kate levy photography

I am working

2012-02-02T00:20:00.000-07:00

I'm just not blogging.

But here's something I wrote in response to the question I've learned to dread.
Names omitted because people tend to google themselves.

PHOTOGRAPHY

Originally, I started taking photographs because I was in love with the high school photography teacher, KW. She was untamed, sexy and tortured. She was having sex with Mr. C, the middle school English teacher who listened to the Gin Blossoms. Mr. C is the only reason why I could ever tolerate the Gin Blossoms. Once, Mr. C drove me home from a community service event. My dad and I had gotten into a fight that day because I asked him for a ride at the very last minute. I eluded to Mr. C that my dad had hit me, even though it wasn’t true. This is around the same time that I wanted to be an actress.

I think KW was also why I started contemplating whether I was gay. It started where everything still starts for me--hypochondria. KW had a rainbow sticker, so somewhere inside of me, torturing myself by pondering if I was gay seemed real and foreign enough to start. Eventually it turned into some assemblance of a truth. As luck would have it, I loved the rhythm of making pictures. I loved my rhythm of making pictures.

Sometimes I feel I should have been born differently--the misconception of what authenticity might feel like. This is my reality: this plethora of luxury on one end, sometimes gorged with garbage, sometimes with streamlined ease, and my human need to survive that has become as benign as horses in Central Park. Survival is leisure. Outward Bound, novelty. Survival has been hijacked by the necessity of subway turnstiles. Think about human confusion: all these mechanisms in our body for nothing--or for something completely different from what what they were intended to do. Lab rats in a wheel, surrounded by everything we don’t need but can only use. So we eat and eat and eat. When I make pictures I forget to eat. Sometimes I can’t eat anything until I have photographed that day. Sometimes I know I’m finished shooting when I’m hungry again. Photography has become a way for me to pinpoint my own existence.

Photographing can also be a very dissociative act for me. In portraiture, I often scare the subjects--because my eyes are doing all of the seeing. People will always be able to tell when they are being stared at. Always. They feel defiled when they are for the eyes only. Very often, I obsess over a vision and its meaning, and I ruin the shot that never was. I confuse this NEED to get the shot, with the much more applicable desire to enable the camera to disappear. In this way, photographing is the act that makes me exist less and less in the service of performance.

This is my meditation: I feel something, so I see something, and I see something, so I feel something. The disappearance of the camera. I’m trying to justify my images with my own experiences, not from concepts I think might pass as interesting. I want the pictures I take to come from my specifics, and open doors to a landscape outside of myself.

2012-01-13T23:08:00.000-07:00

i never shoot decisively on the diagonal

2011-12-26T22:54:00.002-07:00

here's a shot at it.

More Mackin with the Hassie

2011-12-26T22:21:00.000-07:00

It does enable the subject to form kinship with the camera through their own curiosity of the strange apparatus. Its less threatning the older the machine. Something about the fantasy of history making people feel more comfortable about you portraying their lives?

In any case, it slows me down, good thing.

These images are highly influenced by that comfortable middle ground between fine art and documentary. Fine art documentary and cold Michigan go together like creme brule and the intense romance of astounding is more desirable than the sustainable even keel of publishable but nothing new. I'm not sure if I am capable of either. So the work lands somewhere in the middle. Interior meets exterior. Walker Evans meets Baudelaire.

2 from mackinac, via the hassie, recently.

2011-11-24T23:24:00.000-07:00

carride

2011-11-24T23:16:00.000-07:00

2011-11-22T22:07:00.000-07:00

feeling trapped?

a girl can love a

2011-11-22T21:56:00.000-07:00

I had five cavaties filled

2011-10-07T05:24:00.001-06:00

And photographed the whole time. The dentist, Dr. Alper was very accepting of the camera (and the flash) during his anesthetizing and drilling. I just held the wide angle above my head and shot blindly. I think I made him fuck up though, cause one of my teeth really hurts.

meta face

2011-10-03T21:56:00.002-06:00

staring at people on the subway exercise

2011-09-26T16:45:00.002-06:00

A few weeks back, a guy, Stephen Schuster, who is a second year in my grad program installed a series of re-photographed posters of celebrities. He used only images of their eyes, very up close and very grained, almost as though they were zoomed in on a still from a surveillance camera. Nayland made the point that we do not maintain eye contact on the subway, unless that eye contact comes along with a subliminal reminder to make sure and watch Dr. Oz this Thursday evening.

That simple remark sparked my interest in an even simpler experiment: subway staring. The premise is, of course, simple. I stare at someone's eyes, whether they are looking at me or not, and when they look at me I continue to look at them. The staring ends when that person gets off the subway, or when a dialogue is engaged by them asking me why I am staring. I usually hope for dialogue.

Here are my initial observations:

Session 1:
I am very vulnerable doing this because I feel as I'm opening my entire soul for that person.
I only gravitate towards women--perhaps for safety reasons.
I feel like these women think I'm creepy, crazy, confused, a perpetrator, offensive, nosy, evil-intentioned, schizophrenic or annoying.
I can't help but feel romantic towards those who I stare at
Staring at someone in a crowded subway can be more or less potent than staring at someone when it is uncrowded.
Because I did not want to be construed as creepy, crazy, confused, nosy, evil-intentioned, schizophrenic or annoying, I try to hold a space for these woman to be who they are in my eyes, a mission which I find valuable because I'm not sure that these women are ever seen for what they are. This seems problematic. How do I make this just staring without all these other assumptions?
The mission of holding a space for women dates back to my late teens when I wanted to be every woman's hero, and is a vastly problematic projection. Clearly I cannot be that person. How do I just bear witness for the sake of bearing witness?

Session 2:
I engaged a dialogue between myself and a woman who looked kinda artsy. I figured since she was staring back at me that she was confused. Eventually I broke the stare and asked her what she thought. She said she was a bit uncomfortable and confused, but that she stares at people too sometimes. We agreed staring feels so intense when you don't know anything about the person, and you sort of know everything about the person in that moment. You can watch them eat, or zone into every tick and twitch on their face and fall in love without emotions or attachment. I find that I have an issue with imposing. But even if I am imposing and I can convince the other people that its okay, if I'm not viewed as an imposition, its okay. Even if my energy remains imposing.
This exercise turns me onto a sense that in life I'm constantly afraid of being misconstrued--because I am a perpetrator in many regards. Many of my nightlife images find their worth in the notion that the images are not about my subject, they are about me, so it doesn't matter if the image slanders the other person--because it's not really that person. Yet the realization that I have to remember that people have memories of faces, of what people do, and other people assign stories and identities to these seemingly anonymous pictures, and it does have some effect on other people's lives. Although I question the validity of the effect--who cares if your mom disowns you for something you did? You did it. That's between you and her, not me.....Yet I'm afraid of being misconstrued? Wow.
Apparently a belief that the subject of the image is not tied to the image can be a very reckless way to think; it does not really involve any empathy.
Anyways, after the conversation with the lady (or really the conversation with myself), she got off the train and I gave her an awkward hug. I have absolutely no idea why.

