Angel Angles (sorry)...(actually, no i'm not)

i noticed this thing happening a couple of months ago, in the wonderful dashwood bookstore in nyc and also on a few random peoples' photo blogs and maybe also on not so random peoples' blogs (read: scandinavians, read: staid, read: affected 'oddities' in the presentation of a human face/expression)...anyway, i thought it was beautiful. and not that odd. and then when i saw one, i saw many - they were everywhere. then of course, a photograph crossed my path that showed the back of a woman, seated, slightly sepia-ed, amidst a base of ruffles and skirts and poofs, with her low neck bun precise and pinned and detailed, and i could read her face from her posture and tightness, or so i wanted to, and i realized yet again that nothing is new and if it is new it is just contemporary and the game is over until there are years between us and the work and so...so....so, i mean, how many angles of a person's bust/head can you really take? if not front, then back, and then what...well, an infinitum of angles and sides and degrees, true...but i suppose by virtue of the person's expression (i still try to understand where 'that thing' in photography meets those very scientific facts that make up its existence, the object, etc)...on the plus, this is how real-life trumps everything...all expressions all the time from any angles your two little eyes will grant you witness to...anyway, i like the back-of-the-head-stuff i've seen...i wonder when it will get old...

so here is LP, who is going to FREAK OUT because god forbid anyone see a head of curls just slept on, twisted, unruly, unpresentable...i find them familiar, unique, singular...these are good words that don't just apply to borja-paull curls...you could BEEEE these things, and then we could have tea.

with the red and black lumberjack, in the back, with a hat to match

...i might use that lyric more than any other...except for every bob dylan line, i suppose...tater and i saw bob dylan when we were 17 years old. her mother drove us to UCLA some time in may, i believe...it was a monumental trip. we were, of course, in the nose bleeds...we cried like we were seeing the backstreet boys...except that would be those girls, and this was us...fanning out on a 60+ year old man, and not just to be unlike the other girls in our class, and not just to impress the bohemians at our high school (there were none), and not because our fathers had listened, first...but anyway, tater had been searching through his words from about 14 on - i just, last week, came to understand some lines of his from love minus zero / no limit...but tater has always understood everything...she gets everything, at once, from every angle...she gets every one, too, from every angle...their moves their notions their p.o.v., their motivations...she is always right, and i always hope that she's always right...and i hinge my future happiness, at times, on ways that she says i'm going to get out, or through, and i hinge my moods on promises she makes ME, about me...and i hinge my respite on an answered text or a thorough email and sometimes i print them out and put them in my pockets and read them on the train like her messages were a personalized magazine article, with secrets only for me, and between only us...on most days, i look to her as some sort of magic 8 ball, and it has been like that since we were children...our chemistry / our roles were defined for us and at times maybe we fought it or rejected it or played into it or didn't play into it enough or ignored it or didn't want it or thought it meant more or less than what it really means and it wavered but never...really...that much.....and so we assume our adult-ish roles in our own lives, accompanied by a heavy past in our collective memory, an unbroken trust and a unique sort of dialogue... and i think that over time, we just love each other more...

i remember the afternoon tater had found 'blood on the tracks.' we lay on her bed in her wonderful room that i always wanted to be in more so than mine on silkwood drive...her mom usually wasn't home from work before six, and tater had received a stereo with a 6-cd changer, and a remote to match...so we listened to tangled up in blue and by the day's end she had already memorized it...sometimes we went for drives in the orchards just to sing out loud with the windows down...2 years ago we did the same thing on our last trip to santa cruz, in february of '08...i danced in the passenger seat to make her laugh - i always over do it - and i always try to hit the notes i would never try to hit on my own, or care about, on my own, because if i hit them it's funny, and if i don't, it's still funny...and regardless, i wouldn't make any unnecessary noise if she wasn't listening...

happy birthday kmb, from now 'til infinity.

globos para s. shokrae

...sunny and her good time jaunt beautiful unassuming photographs! it's true - they're subtle. i see this little bar, ballooned and marooned in an outer borough, to be the antithesis of sunny's environments...just want her to know if she ever needs a bit of respite, from being the cat's pajamas, she could call a borja up, and i could take her to ovidio's bar...scotch on me, sugar lump.

imaginary naps / things that bloom and hold even in winter

the camera was broken and stuck on 'bulb.' which means that if you hold the shutter down it will stay open for as long as you want it to...which means everything -- most likely -- will be flooded with light and out of focus because you move the camera while pressing/releasing the shutter. anyway, i always think facts like this won't affect me...of course they do.

this is jj's imaginary nap against a wall in a secret locale only a few of you know about. he would have stayed like that for more than 1/250th of a second if i had asked...he's a photogenic sunnmabitch, and he knows it.

