the moon is falling, my wounds are calling, my head is bleeding, and i'm a duck

Lee Friedlander




I've decided to post photos from some of my favorite photographers over the next few days, and I thought I'd start with Lee Friedlander. I'm not really much for rankings, but right now my "favorite" photographer would be a toss up between Friedlander and William Eggleston. I appreciate both for different, though perhaps similar, reasons. Friedlander gained notoriety in the 60's for his "social landscape" photography, which as far as I can tell is something like New Journalism applied to photography. In other words, it's a more overtly subjective approach to documentary photography, just as New Journalism used subjective, unconventional literary techniques for what had been ostensibly "objective" news writing. In part, I find Friedlander's photography interesting because it investigates/engages notions of subjectivity while also engaging with the world out there. I also appreciate Friedlander's use of line/perspective, his ability of pull multiple levels into the photo, and his humor and eye for the unexpected.

my building has every convenience, it's gonna make life easy for me, it's gonna be easy to get things done, i will relax along with my loved ones

Lines For The Fortune Cookies
By Frank O’Hara

I think you’re wonderful and so does everyone else.
Just as Jackie Kennedy has a baby boy, so will you–even bigger.
You will meet a tall beautiful blonde stranger, and you will not say hello.
You will take a long trip and you will be very happy, though alone.
You will marry the first person who tells you your eyes are like scrambled eggs.
In the beginning there was YOU–there will always be YOU, I guess.
You will write a great play and it will run for three performances.
Please phone The Village Voice immediately: they want to interview you.
Roger L. Stevens and Kermit Bloomgarden have their eyes on you.
Relax a little; one of your most celebrated nervous tics will be your undoing.
Your first volume of poetry will be published as soon as you finish it.
You may be a hit uptown, but downtown you’re legendary!
Your walk has a musical quality which will bring you fame and fortune.
You will eat cake.
Who do you think you are, anyway? Jo Van Fleet?
You think your life is like Pirandello, but it’s really like O’Neill.
A few dance lessons with James Waring and who knows? Maybe something will happen.
That’s not a run in your stocking, it’s a hand on your leg.
I realize you’ve lived in France, but that doesn’t mean you know EVERYTHING!
You should wear white more often–it becomes you.
The next person to speak to you will have a very intriguing proposal to make.
A lot of people in this room wish they were you.
Have you been to Mike Goldberg’s show? Al Leslie’s? Lee Krasner’s?
At times, your disinterestedness may seem insincere, to strangers.
Now that the election’s over, what are you going to do with yourself?
You are a prisoner in a croissant factory and you love it.
You eat meat. Why do you eat meat?
Beyond the horizon there is a vale of gloom.
You too could be Premier of France, if only … if only…

I've also posted some portraits today (below). I may post photos from some of my favorite photographers over the next few days. Some of my favorites are William Eggleston, Stephen Shore, Lee Friedlander, Walker Evans, Henry Wessel, Christian Patterson, and many more that aren't coming to mind immediately. I ended up talking to a friend about photography today, and she asked what I think makes a "good" photograph. This same question has recently been posed on some of the photography blogs that I look at--Christian Patterson, Alec Soth, Conscientious--and the answers cover a fairly broad spectrum. I certainly don't have a good answer, and I'm wary of trying to provide a formula for what makes an image powerful, but I do think it's an interesting question. In any case, if you have thoughts on this you'd like to share(or photographers to recommend), let me know.

Well, the last thing I remember before I stripped and kneeled was a trainload of fools bogged down in a magnetic field.

Here are some more portraits I shot in North Carolina. Unfortunately this is something I keep coming back to, but if they were better technically I think they'd be nice shots. The first photo in this post is badly out of focus. At some point that day, I switched the camera to manual focus and proceeded to forget about it and shoot as if it were in auto. The next photo is from the same place, a boarding house that was built during the Great Depression to house families with no place to live. The last two are from the Mt. Airy Goodwill. There was some good stuff going on in there, but I couldn't get any unnoticed shots. Everyone in there was very aware of me having a camera, and most of them found it odd that I wanted to take photos in the Goodwill. I mentioned a photographer named Brian Ulrich, who is known for shooting thrift stores, to some people, but they still thought it was odd.

There's a life worth living and it's interesting, there's a calm that's real somewhere

Over the weekend, I went down to Elkin, NC to visit my mom and sister. The shots I've posted are a few that I was somewhat happy with. I rode my bike around town looking for interesting things, and I think I found a few: the way the hyper blue curb of the carwash held the yellow and pink flowers caught my eye, as did the stream of light pouring through the empty blue building. I took the photo of the piano in the former Roxy's building, an old roadside bar that burned down in the 80's. The roof had collapsed over most of the building; only the corner with the piano was still standing. Again, I somehow screwed up the focus, probably because I was excited about finding the piano and wierd, outer space backdrop. The bar played mostly southern rock/country acts, but while typing this I'm imagining myself playing an overly serious banjo/steel guitar version of David Bowie's "Life on Mars." Some of his lyrics are so terrible they're good: i.e.-"sailors fighting on the dance floor, oh man look at those cave men go, it's the freakiest show, is there life on Mars?"

I'm going back down to shoot the piano within the next couple of weeks, and I plan to repost it. Also, I posted twice today, so there are some portraits below.