I'm curious too about accountability. I'm staring at this woman whose shirt says "World's Greatest Mom," or something to that effect and I immediately think about how I don't want to stare at her because she's a mom and doesn't need this tonight.
But then I wonder, shouldn't we hold anyone accountable for existence?" What gives one person the right to withdraw and holds another to the responsibility of maintaining a gaze?
Another lady, I stared at her for 20 minutes. She didn't notice once, but she looked like she was remembering things that made her happy and angry. Then eventually I raised my big ass fucking obtrusive camera, and she glared at me and told me that I should ask first. I wanted to tell the lady I'd been staring at her for 20 minutes, but I didn't.

Session 3:

I've laid out things to say when someone asks me what I am doing, after a woman asked me what I was doing. I just told her I was exploring responses to me staring at people--not just people's reactions, but my response within myself. She told me that it just seems unnecssary, people should mind their own business.

You know, sometimes, I feel ugly and scared when I connect to a whole or to individuals. Like everyone is walking dead around me;

everyone wants to mind their own business and protect what little space they have because they think this act will protect them from death--from ultimate loneliness--if they have what they have, their families, their own lives, and have the power to say, just leave me alone. Or if they are alone, not part of any collective to begin with, they can affirm that this tangible life is real. If they believe that we are divided as individual entities, then everything we work for so fucking hard every day, just to sustain ourselves in this world on this planet isn't in vain. If we all believed that real life existed both in life and in death, would we all off ourselves, or would we commune in some way we haven't?
Sometimes in these crowds I feel so alien, and sometimes I feel so alive and connected and honored to be part of humanity. And it's not the crowd that changes. It's the exact same crowd I think.

So I am asking this:

How does it makes you feel when you are stared at?
Why don't you make eye contact with me?
How do you perceive me?
How can I create a document that explores this experience, or make this experience valuable?

Oh the humanity. There are ghosts on this particular day.

2011-09-24T23:25:00.001-06:00

headless hotel

2011-09-18T11:10:00.002-06:00

A bit before I left Denver, I did a fashion spread for 303 Mag's Gentlemen's Issue. The concept was headless photographs in the Hotel Monaco. It was incredibly challenging to use the body to construct a narrative and convey any sort of anything, without the head. I wanted the energy of the model to come across as androgynous, potentiating the question of whether the model was actually a gentleman at all. I also wanted to invoke divine femininity. Didn't really happen. I did however find this sort of Groundhog's Day repetition--the boy wakes up in the hotel room over and over and over, and the same presence of this woman is still there. Is he imagining this, or is his mind playing tricks with him? I suppose shooting in the same two hotel rooms for eight hours would invoke this feeling. Here are some shots, both from what the magazine published and what from I later sold to Hotel Monaco for ah-lohhhht of monay. In retrospect, I would have done the whole spread in B&W if I had had more space from the images from when I shot them. Also, you can see the spread at 303magazine.com in the August Issue.

2011-09-16T14:15:00.003-06:00

Diptych for our first assignment in Nina's Techniques, Practices, Strategies Class

2011-09-12T19:02:00.002-06:00

Today, I had the pleasure of attending my first Techniques, Practices and Strategies Class with Nina Katchadourian. A candid, hilarious multimedia artist whose newest work "Seat Assignment" explores the airplane, and her endless hours of flying as a time capsule.

Her first assignment to us was to, in the hour of the class, recall a pivotal image in our mind of another artist, and then make an image to follow the image as the completion of a diptych. I chose an image from Mary Ellen Mark's Falkland Road, because I have been revisiting this work lately--its color, its shameless vulgar masculinity, its astounding access to this secret secret world. I look at it a lot too because I've lately been taken with a woman from India, so ideas of arranged marriage are coming up for me.

There's a lot more to Mary Ellen's series besides overt hating on men; there's a lot of masculine femininity and feminine masculinity, grotesque intimacy and cultural violence, and exploration of sex as a commodity and as an animalistic norm. Mostly the pictures speak for themselves.

My other interest in Falkland Road comes as a way for me to seek some sort of understanding of machismo culture. Today I am angry as I realize how masculine this neighborhood, Bay Ridge, is. I don't think its an accident that I now call Bay Ridge home.

So I chose to make a screenshot of a text message with this woman I've been so obsessive (does obsession approach hatred ever), enmeshed with. The screenshot, for one, serves as this new type of documentary for me. The two images together explore the dichotomy between the immediate sexual and the thought out, helpless idealization of love, as well as the clash between my experience of being an American Lesbian and the experience of being a woman in India. Also to note, it is very interesting to look at how one thing can be so removed from us when it is across the world from us, yet another thing so menial can be so intense, so comparing the image of the text with the MEM image explores the scale of intensity. When I look at Falkland Road, I feel a sadness rooted in my lack of understanding of this experience, and when I look at the texts that have ensued over the past month, I feel gutted.

2011-09-11T15:30:00.010-06:00

2011-09-05T14:42:00.000-06:00

2011-09-05T13:19:00.002-06:00

2011-09-05T12:21:00.002-06:00

2011-09-05T11:43:00.002-06:00

2011-09-05T10:20:00.005-06:00

2011-09-05T10:09:00.000-06:00

2011-09-05T10:03:00.001-06:00

alex and juan's engagement shoot

2011-08-29T22:09:00.000-06:00

i have a soft side

2011-07-28T13:02:00.002-06:00

in the evening in the woods on mackinac and in bed in the morning in denver. they are one in the same.

sometimes...

2011-07-23T09:31:00.000-06:00

I took this photo (1) in 2004 of Will (Tyrone) St. Onge. This summer, Mary McGuire showed me this historic photo (2) of his great uncle (?), Chief Sitigoe.

island jaunt as the fog clears

2011-07-11T19:10:00.001-06:00

my shooting seems to be moving into a much more efficient phase, as i've been spending significantly less time with the camera in hand, and significantly more time gardening. so when the itch strikes, it is real.

today's meditation: patience.

With people, my energy becomes frantic and stretched for time, and the subject inevitably notices me. When they notice me, the purpose of the photograph changes, because now i must account for the interaction. The interaction become integral--how can it not? I'm inclined to converse--in old school documentary fashion--about the subject's life. But the reason for the photograph had nothing to do with them in the first place--it has a bit to do with me, but not even that. So the photograph looses something when they start speaking about themselves, when they are self conscious, because they are no longer connected to the universe, the unspeakable space, one space of many, that connects one image to another--vision and energy. But not engaging also feels like a cop-out--even though its, "innocent" in kim's words, it is certainly not percieved this way by very many people. In the case of the photograph of the young lady, Miranda, who works at Douds, I had the image in my mind because I love her skeptical face and her frank demeaner. So I went grocery shopping with my camera. All the girls in the store were really freaked out, like I was photographing them for some malicious reason, or I was stalking them, or I was into fetishes of grocery girls. (I actually like waitresses). Miranda was compliant, but self-conscious. I somewhat directed her facial expression, and allowed her skepticism of me to translate as skepticism at the world, the tourist, the shopper. The photograph of the two gentlemen the above is one example of when this did not happen, because the individuals in the frame did not notice my presence. I then approached the man after and conversed with him. His daughter seemed very proud about her father's accomplishments and lifestyle--he is 92 and lives alone still.

