Marvin's Mail Slot

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dreaming in scottsdale az

"The young people who work for me are always saying “Oh that’s been done to death.” They say that about photographs they could never in a million years hope to “see” on their own. The arrogance of youth (something that happened to me when I was young too — so I speak from experience) is to think that you might be able to do something newer and better than the masters, and do it soon. It’s a pipe dream. You have to understand yourself before you can understand the masters and you have to understand the masters before you can begin to think about copying them and you have to begin copying them to even think that you’re anywhere near the road to finding your own style."


photofocus: scottbourne

"Jeans used to be a journey, not a destination; a promise, not a product. In the way they shrank, faded, and eventually ripped and disintegrated, they reflected the accumulation of our life’s adventures, our authentic experience."


who's your dada? randall armor

self contained

photography's existential dread

from conscientious photo magazine
http://cphmag.com/photographys-existential-dread/

star trails at the de young

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it takes a long time to become young       

 - picasso

reimagining jean michel folon

http://lightinnoparticularorder.blogspot.com

red hair and square jaw

only on paper

man and redundancy

leaf pondering man

blue bird

"the enemy of art is the absence of limitations"
orson wells

sea food

thinking out loud

a child who does not play is not a child, but the man who does not play has lost forever the child who lived in him. ~pablo neruda

just wait, and you'll see

  

  They always told me when I was young, "Just wait, and you'll see." Now I'm old
  and see nothing. It's wonderful.

  Erik Satie

not nearly old enough for christmas

facets of a shamanic dream in response to william bishop

outside susan's inside world

night blooming

one sparkling eye at dali's luau

looking for a place to land

   

 

who needs color when life is so black and white?

redux: mister rabbit's happy ending bedtime story

auto jammies

m. wax

the shortest distance between two points isn't necessarily aline

l'oeil de jell-o

slowly revealing herself

two trees deciduously touching madly

double vision chicken wire stained glass

showering then crying out loud

...how does it feel?

“Photographers tend not to photograph what they can’t see, which is the very reason one should try to attempt it. Otherwise we’re going to go on forever just photographing more faces and more rooms and more places. Photography has to transcend description. It has to go beyond description to bring insight into the subject, or reveal the subject, not as it looks, but how does it feel?” 

― Duane Michals

From Blake Andrews Blogspot

The phrase "photographer's photographer" gets thrown around a lot. In the case of Ken Josephson I think it's quite applicable. His photos aren't so much about documenting the world or some conceptual premise. They're about messing with the form itself, playing with ideas in front of the camera just to see what happens. What's real? What's represented? Where is the line? Yeah, I know it's Photo 101 stuff. But Josephson ain't a beginner. In the current show at Hartman, his mastery is indisputable. I think most photographers will find his images just plain entertaining.

I think what I find most intriguing is that he turns the emotional requirement of photography on its head. There's a common preconception that the way to make lasting photos is through the heart. You've got to feel something. And express that. And hopefully the viewer feels it too. Again and again, that mantra is drilled into photographers. Find your passion and create photos with emotional resonance. 

Well fuck that! At least some of the time. I've never made photos like that and I don't usually react to them that way. My own photos are 95% mental, and maybe 5% heart. That's just how I'm wired. And judging by his photographs, so is Josephson. His images are more intellectual exercises than tear-jerkers. As I said, he's a photographer's photographer. It's about the image, not necessarily what's in it.

http://blakeandrews.blogspot.com

bench finding relief by grass or how i told you so

masked man flight 1041

finding sleep in a nocturnal opening

no bunnies today

unusually blue and otherwise

some of its parts

table for three

band aid

black and white face

two faces of v.