I'm walking down that empty road, and it ain't empty now because I'm on it

Although I rarely intend to take photos of people, I invariably end up taking a few on any of my photographic excursions. The top photo in this post was taken in Pulaski; the guy in the photo asked me for a cigarette, and I asked him if I could take his photo. He hesistated, during which time he may have considered kicking my ass, and then agreed. The girls initially thought I was a journalist, though they probably weren't sure what kind of wacky publication would be interested in photos of cracked sidewalks and empty storefronts. The guy below the girls runs the All Country Bar in Pulaski--I've been told to avoid it on weekends, but it looked like a comfortable dark hole to crawl into during a stressful weekday. I met the last guy in Radford at the abandoned foundry building, and you can probably meet him too if you go down there around 5 or 6 o'clock one evening. He's a nice guy, with many stories to tell.

baby let's go to Mexico, where the children dance and the flowers grow

When my last class let out at 4:45 yesterday, I decided to drive to Pulaski and try to take advantage of the last couple hours of sunlight. I've shot at Pulaski pretty often, so I didn't really expect to get anything new. I went into the All Country Bar, though, and got the shot of the love seat, which I like. I also continued my love affair with the elk head. I've tried every position I can think of with that head, but it always seems to have something new and exciting in store for me.

Well the moon is broken and the sky is cracked, come on up to the house, the only thing that you see is all that you lack, come on up to the house

I often like to travel down rural backroads in the South and photograph because you can see a different, more idiosyncratic life than you'll see if you stick to the major highways; it's important to document that life, I think, because it's quickly giving way to something more homogenized, even on the backroads. I'm drawn to aged and weathered things because they provide a sense of history and because they provide a nice metaphor for loss--historical, cultural, and personal. The first photo I've posted is an old house outside of Dublin that's now being used as a hay barn. The second is a storage building in Radford, and the third is in Pulaski.

Tonight my baby and me, we're going to ride to the sea, and wash these sins off our hands

Springsteen's Darkness on the Edge of Town is the kind of music I like to listen to late at night when I'm in one of those restless, empty moods. Some times, I'll drive down to Little River, park beneath the old dam, and listen to Bruce while I try to size up where my life is heading. Very adolescent and self-consciously cinematic, but what can I say? "Racing in the Streets" is one of my favorites from the album, possibly the most heartbreaking song about car-racing imaginable.

I sit and bathe in the wave of nostalgia for an age yet to come

I took these photos in downtown Pulaski. The flowers were in the windows to celebrate/advertise Valentine's Day, but the faded curtains and relative starkness of the displays made me feel empty. The photo copy place grabs my attention every time I walk by there. The juxtaposition of the woman in a wedding gown and the older man in horn rimmed glasses, both faded photos that look they were taken in the 70's, makes me feel something like nostalgia for the people in the photos, even though I have no idea who they are. The arrangement also makes me think about how memory is intrinsically linked with photography. Kodak initially started marketing cameras as a tool to preserve time. In a way, a photograph is a stay against time; but in another way, a photograph erases real memory, replacing it with a picture--a "photo copy." My thoughts aren't fully formed on this topic. What do you think?

dress sexy at my funeral, my good wife, for the first time in your life

I took these shots on my way to the office this morning. I'd been eyeing those used car streamers for days, salivating over the bright orange and green triangles flitting in the wind, mentally composing hundreds of photographic perspectives. This morning, the hearse suddenly appeared, adding a suitable dose of irony. I still have no idea what's going on with the colors. I'd like to have some consistency out of my camera (or is it me?), but it doesn't seem to be forthcoming. I'm thinking a polarizing or uv filter would help handle the direct sunlight. The "Topless is legal" boxcar was literally 50-60 feet away from the hearse, and I thought they went well together. Sex, death, used car streamers, graffitti, overly saturated blue skies, and railroad tracks. I've done my work for the day.

god has a plan for me, he loves me like the lightning loves the tree

The pink sheet of paper on the ms. pac man shot says, "You want believe how THICK our side meat is! Come in and see." And as you can see from the bottom shot, it is indeed very thick side meat.

when you reach Kyoto send a postcard if you can, and please convey my fond regards to Chih-Hao's girl Yu-Lan

Some potentially good shots marred by lack of sharp focus. I should have read my camera manual before going down to Mt. Airy, I guess. In case anyone is wondering, the heading of each day's entry is a line from a song. This one is from Brian Eno's Taking Tiger Mountain (By Strategy). Eno is largely known for creating "ambient" music and producing the Talking Heads albums, but I really enjoy his late 70's pop music--very clever and idiosyncratic lyrics/music. Those of you who have driven through Cana, with its fifteen foot high plaster chickens and simulacra cowboys, know it's fitting music for the place.

you can call it a spinoff, say it's a knockoff, title it part II...

More shots from Mt. Airy.

the only thing i knew how to do was keep on flying, like a bird that flew, tangled up in blue

Above are some shots I took around Mt. Airy, NC over the last few days. I went down with my friend, Josh Harrod, on Tuesday and Wednesday, and it was an all around good trip. We met quite a few interesting people, heard some great stories, ate delicious pork chop sandwiches at Snappy Lunch, took a few decent photos, and found some cheap albums (the find of the day may have been Josh's--The Copulating Blues,a compilation of old blues songs with titles like "New Rubbin on the Darned Old Thing," "Yas, Yas, Yas," "Press my Button, Ring My Bell," and "Sissy Man Blues").

I didn't realize I was taking so many shots of sky blue (Carolina blue) things until I loaded the photos on the computer. The blue really pops, which I like, but I don't think I have the white balance set correctly on the camera, and I'm having some trouble messing with it on the computer. Help me Bob, I really am tangled up in blue.