This blog has been a great exercise, but I’m taking an indefenite leave from posting here. I may throw up the occasional new work or NYC Journal posting, and I may revisit the blog idea with my work in a different form down the road, but for now my picture making ideas are focused elsewhere. Thanks!
A few looks we shot for Interview June 09 of Victorinox’s men’s fashion.
photo: Victorinox for Interview, ©Graeme Mitchell.
photo: Victorinox for Interview, ©Graeme Mitchell.
Stylist: Miguel Enamorado
Groomer: Laura de Leon (w/ Joe Management)
Photo Assistant: Nyra Lang
Model: Michael (w/ DNA)
Location: Fast Ashley’s Studios
In the ages to come man may be able to predict, perhaps even to control, the wayward courses of the winds and clouds, but hardly will his puny hands have strength to speed afresh our slackening planet in its orbit or rekindle the dying fire of the sun. Yet the philosopher who trembles at the idea of such distant catastrophes may console himself by reflecting that these gloomy apprehensions, like the earth and the sun themselves, are only part of the unsubstantial world which thought has conjured up out of the void, and that the phantoms which the subtle enchantress has evoked to-day she may ban to-morrow. They too, like so much that to common eyes seems solid, may melt into air, into thin air.
-from The Golden Bough, by Sir James G. Frazer
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
Il Conformista, by Bernardo Bertolucci, is one of the most amazingly shot films I’ve ever seen.
Ever.
Period.
I see in it everything from Lynch’s central oeuvre to Missoni’s FW09 campaign.
photo: still from Il Conformista
and Lynch…
photo: still from David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive.
photo: still from Il Conformista
Lynch again…
photo: still from David Lynch’s Mulholland Drive.
photo: still from Il Conformista
Missoni…
photo: Missoni FW 09 campaign, ©Steven Meisel.
——
On a seperate note, get to ICP to see the Avedon show!…or if you can’t make it, at least you can see the NYTimes multimedia feature, here.
I did a quick yet idea provoking walk through the MET’s exhibition “model as muse” yesterday. The exhibition’s been getting a lot of press, rightfully, as it’s both excellently curated and art directed. Two things struck me while walking through the show. First, how incredible Dior has been in the history of fashion (duh), and how it remains to be under Galliano. The recent Dior Couture they had on display was incredible. It’s the sort of stuff that makes me want to photograph clothing. Second, I was amazed at both how many people were at the exhibit and how interested they were in it. Which seems like a silly thing to say, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen so many people so interested in any exhibit I’ve been to. It was a reminder of how fashion and this aspect of our culture really is mass, and while it feels like it can become isolated to the little bubbles of NYC, Paris, London, etc, it’s so much larger than that. Maybe Penn summed it best in stating, to paraphrase, I take photographs for the housewife in the mid-west.
The museum also posted it’s curator talks in 9 parts, which are a nice history of models and fashion’s social/cultural functions in general:
1 of 9:
2 0f 9:
3 of 9:
4 of 9:
5 of 9:
6 of 9:
7 of 9:
8 of 9:
9 of 9:
I think Roger Ballen’s new book, Boarding House, takes the previous themes he’s explored and winds them into the most coherent vision of his work yet. It’s dark stuff. It’s scary stuff. It digs deep, surfacing forgotten recesses of the psyche, troubled archetypes your mind does it’s best to loose in the furthest and deepest mine shafts of your soul. But it’s also brilliant stuff, some of the most real and touching work I’ve seen in a while, all at once sublimely terrifying and terrifyingly sublime.
photo: “Fragments, 2005″ ©Roger Ballen.
photo: “Cornered, 2004″ ©Roger Ballen.
photo: “Boarder, 2005″ ©Roger Ballen.
I was having a super late post-party supper with a group from Tank while in London and the fash ed started talking about this really far out stuff and, as you’d guess, my interest piqued. It was a film. I won’t belabor the specifics here, but will only repeat what she said, it is amaaaaazing, then said again after a dramatic pause to assure my full attention, amaaaaazing. So I watched it. It’s called The Holy Mountain, by Alejandro Jodorowsky, and, I agree, it is most certainly incredible, but…wow.
video: trailer to The Holy Mountain
Nearly makes Barney’s Creamaster Cycle seem par for, er, normal.
video: Trailer for Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle.
