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I decided to put a little bit about my upcoming projects on my Model Mayhem page:

I have 2 projects that I’d like to begin shooting late May/early June ‘08.

The first is a series of expressive hand portraits. I’m looking for all kinds of hands for this. All ages, all races, hand models, musicians, mechanics, hands missing fingers, people familiar with ASL, manicured, not manicured… everyone. What’s this about? Well, I think hands are sexy, and that they have as much character as faces. And, in my opinion, a lot of photographers don’t know what to do with hands, so they’re often overlooked.

The second is something I’m calling “The Faceless Series.” I’m looking to duplicate various print ads and retouch out the facial features. Since this project is a commentary on advertising images (not necessarily a parody), I’ll need people with decent physiques, but again, all ages, all races, male, female. And, obviously, you have to be okay with not having a face in the final image. Some people find that disturbing, which is kinda the point (if we do a TFP/TFCD arrangement, you are absolutely welcome to copies with your face intact).

So, if you dig either of those, send me a message. I’m open to all sorts of compensation arrangements, though I’m a little short on funds at the moment, and don’t know when that will change.

The time frame gives me plenty of time to do some research and shoot examples using people I already know. I’ll probably start putting real casting calls on Model Mayhem and Craig’s List in about a month. The hand stuff will be shot on film. I’d like to keep that project completely free of anything digital. The faceless stuff will require some digital manipulation, so I might as well go all digital on that.

There are a couple more that I’ve been thinking about as well, but I’d like to wait a little bit on these. The first is about “genderqueer,” or “genderfuck,” if you want to be a little more militant about it. I’d like to do a series of studio portraits of drag kings/queens, crossdressers, and perhaps some actual FTM and MTF transgendered folks at various stages of transition. This is definitely something to do later, as it will require quite a bit of research in order to approach the subject matter with appropriate sensitivity.

The second is basically revisiting a concept I had all the way back in my first year at Brooks. In the Lighting People class, we had a final project of 6 thematically consistent images of people, and I chose to work on a theme of things that don’t fit. I had a few good images, and I’ve had a lot of ideas for individual images over the years, not all of them involving people, but most of them requiring pre-production planning and production expense.

I have received my final letter of recommendation, so now all I need to do is fill out the personal statement portion of the application (which I have all weekend to do), then my application for an adjunct faculty position will be complete, and I can deliver it to the school’s Human Resources department.

I got the rest of the Llano del Rio shots processed today.

Katie was having some trouble coming down that chimney. Anyway, the rest of that day was spent down in Koreatown, at Cafe Jack’s on Western and then back to Stephen and Alex’s apartment. These, I kinda refer to as “Photos a la Gomez,” because Rachel will often shoot in this style with her point-and-shoot. Hers come out better than this. I was just playing around to see what I could get.

Speaking of playing around, I also did some playing around with a few images in Photoshop. These are the result of playing around with various layers, masks, blend modes, and brushes. I don’t consider these art. This is just what happens when I’m bored:

And finally, a happy accident. This was another attempt at a “Photo a la Gomez,” but the flash didn’t fire, so I just got a nice abstraction of Alex’s art installation:

I’ve also been giving a lot of thought to what I had said in the previous entry about being able to discuss my own work, and specifically, about what The Faceless Series means. I intend it to be a critique about our current cult of conformist individualism. What I mean by conformist individualism is that, in this consumer culture of ours, we base a lot of our identity on what we buy. This is something I mentioned in my comments on Tucker’s blog entry on Kathrin Burmester’s “Peoplescapes”. Yet, marketing and advertisers don’t see people as individuals at all. They see demographics. And when people buy name brand products to say something about themselves as an individual, in my opinion, they’re not saying that they’re an individual at all. They’re buying into an image and saying, “I am part of this demographic.” (And that’s really the reason I hate brands like Abercrombie & Fitch–I see no reason why I should spend $60 to advertise someone else’s brand on my chest.) So, really, what’s one of the most basic ways to identify an individual? By their face. Remove the face; remove the individual identity. I’d like to go more in depth into this, but my brain gets constipated.

Really, what it comes down to is that identity is a social construction, so it varies widely from culture to culture. And in our culture, everything has been taken over by sales, marketing, consumption. At our core, we are not who we think we are. Collectively, we’ve bought into this model created (intentionally or not) by commercial interests, and I think people need to challenge that.

Jarrod and I had our first session with a professional trainer today. No use of the weight machines. It was entirely elliptical, stretching, and stairmaster. We were apparently just dicking around on our previous visits. I am very much in favor of people who don’t know what they’re doing in a gym (such as myself) utilizing the services of a trainer. I can tell that I will make much much much more progress with Dexter’s training than I would without. In the meantime, ow.

Oh, and I was at my ideal weight when I returned from Boston in October of 2006 (though my body composition was probably off). The 20 lbs. I put on over 4 months of removing dust from pictures of pets for the publisher of Cat Fancy is what needs to come off, and that is why I hate desk jobs.