With objects, I am working on not jumping the gun, slowing down and realizing that inanimate objects that seem very animated do not walk away in reality.

I'm noticing that my reality is not concerned with logic, thus sometimes skewed. Hopefully more gardening will ground this.

girls go wild for vera bradley on mackinac island

2011-07-10T08:42:00.000-06:00

maybe its art nouveau meets cowgirl bohemian. im not sure. but every straight girl i know on this island has a vera bradley bag. i think they are cute, and somewhat hard to resist. i'd carry one if i had shit to carry around.

But i did shoot a preliminary model catalogue/look book for the Tourism Bureau, to showcase the models available to them for their catalogue shoot planned for the first week of August on the island (they use locals wherever they go as models.

Here are some tears:

another one of grandmom

2011-07-08T21:53:00.002-06:00

2011-07-08T17:46:00.001-06:00

i'm beginning to like this life of gardening and taking things very very very slowly.

pondering on water, its uses, how we sustain life.

if you were to see it bigger--

the signs say, if you were to view this bigger, as it is intended, "This waste bin is for laundry trash only" and "Please dispose of your personal trash in the trash bags." The yellow fluorescent light is very interesting juxtaposed with the sunny scene reflected in the window, and one must love these little power boxes with the ghost boat race that relapses time.

Boba Fet and the Americans

2011-06-29T10:37:00.000-06:00

is this marching band who have made their name around Denver by crashing parties.

Here are the shots of them I did for 303 Mag's July Issue.

John Carey

2011-06-29T10:31:00.000-06:00

Hello World
Its been a while. I finally begin my transition process to New York and I get, like, thirty jobs. It all happens when you let go. This shoot marks the first of many, a favorite shoot of mine--R&B hearthrob Johnathan Carey. This man recently resolved to go balls to the wall and take up music full time. I know how you feel. Here are some images that highlight his intense immersion into what is about to ensue. The were shot in my sister's pool, in the bathroom of the Squire, in a very strange gravel-pit and near the power grid around 40th and York.

my cousin's kids

2011-05-29T17:05:00.000-06:00

This shoot was a prime opportunity to show to my entire family that I am dually capable of taking "nice" pictures too. It proved to me that I want some babies.

303 Magazine Pride issue--my first cover!

2011-05-27T17:31:00.002-06:00

There is nothing better than attending the release party for a pride themed issue of an up and coming magazine, and seeing hundreds of Denver's most elitest fashionistas carrying around a copy of a magazine with your sexy ass photograph on the cover. Nothing better than getting dressed up in your finest poofy skirt, with your finest girls on each arm, and having Mondo Guerra compliment your outfit in the ladies room. I carried around ten copies of the mag all night, gloating, and just ended up losing them all in the rush of drunkenness.
The issue of the magazine is a collaboration between 303 mag and the Center, just in time for this year's PrideFest.
The photographs highlight the theme of this year's festivities, and depict sexy men in uniform. Apparently, the demolition of Don't Ask, Don't Tell has inspired this twist of politics into a party theme--leave it to the gays! I'm both ecstatic with the photos because they raise a lot of questions for me, yet I know Denver and the ever-widening LGBT community can do a lot better.
Our stylist, Charlie Price, opted to feature mostly vintage, uniform-inspired clothing. The location was the Denver Eagle, a well-loved local leather bar, blurring the lines between dominance, order, submission, obedience, a sense of duty and what's bound to get wild. Charlie set the mood and I selected the spots and set up the shots--in the walk in cooler, back room, bathroom--all those places we are not supposed to go, especially when we are drunk.
I suppose this is some unconscious tribute to how gays were never "supposed" to be in the military, but they are. I find this change of policy both encouraging and disheartening--while I sorta appreciate the long fucking overdue too little too late acceptance of the miraculous embracement of the masculine and feminine (read: QUEER) into this military, I regard war, hierarchy, etc etc as facets of this trapped, overly simplified, glossed over and exclusive world, something that our human evolution (read--the integration of all genders) must transcend. Are we doing contemporary society a favor by joining the fucking military and getting married in a church that continues to perpetuate lies to control the vast intricacies of "human nature." I find myself believing that gender/sexually/spiritually ambiguous folk should have boycotted all this to begin with, not the other way around. But there we are with our hands out and our leashes ready to feed on the sloppy piggy trough of rotting curd and take a walk around the jail yard track, with little more than a "yes please." Please.

(scroll down)

Which is why I have mixed feelings about these photos:

Distilling this intense history of livelihood, murder, discipline, disobedience, hate, mission, civil rights, sex, love and fear into a six page fashion spread feels like both a positive, flippant fuck you to the ties of history and a blatant reinstatement of a stereotype that proclaims that if we put a gay man in uniform, he's going to just want to take it off....take it alllll off, and then take it off of all the other soldiers' uniforms around him. And the stereotype also continues through the shoot with the archetypical gay man dressed in leather, downing Coors Light, rubbing up against a bathroom stall. Never turn around in the bathroom of the Eagle.

It's confusing to watch an episode of Glee on Fox, all pro-gay rights, applauding the fashion of Chris Colfer and the strength of Mike O'Malley to bring him gay boy pamphlets, and then watch fucking Bill O'Reilly and whats his face--I can't even remember his stupid fucking name--on the same channel blatantly bash what all media has agreed on calling "gay rights." Who's really winning when they are all on the same team. There's got to be a Benedict Arnold in some of them. But is that movement strong enough to buck it from within?

At the end of the day, I know one thing---a steamy makeout session in a bar ALWAYS fucking wins, as does playing with fire--bondage, boundaries and social norms.

Here's the rest of the spread, please click to enlarge:

hip hop show weekend

2011-05-22T13:10:00.001-06:00

Got back to Denver Friday and hit the ground running with a couple Westword Slidshows. First, I hit my girl Ru's annual birthday bash: LollipaRuza. I must say I was feeling it more because I knew all the hard work Ru put into reviving the great voices of the past by rallying new voices (it was a cover show with all the Denver players). Saturday was the Jet Life Tour featuring Curren$y, and I had not attachment to this event...just my own motivation to make images to chronicle the scene.
But what is it about hip hop--common interest, synchronous lyrics beating out like pounding your point with your fist into the table, intense passion subdued and lit up with chronic. What is it about having a purpose?

