them seem younger, softer and even more photogenic.

Genie’s Wienies

i don’t think Genie’s Wienies is in business anymore… at least not by the same people who have been operating it since it opened. there were all kinds of real estate signs on the side of the building last year. now i wish we’d had a Genie’s Wienie. what did we have instead? probably pierogies