amur tiger cubs / copyright: the camera trap

 amur tiger cubs by Amur Leopard Project/WCS Russia Program, Southwest Primorski Krai, Russian Far East. taken by a camera-trap. marinate on it. 

scenes from a wedding

project with doty, gorgeous animal

the beauty kiko

dust and scratches and all

INGRES, 1860

INGRES for chrissakes! looking a lot like those photos that that stefan ruiz did of cholombians...no cierto?

predators

shoot me shoot me, love you love you

this morning a woman who apparently fell onto the deKalb L-train tracks held up traffic for a bit, as was to be expected. she shrieked. no train was coming. we all peered like a bunch of meerkats in the direction of the shriek. the woman next to me was saying shit like "hellooo can we get this MOVING?" all detached and shit and then obviously we were all sighing and furrowed and smashed into each
other all the way to 1st ave then 14th then finally 8th avenue. the guy next to me was listening to "Hol' Up" which luckily i could hear through his headphones and mediate on until he got off. last night i was watching a documentary on big cats and how they're the perfect predator (pulling and hauling shit down at dawn and dusk, built for use, built for purpose) and this morning in the belly of the big steel snake with all those vacant gazes and handbags tucked all tight i felt sorta out of place, just like, in the wrong song, or something. not like i'm jonesin' to take down a giraffe in heels or some shit in the early AMs but just like, liiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiike - unease, and still unsettled. i am not sure what makes one toss the anchor over the boat. maybe it is meeting someone with an anchor-sized cut-out in their chest, maybe it is meeting someone who says they know you already and what you say is so predictable it makes you feel that, already already, already known, maybe it is meeting someone who talks slow and infrequently and so when they do speak you want to park yourself in their stories and hear more and make them rewind all the way back to the beginning and embed yourself in their chapters and help write the new ones, or maybe it has nothing to do with anyone else, as always, but rather just time, like, you've been out to sea doing the same shit that the next island you see, any island you see, looks better because it is exactly that, an island, and so are you. i don't know. i take photos of myself because i have never been able to see me. yet with distance i can always see, except that now it is me, my older self, seeing someone much younger, who should have been _____ . should have been whatever. i mean there is danger in that sentiment so now my days contain mantras and quick glances in windows along 57th street and the thoughts now are to not think that because remember how you saw yourself then? the only place i've ever really known i've rejected; which seems tragic but perhaps it's just hormones??? i open that up to the floor... ERB says nothing in the past informs the future. i chewed on that one for a long time because it felt as if that were EXACTLY what informed the future, and as if everything were written on my forehead, or in someones' book i would never read, like i was manifesting this sameness. of my difference i always think the same, and in my indifference i am anything but the same. i do believe that in me there are two fishes swimming in opposite directions, i do. everything is one or the other, rejection or unconditional, infatuation or gone, but maybe that is just uncalled for and rash? i'm not sure! i feel like mostly we are finding sane ways to cope. i feel like we are outlining our lives in colored crayon. i feel like we are just motioning, but not in motion. i do not know who is really living. i tell ERB that these mantras are positive and that's all she needs to know. in the morning when the 'heat pipes just clang,' or at night when my roommate's guitar is grating at the gates of the avant garde greats, i (eyes already closed) think about - mostly - the wonderful, and what defines wonderful, and if i fit there. in my mind i forgive and i forget, and i wish it the best things in whatever corner of the world. i wish it love, and i wish myself love, and i try to eject the reject button ERB says is always looking for real estate in my body. in the morning on the train i have no more daydreams because the lines i've given you in my head are just that. i do not know how long i will bench these daydreams, but it doesn't seem to matter. their weight is as heavy as this anchor i cannot toss overboard.

i haven't really spoken about "The Autists," as i call them - the group of young men i meet with every month to take photos. on this trip we rode on a boat around the island of manhattan. one of them is always sneaking photos of me which is fine in that i want them to take photos of people. he thinks he is being sly but a watcher is aware of being watched. clocked. these photos are those he snuck of me. the other young men gaze out over the boat above the freezing spray and see a whole lotta space. i say "what about the water? what does that look like through the camera?!" i say "hey, look at that person at the edge of the boat, isn't her coat fabulous!? what does that look like through the camera?" i say "royce! can you get over this rope? what does that look like in the camera?! can you flash it?!" but mostly each one lives his reality, instead, staring out at the world, thinking que sé yo, underneath a tiny, high moon in a digi-blue sky, preferring the violent wind in his eyes, to a viewfinder shoved hard against his face. 