Generalized Motivation

2011-05-18T23:00:00.004-06:00

The GM factory in Ypsilanti has probably never been cleaner. Its pristine condition will allow executives of manufacturing companies to get an objective glance at the coveted machinery born and bred in the big "D" (read big M, for Metro), whose odometer reads 500,000. The buyers will pay the removal fee and have their way with one or more parts to an assembly line to which several hundred people have effectively devoted their entire lives. Push button, robot arm swings forward. Push button, robot arm deposits part. Push button, robot arm returns to initial position. Push button to lower robot arm to refill part. Push button, make pension. Push button, move forward with investments. Push button, buy new home, new car. Push button, deposit in 401k. Push button. Push button. Push button push button. Wait a second...........where did my fucking money go? Push button once and you are guaranteed to push it for the next thirty years without threat of young, tantalizing, sunburned fingers. We never did expect the sun in Michigan, although we always hoped for it. I still do. I went to Holland last year and experienced 70 degree sunshine and windmills in the middle of January.
The auto industry was here to stay. Until it was disemboweled and repackaged to a growing Undustry in India that seems to be doing fine (to be fair, there were men of many differing national origins attending the auction). The sale is slated to bring anywhere from a fuck ton of money if things fall short and an obscene amount of money if things go well. I can't say how much, but I can say it probably wasn't worth it in the grand scheme of things.
The factory floor is wiped clean to accomodate the lone wanderers in suits who click click click Prada shoes to recluse from the cunnilingus of the auctioneers tongue. He's my uncle, the auctioneer. My dad used to be an auctioneer.
No wonder I'm so good at licking pussy, I have begun to joke, to ease my subjects at this recent shoot--the Hilco/Maynard's auction at the Willow Run Plant.
I have never seen business men so laid back.
I'm oversimplifying this. But as usual I'm more interested in the poetry of it.

just a cover

2011-05-14T14:14:00.002-06:00

I have volunteered at Earthworks Urban Farm in Detroit a few times now this month. I love being there, working hard alongside people just broaching the surface of what responsible urban renewal and rebuilding a sustainable community means, and how urban agriculture differs from rural farming. I met this girl who works on the farm through a program similar to Americorps. I asked her to hang out sometime and she reluctantly agreed. We had a late breakfast and wantered through Corktown through a delightful alley and down to the railroad tracks along the river to under the Ambassador Bridge. We started talking about Andrea Gibson and Ani DiFranco, and no sooner did we mention Ani's name that a trooper from the Department of Homeland Security pulled up in his new white, government logo infested Suburban.

"I think he wants us to leave," I said, which would, in hindsight, make sense as we were walking down railroad tracks under an international bridge. He rolled down his window and we smiled our naive, we're just lost white girls look at him. He asked us what we were doing there, and we responded we were just visitors going for a walk. "In DETROIT?" he prodded. "This is DETROIT, it's not SAFE to wander here." My new friend explained that she's actually a recent transplant from Ann Arbor, working on a community garden on the east side. "Why do you want to live HERE?" he asked, with disbelief, disgust and disdain. Like the motherfucker wants a fucking job more than he wants to fulfill the actual (imaginary) purpose of his job. Like he's a crusader for keeping Detroit ugly so he can continue to work for the assumptions that make him a hero. Like he takes pleasure in the fact that Detroit has a rough reputation that no one can seem to penetrate, so his appeal in uniform and loose relationship to keeping detroit "safe" never gets old. Like the rough projected image of Detroit is really just a cover to keep the legacy of structural violence going strong. I've never felt unsafe in Detroit until I was locked in the back of his car as he escorted us to safety, telling us to call 911 if we get into trouble on our walks back to our Made in Detroit vehicles.

2011-05-14T13:53:00.002-06:00

added 5/13 as addendum to "inanimate and high" blog posting from april 27.

sifting back through again, as ive come to michigan i've set down the clunk and resolved to send the hues into cyberspace. these photos sure are lonely out there. goal after phone healing session with kathleen:

bridge heart to root and crown. channel energy out eyes as it comes (secondary lead into photographing but do not pick up the camera). i'm called to visual art as a thread in the tapestry:

visions and dreams are a part of the whole. no guilt for indulging in the visual. the visual does not have to intellectually distill to superficial.

these images are clearly very human, their subjects are a product of the concise exclusivity of the contrived "whole" that excludes anything but human lines. but that ego has its place too.

sometimes

2011-05-13T12:46:00.001-06:00

i overlook the flesh and blood for a stark textural juxtaposition. is it ethical to represent people in photographs only as what they mean to you? to literally appropriate people for your own meanings? i approach people and ask them to photograph them. sometimes we engage in conversation and it seems that dialogue may be the only thing that reeps mutual benefit. is the photo a biproduct?

for fun.

2011-05-13T12:39:00.002-06:00

Birmingham

Detroit

Boulder

Wheat Ridge

Boulder

Wheat Ridge

Denver

Family Studies from Home

2011-05-13T12:19:00.000-06:00

nothing beats the prespring blues like a lil bit o photographin and driving the parents crazy with the camera.

Studies of Grandmom

2011-05-13T11:26:00.000-06:00

Since I've been home, I've been collecting these images of my grandmother. I know there is some urgency to catalogue her. But she doesn't feel it. She gets angry that I am taking her wrinkles and immortalizing them, despite my constant pleading that a photograph does not amount the person to their appearance or their identity. That its more about me.

I hate that I display her sometimes, as a trophy Grandmom--the poet, the art collector, the woman who still works at eighty two, the one who gets me but angers me so much sometimes, because her neuroses get her.

She's a reminder to live in the present.

inanimate and high

2011-04-27T13:42:00.002-06:00

i've taken a bit of a hiatus from blogging, although I've been maintaining a very regular practice of photographing. I'm stuffed full, but this entry should highlight a bit of what I've been working on personally in my photography.

i always find multiple uses for my pictures--thematically, not in terms of generating revenue, that is.

although many of the following were made in conjunction with an ongoing series of alley images (read: kate smokes a bowl and wanders around capitol hill for a few hours with her camera), i think the images elude to trespassing and spying. aside from the fact that some of these images are the product of trespassing, the more i photograph, the less i feel comfortable with people in the frame. hopefully this is a phase. it always feels as though i am trespassing into their energy--i just get so excited, i tend to undress my subject instead of just pulling on their coattail a bit. its always a bit easier to engage with the remnants of humanity, rather than actual bones and blood.
i suppose the images also elaborate on the superfluous and small nature of humanity--but this is not a new concept for me. in fact, my whole diptychs gallery is about just that.

add

foe favorites from a secret warehouse.