Anne-Marie Paul

...as of Saturday had not heard from her 8-year-old son, Mother, or Sister who reside in Carrefour, outside of Port au Prince...I asked her a dumb question: "Do you feel that they are ok..." She thought about it and said yes, but wavered. I felt they were, too. Another stupid thing to say. As of Monday (today), she had heard from them and they were ok, just thirsty...

after Sunday Service - French Baptist Church (Songs for Haiti)

Mount Olive Church - Flatbush

Mount Olive Church - Flatbush

After Sunday Service - French Baptist Church (Songs for Haiti)

After Sunday Service - French Baptist Church (Songs for Haiti)

This Dress Is Bound For Haiti

After Sunday Service - French Baptist Church (Songs for Haiti)

Aunt Bernice

Aunt Bernice was takin' digi snaps at a wedding this December...it's important to progress with the times, no? i.e., time for borjita to learn PowerPoint, switch to TIFF files, pay bills online, etc.????

to all of that i obviously say - humbug. the yellow parchment paper pages of the book i am currently reading smell good...the front flap says "laura paull," the copyright is 1970, the cover is torn, and half of the corners are dog eared...

bah...

Watch Dog Watched, Eventually Shot

Technophobes Wreak Havoc, or, You Didn't Like My Last Email?

mujer / la misma mujer

pooh bear walking past the 15th century tapestry that bears her image.

epitome : modesto

que asssssssssco...but this is pretty damn accurate. modesto - still modest...

El Espejo de Dani

22nd and Capp. Vi una forma Baconesque en el espejo, but I fixated on the fog, the fuzz, and the creamy apricot hue that melted into Dani's bathroom. Sunlight in the bathroom is not something that I'm used to. It felt strange and I loved it. Creamy, California butterscotch light...like Joni sings about... I felt like I was on vacation for a second. Then I was on a plane bound for JFK, bound for an E train to Crown Heights, bound for a snowy pallet of blue white grey light...no apricots in sight.

While The Rooster Does Not Find Me So Funny...

...it's ok though...because Alexi does...this kind, kind child who takes care of all things in possession of wings, claws, tails, beaks, crowns...the rooster has no sense of humor...he just gets all anxious that the sun is coming up, and starts talking at you because it's his routine and he doesn't realize you're still sleeping but wouldn't care even if he could...he can't care because the same ol' song he sings is ingrained in him like walking, staring blankly, touting his plumage to impress those who aren't impressed, and not being able to really, really, really fly...So I touched the rooster's comb. I grabbed it and jumped back. Ugh. He played like he didn't mind, or like he didn't feel it-because he didn't? The comb moved in a delayed fashion, like a stupid appendage over which he had no control. The rooster remained, unblinking, as if I hadn't touched him at all, as if he wasn't attached to it, as if it were there for show and void of any feeling...Alexi laughed at my approach while she continued holding the rooster as one might normally hold a soft feline, Snoopy, or a pillow.

Who Shot'cha!?

...some of the best things about growing up were the arts n' crafts sessions, the photo shoots, the sweat-suits, the endless dolores park and popsicles, the mini freedoms, the grown up pot n' wine parties, the nudes, the sling shots, the honesty...the sling shot skeletons are now with me in brooklyn, leaning against a freezing, drafty window dripping with winter condensation...the rubber bands and leather pads that used to house marbles for slinging are no longer...but their wooden frames remain; like beautiful retired dancers, driftwood ballerinas, looking out at the snow remembering their youth.

As I Remember Her

Abuelita, 1989.

Flash Mob On Valencia / Assault On Everything

if i showed you the following details would you be able to identify which san pancho street we were walking down?...yellow walls smashed computers a phone booth (of the phantom variety) the faux fuzz of my coat a lady behind an identifiable twig of a tree and then of course, the jesus piece...i did this because i hever have before...on camera flashes, according to the tenets of the ICP and other fine establishments and/or established journalists, is like wearing white pants after labor day, the fauxiest of all pasz...werk.

san valentín

Eat Your Greens (melons and lemons, too)

...LP runs the ill garden, three of them...they bloom lemons, sweet peas, swiss chard, oranges, and in the summer melons zukes and beeffuckingsteak tomates...LP blooms year round, FYI, although she claims that in the winter months she feels sluggish and a little beat down...but that might just be me sucking the life out of her.

