Winter Work
The winter is a different time for me. I get to make photographs for me and me alone. My kids probably like it best when I’m busy photographing other people…
I don’t need any faces
no smiles required
finger lickin’ good, cha.
me
My Reflective Lens: Monthly Self Portrait Project
“Open” as seen on My Reflective Lens
Each month I try to produce at least one self portrait. Along the way, I am sharing these images with a group of very talented photographers around the country and world who also create self portraits. Some for the first time. We have a facebook group and are also sharing on our website called My Reflective Lens.
I sometimes feel like self portraiture just seems natural, since I am home by myself with my thoughts and can create without the help of anyone. Other times I feel like self portraits are narcissistic and stupid. I have to push past the latter thought, since I really feel like this work has helped me create more purposefully. It may seem weird to photograph oneself… but I really do, in my heart, think it is a natural way to create and communicate through art.
Photograph yourself beyond the selfie, get past the duck face. If only so your family and friends can see you; the creator of so much beauty with a lens. Get in the shot.
I had no idea…
Hey blog. It’s been a tough couple of weeks. I’m not really sure how to process it all, so I’ll share a little here. A bit of writing therapy. Here goes:
My dad passed away and I’ve been left to wrap my mind around a few major issues. He decided it best that I didn’t know he had cancer for the past 8 years and bed ridden and dying since Thanksgiving. I’m not sure why anyone would keep their death from their own daughter, but that was what he chose. It is strange and bizarre and I feel a bit cheated. We weren’t close. He was a hard man; difficult to love, difficult to understand his motivations… prickly.  I believe he wrote me off because of political differences which is ridiculous to me. So I feel like I don’t really know why the past 6 or 7 years he had been pulling away, if only to save me from grief. Which I also don’t understand.
I visited with my siblings after his death. There was no service so we made our own. Below is pictured our time together recounting the good times we had with our dad. We also wrote questions to him, since he left us with so many, and burnt them in the fire. Having returned to California and Huntington Beach specifically brought back so many childhood memories. So much has changed but I found some old HB between the newly built skin. Those images I have been posting on my instagram feed as a sort of homage to my dad.
Truth
I don’t want to say too much about this image, only that many of these themes are spoken about each Sunday. I take notes; pictures & words. What really gets me listening and note-taking is when I can see an image, a photograph. That’s the only way I feel there is a purpose to the notes… if I have an end product in mind. At least that is how I started the nerd-like note taking. My church notes revolve around the thought “how can I photograph this?” then I draw. Often talks are dripping with imagery. Often they are dripping with instruction, how to become a better person. Many times a story is shared and it isn’t mine to photograph. Then I simply draw so I remember the story and how it inspired me. Doodling really. and not well, I might add. But who cares. Here, I’ll even share with you the terrible sketch that made this photograph swim in my head for a few weeks before I put it to film (term used, but I don’t shoot film. sigh). Full disclosure.
Hey Mami
My next installment into the Self Portrait section of this blog follows the lyrics of the song “Hey Mami” by the very talented Slyvan Esso. Check out the tune here, along with the rest of the album here. Cuz it’s all pretty amazing. Every time I hear that song I think maybe I could be as cool as that mami.
“But out here oh she don’t know the gravity she owns
As she pulls on the eyeballs of all the kids standing tall…”
Zach says mami means grandma… So I’ve got a few years to get this walk around town down right. But really, the part that says “Hey Mami, we want mami…” over and over really feels like my life. Although the cry for mommy has lessened this month since all kids are in school.
This Sylvan Esso song makes me think of its predecessor “Mama” by the Sugar Cubes, which was released in 1988.
These lyrics really describe everything about a mother. My images only scratch the surface. This is a project that could be explored forever.
Words, songs and images. Enjoy.
“I was watchin’ the woman that was walkin’ down my street
Walkin’ with grace, so beautifully, carefully
She’s a big and pretty mother, big and pretty mother
Swingin’ her hand-bag back and forth so joyfully
She’s drawin’ circles with her breasts in her jumper
Give me a big mother
Huge and loving one
I can crawl upon
And cling to
She’s a large woman, warm and cuddly
Wet lady strong mother
She’s walkin’ down the street in front of my window
Whistlin’ funky tunes in the ears of my neighbors
Give me a big mother
One that will always want me
Hot, embracing mother
I can crawl upon
And cling to
Can’t be safer, can’t be more secure
Than with a breast in each palm
Than with a breast in each palm
That is the way that I was born
And that is the way that I want to die
Give me a big mother
Yes, a soft and wet one
That would caress me
In all those special places
Where’s a strong mother
One that squeezes me
One that I can crawl upon?”