2011-04-19T00:59:00.000-06:00

drunk blurry

2011-04-19T00:51:00.000-06:00

pinhole

2011-02-19T18:15:00.003-07:00

from a year ago, foil pinhole fixed to d700

looking at photographs from a year ago i'm not attached. its easier to see them.

there is something that happens as a photograher--when my camera is strapped to me, my consciousness changes. its much different to see an image and feel it in my heart then when i see without a frame. without the camera, i can make photographs with the five senses. the mundane feels pertinent.

but the camera comes towards the eye, it jumps and disconnects itself from its sockets, the cellular railway and the soul. the viewfinder bumps up and the membrane kisses the window and the entirety disappears.

eventually, i would like to feel as though the soul does not change for the camera. i just need to carry the camera everywhere without shooting, so what comes does not just come as the camera calling me to shoot. shooting has always been this way to ground me, but in a way that i was grounded through the camera. I would like to ground the camera through myself as a vessel of whats happening. i would like curiosity to reign without the sense that i will ever be able to understand.

i possess this magnet deep inside their my "someone", and it drives my artistic process. this may be a by-product of the engagement in an inquisitive process that often amounts to art (particularly documentary photography), or maybe this magnet is a reason why i take photos. maybe i have construed this magnet as a defining factor of artist from not artist. the magnet it reaches out from inside my head driven, nagging, overwhelmed, image ridden gut and grabs its polar opposite: the need to understand universal truths. the magnet's persistence to its dire attraction--what words don't explain. photography has been approached as an addiction. i experience this as the incessant need to just get further down the rabbit hole.

but im starting to remember that curiosity does not have to invoke the need to understand.

its not my job to contribute or add to the world to make it whole. its whole all ready. its my job to understand my role within the whole. gone are the days when we proclaim the value of separating the art from the artist. the artist is the art; the artist is vessel for the whole, which the artist is also part of.

bringing my camera everywhere does not attach my photography to my identity, it breaks the monolith of significance.

fuckin people animals

2011-02-01T20:13:00.001-07:00

year later, today

2011-01-31T23:08:00.000-07:00

this blog is a bit of a scratch pad. the images in the previous post were taken about a year ago during a snow storm. its like to see the subtle transitions in my landscape eye, and also to reflect more concretely on the elusive concepts life seems to throw into my lens.

it seems that images in the snow invoke apocalyptic sentiment--its not much of a stretch to real life--we hole up in isolation. in the snow, you either have some place to go, or you don't.

this climate "change" goes nicely with my recurrent sense of doom in my life that the speed of life is increasing too quickly.

white balancing to night time snow is nice too.

one from the vault

2011-01-31T19:30:00.000-07:00

last time it snowed, march.

Denver Big Air Ski Competition

2011-01-26T12:27:00.001-07:00

Tried my trigger finger at sports last night, while shooting Denver Big Air, for the Westword.

Overnight, a large structure fashioned to accommodate ski and snowboard trials for the Big Air Word Cup grew up out of nowhere, bringing in tow huge sponsors, such as Nature Valley and Paul Mitchell. I have found, in the minimal experience I've had, that sports photography is just plain fun, and certainly something I'd like to dapple in more. The scape of the city wasn't bad for these stark night shots either.

Looking forward to catching the snowboard segment of the show tonight.

waterboys

2011-01-24T20:21:00.000-07:00

interested in the sweeping away of the identity, and the anonymity water inflicts
interested in the lack of control

a love story between friends

2011-01-22T17:59:00.007-07:00

Recently, Steff and Summer fell in love......

Click to Enlarge Photos.

Stay Tuned for a gallery exclusively of Steff.

Steff von Mende owned the Sundance Cafe in Ned, working with my dear friend Heather , when she was dating my ex-girlfriend, Von (the one on the right . At the time, Steff was the Guiness Book of World Records holder of the most oysters eaten in 2 minutes--113. I met Steff while I was with Von, and soon introduced her to my friend Liza . Eliza went to middle school with my old friend, KC , from Mackinac. I wanted to bone him, and spent weeks mustering the courage to break my gay stream. But when I divulged my fascination with him, he turned me down but came with me to Colorado, and ended up fucking my space cadet genius friend, Odelia from Sarah Lawrence. Keith introduced me to Liza around the same time. I slept with Odelia several times, engaging in elicit, youthful three somes and spending morning in cherry blossom trees. One Halloween, Odelia dressed as Mary Magdelene, ran around with her little boobies flapping about, and kept forgetting where she had left her top. Her lover, Mark, was, fittingly, Jesus. Liza and Steff dated for a quick second, but not for very long. When Von and I broke up, Steff and I started spending a lot more time together. I don't think this pleased Von's ego or heart, but good friendships are good for the soul of the universe, so Von benefited in this manner. One August, we were hanging out at our friend's Rachel's bus. Rachel introduced us to her, ex, none other than Holly Smokovitz . Although Steff wanted to hook up with Holly, I made a break for it and stuck my tongue down her throat before Steff could finish singing this song she wrote and playing the guitar. I had to give Steff a ride home, so we drove all the way up to Rollinsville with Holly in between us. This wasn't the first chick I had picked up with Steff in tow, one time, I hooked up with this Turkish chick Deniz, who Steff coined my "Turkey." at an Indigo Girls concert, and we all hitchhiked up the mountain at 2 am. When I got to my car, which was parked in Nederland, I drove drunk and blew a tire. I never ended up calling Deniz back, and I don't remember feeling all that guilty either. I feel guilty now that I wrote that. Although I dogged Steff for Holly , the two formed their own friendship and formed a band together. Holly's roommate Kimand I hit it off, although my friend Heidi , who doesn't speak to me anymore over the ordeal, was into Kim as well . Heidi stopped speaking to Steff too, because Steff incidentally spent some time with Kim just following a one-night-stand with Heidi. I don't know why anyone would want to rule Steff out of their life. Steff's a hero. She once came away with an innocent wrestling match at pride with bruised ribs . She's been a pharmacist, restaurant owner, lumberjack, bassist, and now, a gold miner. One time, doctors mentioned that she might not ever walk again, but she proved them wrong just a year later. So, based on a similar toughness, Kim and Steff decided they would be best off as friends. Kim and I had known one another for a year before we began dating , although I fantasized about her picking me up and throwing me against the wall for quite some before hand. One night, at Tracks, Kim blurted out, "Holly says you have a crush on me "and I confirmed her suspicion . We spent the evening making out, even though the next morning, I was boarding a plane to go see this girl I had recently met on Mackinac. My friend, Britten, who I had a threesome with earlier that season with her and her husband Jeremy, had introduced me to this chick, Summer . Keith happened to be on the island at the right time, and made a bit of headway with Summer, but not enough. Who could blame him for coming on too strong. Summer is ever engaging, poised yet cutloose and always interested in an adventure. Kim had a hard time getting me to experiment with her, because I was into Summer, but romance forces had other plans for me, and when Summer failed to return my phone calls, it was full on . Over this winter, Summer came to visit us and met Steff . The two noncommital, loud-mouthed aries quickly realized their perfect compatibility and have been dating ever since. I would probably be angry if Summer were dating anyone other than Steff . I'm so overjoyed by their relationship that I have begun to document their affections. Sometimes friends should share, and I like it; Steff and Summer are unequivocally genuine . In a room quiet room, their decibel increases exponentially each minute .