Bee and Dubbs - The Uuuge

...what...it's a different angle...

Jackie y Nathan (Por Vida)

...jackie visited me in august...joining us on that visit was the tiniest of peanuts, now 5 months old...it will be a girl, and i hope she dances and writes and laughs and twinkles and moves and talks and feels exactly like her folks here...ha! 27 year old FOLKS! i will throw nathan a few names, from my name hat...but that will require some serious thinking. names no joke, and the young man is one of only a few people i know who take words seriously...respectfully.

i was lucky enough to be in california when these two crazy teens tied the knot. i tried to take a photo of their jackets hanging on their chairs by the remains of their champagne glasses but i failed miserably. my battle with the yellows and red of interior lighting continues...anyway, at least the sun was kind enough to provide for us outside. that's tiburón in the back there...those are brilliant roses in jackie's hair...that is the sweet blueness of nathan's look...and that is the comfort between them, hands around baby belly...

<3

Laura and Boyfriend #1 (Ode to Norma Jean)

To Abuse Those You Love Most

...is a study in borjaisms...what i love about this photo most is her selflessness about the gaze, sure, but mostly mostly that i know exactly how soft her face is...i can feel it and smell it...it's weird 'shooting' in ones' home...'home...' i kind of feel like all rules are off and i am as messy with the photograph as i am with my room, or the kitchen clean up...no rules for composition because i am comfortable in that space...i don't even see the yellow walls or the blue and white coffee cup my mother adores, or the basket and mail box outside the blown out wall, the blinds, the back hall or the table we've had for EONS...all i see is my mother and all i feel is our equilibrium.

LP and KP - Por El Mar

...aqui se ven contentas no?...these two, swimming through and around each others' lives and paths and daughters, stuck with the same father and vocabulary and education but with different memories of the same time, similar features but different motivations...m.o....movements...i am not saying it is easy to raise or care for a family or raise daughters or even stay in the picture for the entirety of childhood...but i am saying that unconditional love is all that is expected of you and you cannot withhold the one thing that is required of you as a father...we do not barter / trade with that...that's the basis, the base...i have always marveled at how wonderful the two of them turned out, given where they came from...no insult there, as i know the man himself would justify himself to the ends of the earth, where he would find himself alone in a cabin by the water, deaf to almost everything, never realizing that most people at this point are humoring him, and not taking him seriously...for all his seriousness...seriously...some choose heart over thought, some choose calculation over gut, some compare beauty to brains, success over passion...i choose all of the above, and recognize in my mother and my aunt the existence of infinite combinations of traits like these within each of them.

The Finest

...the original LP with Adrienne, my Madrina...we spoke this week - Toronto to Modesto - and she still loves me, after all this time, isn't that incredible? In fact, I think she loved me before I was born...isn't that incredible, too?

Pooh Bear Bathroom #1

Diane and Son - Modesto, X-Mas Eve Afternoon

Digital Bike Down Low Like but Not Like W.E.

...you know, eggelston's bike was a classic, like those little red radio flyers...positioned himself in the oddest of positions, under the mini tricycle in front of the one story house somewhere in america...i wonder why he shot the bike in front of the house like that.

Leaving Newark

The Smudge

Young Family Mission Street - 2005

...from the archives, back when cropping and contrast were coooool.

Shahaab - Crown Heights

...with a red Donatello bandana, zipping around Crown Heights outside his family's bodega, while useless 20 somethings trickled in and out of the mexican brunch spot right next door...his younger brother rode a bike 3 times his size. The woman inside of the bodega came outside to see what I was interested in shooting and why, and then offered up that she would prefer the photo without the red bandana...I paused, shooting quickly because I feared she would tattle on me, like the red bandana was a renegade prop! Anyway, in general, when I ask for toilet paper, that's when you come rolling in, ok?

Most Amazing Photo Of Our Old Volvo's Stereo

...and also the 1st and last photo, i would assume...i brought the camera out because i had spent a week or so going 'paparazzo' on mom and modesto...everything was phenomenal...i was even going to take a photo of the C-A-S-T-R-O sign from inside the car! what has happened to me?! obviously those were uninteresting whereas THIS! my god...

Corazon - Ocean Beach

grey blue green magenta sand white grey white...flat, but not. cold, not but. relatively speaking, you know?

La Mia En Frente de los Limónes

Three Heads Are Better Than Two

Mather's Neck

Sometimes One Wakes Up With A Rainbow On They Face

LP Fancy Jacket - Tiburón 12/27/09