On a completely different note, standing applause for Visionaires #56 solar-powered book. Putting up a good fight for why the printed magazine/book will always have it’s place.
photo: from Visionaire 56, ©Richard Burbridge
photo: from Visionaire 56, ©David Sims
More a regurgitation of a conversation, but after all, it’s a blog: so: while having lunch in Tompkins Sq. yesterday with photo-friend, Aaron Binaco he gave me some, how should I put it, neat shit. My first sun-drunk-enthusiasm was for that by now well known moment when Avedon went to take Freidlander’s portrait at his home, and how Freidlander, being a really real photographer (see note), also took Avedon’s portrait. I said I could find the Avedon picture, but have yet to be able to find the Friedlander. Well, Aaron found it and sent it to me. I imagine a sort of stand-off of great personalities, great wills face to face, and even if they were cordial and kind on some level it must have been profound-intense. Either as a matter of attrition of neither ever giving in, or maybe rather of two old masters being able to wink and nod, knowingly.
photo: from Aperture #188, Lee Friedlander by Richard Avedon (left) and Richard Avedon by Lee Friedlander (right)
Both Aaron and I grew up racing bicycles, so then he started on about this Scottish trials rider, saying, “he’d ride up that tree over there and just chill out,” while pointing at this giant bloody elm that a cat could maybe climb. I called, hyperbole!, but then he emailed me this link and jesusmurphy…if you’ve ever ridden a bike you should be able to appreciate this video:
And, yes, I am in fact posting on extreme sports youtube video…sigh, probably a slippery slope, so I’ll post this to balance it out:
photo: Corvette I saw in soho which I voted best possible prop of the day and sent it to a fashion editor with a synopsis of a story involving Death Valley, Bottega heels, and a Camio by Dennis Hopper (as eminence grise, naturally). Fashion editor responded, I weep.
Note: “real photograher”: I was shooting on 5th ave by Tiffany’s on Saturday morning, and I saw this old timer shooting people fast with an old Nikon. I guessed maybe he was part of the old-Magnum-guard. I said, hello, asked his name, he said, Bill Cunningham, didn’t ring a bell. I asked him if shot there much, if he’d seen Bruce Gilden out, he’s always shooting on this corner. He said, I have seen him in the afternoon; how is Bruce? I said, I’ve no idea, I just see him, can’t catch him. He said, now that’s a real photographer. I liked that. Since there was truth in it. We chatted a bit more, then he took off after this super chic blonde to photograph. I thought, huh, mildly-licentious, but, yeah! It wasn’t until I mentioned it later in the day in passing that someone explained to me who Bill is. Love it. Before he ran of he waved and said, keep snapping kid. I offer the same good-bye, keep snapping, Bill!
Director, Cary Joji Fukunaga for Interview, May 09.
photo: Cary Joji Fukunaga, Brooklyn, ‘09. ©Graeme Mitchell.
Oh, and I just caught Cary’s new film, Sin Nombre (here). I was speechless, really incredible work for a debut at the ripe age of 30.
Photo Assistant: Aaron Binaco
Fashion Editor: Miguel Enamorado
Grooming: Daniel Martin (w/ The Wall Group)
Location: Brooklyn, NY
Cali-pop-rocker aptly named, Wavves, for Interview, May ‘09.
photo: Wavves, NYC ‘09. ©Graeme Mitchell.
Hear some of his tunes, here.
Photo Assistant: Aaron Binaco
Fashion Editor: Miguel Enamorado
Grooming: Benjamin Puckey (w/ See Management)
Location: Shoot Digital, NYC
‘I always wanted you to admire my fasting,’ the hunger-artist said. ‘And so we do,’ the foreman said obligingly. ‘But you shouldn’t admire it,’ the hunger-artist said. ‘Well, all right, we don’t,’ said the foreman, “but why shouldn’t we?” ‘Because I have to fast, I can’t help it,’ the hunger-artist said. ‘Well, I’m blowed,’ said the foreman, ‘and why can’t you help it?’ ‘Because,’ the hunger-artist began, lifting his head a little and, with lips pursed as if for a kiss, speaking right into the foreman’s ear lest anything be lost, ‘because I’ve never been able to find the kind of nourishment I like. If I had found it, believe you me, I’d not have made this fuss but would have eaten my fill the same as you and everyone else.’ Those were his last words, but his shattered gaze retained the firm if no longer proud conviction that he was fasting yet.
from Franz Kafka’s short story, The Hunger Artist.
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
As per the title, my shadow after Friedlander,
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
and then some more,
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell
all rights reserved by Graeme Mitchell © 2009