Pyrite?

2011-01-12T14:25:00.002-07:00

While I was in South America, I of course noticed the historically proportional incidences of churches, nativity scenes, icons of holiday sentiment, and superstitious tradition indicative of the mass appeal Christianity still maintains in these post-Incan cultures.

Working through my observations of the plasticization of pyrite, I make these.

2011-01-11T20:24:00.004-07:00

Christmas in Galapagos

2011-01-10T19:43:00.000-07:00

its christmas in Pto Ayora. Young, t-shirted children deploy fireworks straight from their bellies, in front of the hospital, while you buy meat on a stick and corn. I photograph. Have to put it at waist level and click from my heart so they don't stop playing
the shops are so pink and every mannequin and plastic notion is crystal clear as roman statues and all point to one thing or another--reproduction or war.

fake moustaches

2011-01-10T19:34:00.000-07:00

Well, Mondo didn't take the throne during the project runway finale, but he still managed to coalesce quite the following:

in line at customs

2011-01-08T20:58:00.000-07:00

a trip to the american legion

2010-11-13T22:08:00.001-07:00

which i never really knew existed.

holy apocalypse

2010-11-11T18:28:00.001-07:00

as in, bitches love to dance.

Thoth-alicious

2010-11-11T18:21:00.002-07:00

Meet Thoth.
Subject of a recent portrait shoot. We traded a psychic reading and chakra allignment for a photo shoot.
Thoth was subject to a poisonous spider bite ten years ago, and still suffers dire consequences. The morning of our photo shoot marked a first for Thoth--he had all the symptoms of a resurfacing of the subclinical infection flare-up, caused by the bite. These symptoms have, in the past, always warranted a hospital visit. Today, the flare-up started, and went away, allowing us to still conduct our portrait session. Notably, it had been years and years since Thoth had his portrait made. During our shoot, Thoth and I talked a lot about death and release, as my hypochondria and fears of death have been rearing their head lately--I am working to accept death as an integral part of life. Perhaps we both helped each other that day on some level. The setting of the burned down forest accentuates this theme. Our location was the site of the 4-mile canyon fires that raged earlier this fall. The bus that you see in some of the images was a camp school bus melted by the fires. Here are some notable shots.

studies

2010-10-22T21:35:00.004-06:00

been reassessing my natural tendencies in composition with inanimate studies.

here are some results.

If Miro and Mondrian birthed a digital photograph in my kitchen.

some sort of Magritian planet

Last night.

Last night, at the Zombie Burlesque. I like the bxw

anonymity

2010-10-21T19:31:00.001-06:00

One of the most important functions as artists is to remain anonymous in the scheme of our pervasive bodies of work. This mirrors our reality as human beings in the scheme of time: we are as integrated, as futile as vast as our imagination of infinity. This notion constantly reinforces itself, as I have been embarking on late-night walks through alley ways. I am not interested in any sort of sociological study derived from the trash in alleys, more, I am interested in the anonymity and humility that presents itself in these night time scenes. I am also searching for symbols of deconstructed American identity (ie broken lamp post) and of course, visual irony (trash in the ocean-themed child's pool).

Mackinac Studies

2010-09-27T09:39:00.000-06:00

Sometimes those walks where one clears the mind is necessary to appreciating the ease and spontaneity of photographing. When I become disdainful of my craft, I move as far away from it as possible. Take the dogs for a walk. Without fail, my eye starts to function on an unhindered level. I start to see again. After my relinquishing walk, I ran back to the house to get my camera. The frames I saw had inevitably disappeared. I found these instead.
I am working towards publishing a book on the unseen parts of Mackinac, and sell it in the island bookstore next summer. Perhaps these images will be included.

I like the notion of transition in these. The part of the year where pillows are collected from hotels, or when the grain is packaged and brought to the horses. Falling asleep, waiting for the load to be taken.
The dollhouse in the second image works perfectly with the color of the home. I like the play on what is real and what is artificial--a theme very pertinent to the island. I think these two images fit handsomely as a pair--the upside down burley and the drey--both cut off by the framing--seems to denote a sort of incompleteness.

Mackinac Island Music Festival Favorites

2010-09-10T15:42:00.000-06:00

Although it was a few weeks ago now, I still cannot seem to get the joy that the Mackinac Island Music Festival brought me out of my heart--but why would I want to?

These award winning musicians don't fail to put a smile on my face, whether backstage or onstage. I think the biggest compliment came, when several of them came up to me and requested that I crawl around onstage and get in their face, because they like to have me up there, jiving with them.
I was floored. This may be the only event that I am not seen as the annoying photog, and welcomed as a friend and a collaborator. Thanks guys!

Jill Jack plays with my heart, and her lovely scarf.

Gary Rasmussen

Billy Brandt and Sarana Verlin

Billy Brand, Sarana Verlin and Dennis Forbes

The Alex Graham Quartet

The extraordinary Audra Kubat finds inspiration backstage

Senior Portrait

2010-09-10T15:33:00.000-06:00

Okay,
I LOVED doing little miss Hannah Chamber's senior portrait, because it gave me another opportunity to spread my wings with staged location shooting in my favorite place in the world. My dream: high end fashion shoots on Mackinac--the most beautiful set I can fathom.
So ordinary, yet so ethereal.
Here are some faves from the shoot:

time to blog

2010-08-18T00:49:00.001-06:00

took these images over the past few days.

until last week, hadn't picked up the camera due to a full time waitressing job i picked up to give myself the leeway to enjoy photography again.
"yes! a wedding." never thought i'd hear those words enter my thoughts. but alas, i actually enjoyed shooting a wedding, although it was an andrejka wedding, so i guess is its always enjoyable. i found myself shooting for myself during the spare moments of the bus ride out back from the ceremony at pictured rocks--this is where the first image comes from (although i'm tempted to put it up in b&w). i was surprised at my newfound fervor for shooting, as i no longer ever think about my own eye at weddings that i second shoot.

my second wind of shocking inspiration came after this wreched bike accident. motherfucker on the wrong side of the road in the complete dark slams right into me. had to shoot anyways. tired, i forgot most of my gear downtown.

when i went back for it, i couldn't stop shooting.

welcome to denver

2010-07-29T12:45:00.000-06:00

where the male lady gaga fashionistas far outnumber the females.
thank god for evolution, and fashion decisions that push the envelope (although these outfits seem to be exact replicas). MAY FAG SUPREMACY REIGN!

carriages on parade

2010-07-24T12:52:00.001-06:00

Sometimes, the photos just look pretty. I don't do it often, but since my mother commissioned me (trade for being born) to do these images for the Mackinac Horsemen's Association, I thought I'd make the skies extra blue for her. (Last year, around this time, I showed her my newest portfolio; her biggest criticism: none of the skies were blue). Well, fuck!
ps. this is the first time in a few months that i've gone flashless.