j&d - summertime

from my solar system

© boubat 1950

© munkasci

totes potes for line-a interview

i did an interview with dave potes of the n.o.t.o.r.i.o.u.s hamburger eyes (san pancho stand up!) for line-a journal aqui: Level Up: Dave Potes in Motion. when i shared this on facebook i received a predictable response from my beloved step-sister, who was apparently unaware i care for words and rhythm and was educated at all the same schools as she was! i have told her of this space several times before but i know that she is very much wrapped up in her own journey. so it goes. i have been wrapped up, too. our heat doesn't work. 

everything

everything. happy 2012.

i met a great man

© the unparalleled sweet hurricane j. Flores 

© david potes

interview soon. shout out to Lilac Street, my favorite in SF. 

© alba yruela, internet darling

© marissa textor

calla lily © r. mapplethorpe 1988

joder, tia (© shirana shahbazi)

one of the 873 things i enjoy about Ms. Shahbazi is her sort of all-around excellence. that sounds stupid, maybe, but what i mean is that regardless of the tendency of a lot of 'contemporary' stuff to clump it all together and call it a mis-matched-and-therefore-matching day, each photo usually does not hold up alone. she is excellent - and i use the word deliberately (it is a simple, solid word) - because she is where image execution is concerned. it sort of feels like that, too. like a mission to execute an idea, very deliberate, obsessive, as perfect as one could be. controlled. in looking at her work i feel like i'm walking over a really strong bridge, or witnessing someone build a really well-stacked tower of jenga blocks. part of the the dance going on these days with 'pictures' involves a lot of smoke and mirrors, literally. shahbazi, 1 person 234023423408 immaculately executed ideas, falls into a different category, though she touches on a lot of what we're seeing these days. seeing too much, i think. i don't give a fuck about your bright colors or empty scenes, but if ms. shahbazi has these things to show, i am looking. as i am wont to say these days where excellence is concerned: shirana shahbazi can do whatever. 

birds of a feather now too colorful to flock together

julius von bismark

around the way, (R #2)

vibrant thing, such a vibrant thing.

© paul schiek, TBW Books

saw a number of gorgeous little (and big) books at the ny art book fair yesterday, and met a few people i've been wanting to meet for some time. the internet is weird in that one's images usually precede the photographer, as in, i was flipping through a book in front of a young man manning a table yesterday, and later found out it was his book. photographers are just now on the cusp of not being able to remain anonymous anymore. could you pick imogen cunningham out of a line-up? doubt most people could. in this tumblr infested day, facebook parties and RSVP's abound. . . sometimes the people materialize, sometimes they remain a figment of your facebook imagination. among the people i met yesterday was paul schiek, who runs TBW books out of the Bay Area. the fog of his photos is undoubtedly bay area fog, but the rest is pretty placeless, which is something i am really drawn to these days. i also lingered at a dutch publisher's table, way too long, because he was in possession of paul kooiker's newest book, 'heaven,' which was just that. i'll keep the praise to myself and write about it later, or just process it and keep it for later artistic purging, inspiration, whatever. i asked the publisher what paul was like. he tilted his head down, peeking at me over the rims of his reading glasses and said 'very kind. very hard-working.' i suppose when you emerge from the womb having the art of the still-life encoded on your DNA you gotta move on to other ideas. he loves flesh and bodies and women, and repetition. he is an autist, as many photographers are - fixated, obsessive. contemporary editing and a loose (but rich) book-making style add to the classicism that are his female nudes, resulting in a very free, very authoritative kind of photographic process. mature, even. something to aspire to, no, tumblrinas?

pentagons

off the beaten

chloe waiting

hi-brow lo-brow

© Florian Maier-Aichen

salt flats, new hip-hop lexicon

i'm not sure i've seen any imagery as of late that has made me as happy as this video. rapeando desde argentina, pero tambien parece partes de bolivia (salt flats?). unmistakable bolivian hats, wools, and colors but ON BMX BIKES, this face below with a new york attitude, this girl in the middle who is equally comfortable rapping in front of an alpaca, with some abuelitas, as she is in door-knocker earrings and fake-ass dreads over a baggy outfit. UNNNNNNNNNGH, MATANZZZZA!! i am so happy to see this. spanish rap is no new thing, nor is spanish rock. but sometimes these things strike a chord, and we identify. you could say the right verse to the wrong person, right mikey? or you could say the right verse to the right person, and therein lies the joy. since when do we create for everyone everywhere all the time? we don't.