I’ve been giving a lot of thought to grad school the last few months. I really like what I’ve been finding out about Savannah College of Art and Design’s online M.A. program in Digital Photography. I’ve heard very good things about SCAD in general, and the digital photography graduate program looks like it would be a great expansion on the technical knowledge I obtained at Brooks Institute of Photography. Plus, that it’s available online is a great benefit, as that means I wouldn’t have to actually move to Georgia, and that would save me quite a bit of money. However, it is not a Master of Fine Arts degree, which is something else that I am interested in. Enter California Institute of the Arts. I know many people who have attended CalArts at the undergraduate and graduate levels. I have not always been impressed with everyone and their work, but on average I have been. My exceptionally strange friend, Stephen torrential., is a current grad student in the Creative Writing and Musical Composition programs. From the conversations with him I’ve had about CalArts, it seems like it would also make an excellent choice. In particular, the main point Stephen has made that interests me is about the conceptual focus the school has throughout its programs. That seems ideal for a graduate program. Rather than expanding on my technical background, it would compliment it. Photography is a very technical form of art, and it makes sense to me to establish a base of knowledge about the tools at the undergraduate level, and then expand into honing one’s ability to express oneself with those tools at the graduate level. And of course, the final thing in CalArts’ favor is it’s location. Being in Santa Clarita/Valencia, it is perfectly in between the two places I already spend most of my time–Hollywood and Lancaster.

Up until now, the thing that has prevented me from pursuing graduate work is the entrance portfolio. I have not been sure what work I would want to put in such a portfolio, as my work tends not to be particularly portfolio friendly. I have often described the problem with the analogy that if I were a musician, I would be the kind of musician who releases great singles, but crappy albums. However, I recently began going through various ideas I’ve had over the years for photo essays, and one in particular struck me as ideal for a grad school entrance portfolio–The Faceless Series. Without going into too much detail, it is basically a series of images in which people’s facial features have been retouched out. Of course, a failing of mine is my inability to discuss what my work means. I know what it means, but I have trouble putting it into words. That is an area I hope to improve in grad school.

On a completely unrelated subject, here’s a book review by John Dolan I found entertaining: Why Is Coke Glamorous and Heroin Scary? Because of Halfwits Like Nikki Sixx. In particular, I enjoy how Mr. Dolan channels Bill Hicks, such as in this passage:

So, naturally, God comes in when the lights go out, right there on page 384. Before he can even turn blue properly, Nikki is visited by Grace — Grace the religious epiphany, not the groupie of the same name. His unintentionally hilarious reaction to the fact that he’s been literally, physically saved is, “Maybe there is a God.”

Many an observer would have come to the opposite conclusion: Cobain kills himself and Nikki lives? There is no god.

Yeah, so… I seem to have joined a gym. That is so not me. This was Jarrod’s idea. I don’t recall when he first suggested it, but I was actually amenable because I put on 20 lbs. the first month I was back from Boston. Haven’t put any more on since then, but you know, that’s still… no bueno. I guess California makes me fat. I think it was a New Year’s Resolution of Jarrod’s, but we just waited 3 months. So, we signed up on Wednesday, and went and did our first workout today. It was nowhere near as unpleasant as I was expecting it to be, which probably means I didn’t work hard enough. Oh wait, that’s not true. I do feel like I’ve been kicked in the gut from the ab exercises. But I didn’t then. Jarrod’s keeping somewhat detailed records on his blog. And he’s posting pictures of himself in his underwear. That I’m taking. With his camera. I’m not gonna be that hardcore about it. But I am actually excited about it. I always hated P.E. in elementary and high school. So, I’ve always been somewhat averse to physical activity for the sake of physical activity. Which is not to say that I just sit on my ass all the time, as my work and leisure require a pretty significant amount of physical exertion (the real reason photographers hire assistants is to make someone else carry the 50 lb. cases of lighting equipment all over the place). But typically, my response to any invitation to partake in anything physical that could have a competitive component (intentional or not) has been, “I’m gonna go play chess.” So, the fact that I actually enjoyed today’s session was a pleasant surprise, and I’m looking forward to going back.

Now, something else that I like about this is the business end of it. The gym we joined is Monster Fitness. What I really like about this place is that it’s a local business, and given the choice, I definitely prefer to support local businesses over national chains. So, I feel that not only am I doing something good for myself, but I’m doing something good for the community. But here’s the thing I really love. They actually have good photography in their marketing materials. Local advertising never has good photography. It doesn’t matter where you are. Even the local ads in L.A. have crappy production values. They’re probably using stock images, which kinda goes against my preference for supporting local business, but… when it comes to my profession, quality trumps the other concerns.

I was not disappeared after linking to the Naomi Wolff video. I just haven’t had a whole lot to say. But I’ve been keeping busy with assisting and shooting for clients, as well as shooting for myself. There have been trips to Malibu, Joshua Tree National Park, the Channel Islands (well, Santa Cruz Island, specifically), as well as one of Lee Bergthold’s weekend trips to the Carrizo Plains. I’ve been processing the RAW files in my free time, and I’ve finished Malibu and Joshua Tree:

Malibu, California; February 27, 2008

Joshua Tree National Park, California; March 23, 2008 (and one shot from Feb. 2007)

In other news, there is the possibility that I may move into teaching soon. This is very exciting for me, as I love helping people, and I love explaining things, and I love photography, so explaining photography to people and helping them to take better pictures would be a blast. I’m not going to say much else about that until it actually happens because I don’t want to jinx it.

Anyway, Llano del Rio, Carrizo Plains, and Santa Cruz Island pictures coming up as time permits.