2010-07-21T23:01:00.001-06:00

memory lapse

2010-07-21T22:25:00.000-06:00

at a bbq over the fourth of july, i cut my right middle finger so badly that i hit the nerve. i still do not have feeling in it. i lost a substantial amount of blood, and the memory of taking these shots has been gone until now. i must have downloaded them the next morning, after my er visit, while i was still buzzed out from going into shock.
here are shots my hand last took before it lost consciousness.

underworld again

2010-07-16T12:26:00.000-06:00

today i woke up early and met riann at the docks for some underworld shooting. last summer, i pegged this spot as an ideal location for a fashion shoot. today my vision was executed to a tee, thanks mostly to miss cousino's long mermaid legs. to get these shots, we climbed under the coal docks--the landing for coal transport to the island, and now the unloading spot for the big rigs that bring all the beer and load them onto the horse drays. riann is laying on the wooden rafters that support the dock. below her is eight or ten feet of water.
here are my two faves.

tough chicks

2010-07-05T23:02:00.000-06:00

these women put up with thousands of drunk lesbians pulling on their thongs and shoving dollar bills in their bras. and they are wonderful to work with. i hooked up with them at the June 1st Friday. The Rocky Mountain Dykes on Bikes were kind enough to let us use their bikes as a playground. Special thanks to the Center for the makeout scooter prop! :)

2010-06-18T16:08:00.000-06:00

im pondering the ramificaitons of each path i take in this expanding realm of image making. uhhh lot.
i know that as a documentary photographer, life's cake. i exist within the problem and i am under no obligation to make statements about what is going on. i record, and through my voice, something that i do not fully understand arises. something.
my commercial experience is limited, and i am coming to see that as a commercial photographer, it becomes the obligation to invent life, and invent the solution through the product you sell. the elusive life of documentarian comes to play only in the facade of life and the actual interaction between model and photographer.in this new season where i aspire to see my work in large-circulation commercial projects, i am terrified to direct all of this energy to something i know is bullshit, but i am overjoyed at the opportunity to learn how to direct my energy.
and then i may understand what that something means.

erykah badu

2010-06-17T13:51:00.000-06:00

last evening

2010-06-04T19:17:00.000-06:00

at casa bonita. nast, yet a potential spot for a teeny bopper or strange indie band shoot.

landscape templates

2010-05-29T14:54:00.002-06:00

I noticed that this blog was getting awfully full with party shots. Hence, some landscapes from the past month. I don't show a lot of landscapes because of how easy it is for me to create them. Back at SLC in '03, Joel Sternfeld pointed out to our class the vertical approximately 1/3 through the composition of every one of his landscapes from American Prospects. I find that my vertical lies about 3/8 through the composition, and that I abide steadfastly to the rule of thirds. These images aren't exactly pioneers in the rugged frontier of radical composition, but they have some good content.

Funny ones

2010-05-27T10:04:00.000-06:00

From the past couple weeks. Westword lovin. Look for a piece on the Guardian Angels of Denver soon.

note homeboy dancing with girl number one.

and grabbing the tits of girl number two.

Mackinac Art Museum

2010-05-27T09:41:00.000-06:00

It's finally happening. This year, thanks to Dick and Jane Manoogian, Mackinac celebrates the innaugural season of a museum honoring the vast history and current practice of the arts on and about the island. For the opening season, they invited a smattering of island artists to submit pieces to a juried show curated by Mary Ann Wilkinson . Anticipating that they would only select one piece of the three that I submitted, I chose a wide variety of pieces that all somehow could be covered by one statement. God only knows how I was able to sucessfully join all three of these contrasting pieces into a cohesive body, (but if you are interested, you can read it below), but shockingly, they chose all three pieces. Each image will be shown as a lightjet print measuring 40" long. Here are the three that will be shown. Although the date of the opening reception is unclear, it is sometime during July. Check back on my blog or the museum website for further information.

My photographic anthem to Mackinac is ignited by the ironic dialogue between past and present unfolding on this island. Here, as most places have, has seen a plethora of histories altered and mixed through time’s tilling. It is through this lens that I investigate island residents, unexpected landscapes and unique truth-bending narratives.

Versions of Ojibwe folklore reveres the island as the birthplace of man, as well as the earthly home of creator god Gitchee Manitou. Now, tourist-pilgrims visit the island daily to immerse themselves in historical reenactments-- one-dimensional attempts to revive an obscure utopian time. Like a land of ghosts repeating the same patterns over and over, the island seems a half-empty reminder of what may or may not have happened, once upon a time. Instead, one finds the energy of what always is, fully intact, growing out of the cracks of our attempts to re-create it.

Mackinac Island: Early French Fur Trade, War of 1812, Victorian Japonism, Chippewa legend all arriving today. Generations of men who moved invisible glaciers materialize as a replenishing series of eyes. Tour guides sing ever-changing myth to ponchos, tshirts and jackets respectively. Thick blue trash bags, Varney hotel rooms and the eyebags of summer employees gradually fill. Fake indian paraphernalia rides horseback beside toy rifles the size of shipwrecks. Poets, alcoholics, boy scouts, bugalists, guitarists, politicians, summer cottagers.

Transient home. Winter. Life exists through all seasons.

notoutakes from the past few weeks

2010-05-11T22:34:00.001-06:00

May 11th. Snowing on my row cover. I am confident that my vegetable crops will sustain.

In order to avoid your visit to this page becoming obsolete, click on the images so you can actually see the content. And check out the full slideshows from these events:

http://www.westword.com/slideshow/first-friday-at-tracks-29862057/

http://www.westword.com/slideshow/saturday-night-at-5-degrees-29810535/

New strange glamour.

2010-04-26T22:55:00.000-06:00

Sometimes people are willing to be photographed; sometimes they are not. These people were willing-- templates for a mainstream exploration of counter-culture through glamour imagery.

Recent Music

2010-04-22T18:35:00.001-06:00

Here are some favorites taken backstage and throughout show at Mackinac Island's Last Waltz at the Magic Bag in Ferndale, and Bitch at the Walnut Room in Denver.

Last Waltz

2010-04-12T13:41:00.001-06:00

Check out the Flickr Pics:

www.flickr.com/katelevyphotography

Ode to water on the lens

2010-03-24T16:39:00.000-06:00

I had been in front of the computer all day, so I ventured out with my girlfriend to take some pictures late last night. She's asking all these insightful questions about trapping energy in shadows, and awestruck by the snow, while I'll I can do is think about how fucking frustrated I am with the snow flying sideways and hitting the lens.

Mackinac Last Week

2010-03-24T15:04:00.006-06:00

Summer resort, Grand Hotel's Dining Room holds porch geranium boxes. The Duck spent years of winters fixing furniture for the hotel. Some people have claimed that Indians were buried under the grand, and were later exhumed without care. This has been proven untrue. There are many graves scattered haphazardly around the island; in the winter, it was impossible to dig graves. However, the Grand Hotel doesn't seem to be one of them.

I've been playing with this body for a few years. For a while, I made ghost images of myself and others in various points of interest on the island--places where myth has transformed with history, mainly the history of clashing cultures. I would juxtapose fake indian paraphernalia, reproduction flags, and toy artifacts into the images, referencing the plasticizing of legend brought forth by its maleable nature. Using the idea of ghost to symbolize Mackinac as a place that literally repeats history, I was exploring the change that explore ultimately the nature of our lives while we create and repeat legacy. I see the work as a brainstorming session for the body which will at some point contain some of the images below.

George Wellington, Sr., the only taxi driver in the winter. A taxi on Mackinac Island is a horse-drawn carrige.

A workshop at an island barn, taxi carriage shaft is hanging for refinishing.

Don "The Duck" Andress, 6x great grandson of Chief Mackinac.

Luggage carts and awards left for the season at the Grand Hotel bellstand.

Sitting at the table with Becky Gallagher and Jen Bunker, reading about and poking fun at the big chiefs in the newspaper.

Johnny Ray and his "Hits of Johnny Ray" tape.

Albert Mosley riding bikes in his backyard. Was adopted at age two with his two brothers into a family making nine (The fam has since grown to eleven with the addition of a grandson and a fiance). His mother runs a daycare out of her house.

Duck, Gizmo and Teddy Ruxpin.

Bobby Roach hangs out at the barn after work.

The Duck with his hand-made walking sticks, one of which is in the Smithsonian American Indian Museum.

George Wellington and the number 3.

In this work, I am channeling some of those ideas as a lens to explore the resident culture on the island. Of particular interest to me is the Chippewa community, and the people who have resided on the island for generations. I hope that through this body of work, I can apply the idea of myth transforming history and events transforming myth to Native American history.

This year, the old structure called the Indian Dormitory will become the Richard and Jane Manoogian Mackinac Island Art Museum. (Whether or not the structure ever served as an actual dormitory is highly debatable.) Also of interest in this project to expose tourists to a side of the island that isn't marketed as a commodity. Through the eventual exhibition (and hopefully coffee table book) of these images, a strange commodification occurs. I am seeking to probe both the nature and novelty of residing on a tourist island that is closed for half the year, exploring the reality of a place built on the subfloors of historical legacy.

I intend for this project to seep into a much larger project about the lives of proclaimed Native Americans in the present day, so any feedback or leads would be greatly appreciate.

also--PLEASE CRITICIZE!! To see more images like this from the island, click here

Also, visit the Mackinac Island Tourism Bureau Website.

Just between Friend

2010-03-24T14:39:00.002-06:00

Sunday Beer Bust. I'd never been to it. I don't really go out more than once or twice a month on my own volition. Aside from photographic endeavors, I'm a homebody. I usually sit at home grilling on my computer, while all four of my self-employed or student roomates shuffle around me. Lots of people come over to hang out. But I usually just sit there on my computer.
I go through phases, and I'm not always like that. Just recently. I'm not a total potato. I like to snowboard, hike, cook, have sex too. And I just made myself get up and help my roommage cook breakfast.
Yet, I find myself making myself not think about photography. I'm sure that if the universe would grant me with a part-time job (and by the universe, I mean that i'm sure its just me), i wouldn't think about photographing so much, because I wouldn't be dependent on it to eat (okay that's not true--my friends and family have always been really helpful with that, but i am most certainly dependent on photography to feel as though i am making a contribution).
I'm being facetious. Or not.
So when I go out to photograph, I am usually awestruck by the superfluous world happening outside of me. Its a bit patronizing on my end, I'll admit. Luckily I do have some party experience. I'm don't have an appreciation for raging nightlife like I do sweeping landscapes and meticulously crafted wine; however, there is a great cultural motivation ingrained in the art of social planning--the integration of technology, activism and the repetition of generational patterns of saying "fuck you," to name a few. So when I went to the Wrangler, shot for a while, I wasn't exactly surprised to hear that more than one of the patrons was, shall we say, taken off guard. Historically, gays have not had the most pleasant experience with cameras, as it has not traditionally been in a gay person's best interest to be photographed. Outing in the press has long undergone scrutiny on all sides of the spectrum, ever begging the question of the benefits and drawbacks of outing as a form of social honesty. The head security guard was apprehensive about the individuals who may be seen, and who may lose their job, so I immediately agreed to only show the images of consenting people; while I do believe that showing gays in mainstream media can do a whole lot to enlighten and desensitize the discriminating population, I don't believe that one person's livelihood is worth the fight started by someone else. I also question the benefits of having a clear motive to "show the gay lifestyle." When the primary motive is to show, what else is there to show? And showing particular behaviors like drinking, dancing and looking pretty without a comprehensive glimpse on gay lifestyle if there were one has potential to perpetuate a stereotype to the non-gay world, but this argument is based on the acceptance that there should be a gay world and a non-gay world. At the end of the day, although I admittedly love the camaraderie and exclusivity, I just don't believe in the segregation. Further, I see every shooting endeavor as a way to show the subject to themselves. Its far more important to me to feed a culture back to itself than it is to fit it into something outside of that entity. But if I had it my way, we'd be outside all of the time. But the world is the way it is.
So I am going to do two things with the photos below:
show you a some of the personal work I've been doing with my friends, who happen to be big, fat homos too, as well as some outake photos from the Wrangler. Click on 'em if you want to see them larger. Just please excuse my slip ups in watermarking and don't take 'em without permission :)

St Paddys Gay

2010-03-19T16:49:00.000-06:00

So, what does it actually mean when you say you are Irish?
And what does it mean when you get married?

Working on these photographs from St. Patricks day, I question the creation of and exploitation of the identities to which we expose ourselves. Gay boys are fun to do that with.

Her Bar

2010-03-15T12:02:00.002-06:00

HEY Y'ALLL
welcome to denver.
depleting and replenishing lesbian community--coming and going.

jody b used to be a bartender at the Wave back in the early part of this century. recall?
she worked at the Detour for a while, before that building got sold.
Then, she started this bomb ass coffee bar--There. Her latest entrepreneurial venture: to sustain a lesbian bar in denver.
Jody put together this bar that just keeps getting better, and it appears to be here to stay. And the women just keep getting hotter.
I'm will be shooting Her bar and There Coffee monthly thanks to Jody's desire to invite artists from the community into the good life.
Here are some shots from the first go at it:

March Anniversary First Friday

2010-03-11T15:57:00.000-07:00

For the first time, I shot Babes Around Denver First Friday for Westword, as well as for Dede Frain, the creator of the women's party. Have a look at the images Westword used here.

Here are a few shots; also check out all of them on Flickr