“that meagre and fragile thread… by which the little surface corners and edges of men’s secret and solitary lives may be joined for an instant now and then before sinking back into the darkness where the spirit cried for the first time and was not heard and will cry for the last time and will not be heard then either”
-from Absolom, Absolom! by William Faulkner.
photo: Flowers from the Fall, 2009. ©Graeme Mitchell.
photo: Flowers from the Fall, 2009. ©Graeme Mitchell.
photo: Flowers from the Fall, 2009. ©Graeme Mitchell.
photo: from light study, 2010, ©Graeme Mitchell.
photo: from light study, 2010, ©Graeme Mitchell.
photo: from light study, 2010, ©Graeme Mitchell.
photo: from light study, 2010, ©Graeme Mitchell.
“his very body was an empty hall echoing with sonorous defeated names; he was not a being, an entity, he was a commonwealth. He was a barracks filled with stubborn, back-looking ghosts…”
-from Absolom, Absolom! by William Faulkner.
photo: Flowers from the Fall, 2009. ©Graeme Mitchell.
photo: Flowers from the Fall, 2009. ©Graeme Mitchell.
photo: Flowers from the Fall, 2009. ©Graeme Mitchell.
(Opps, had to pull and re-post this. I thought it ran in Dec, turns out it’s in this month’s Interview issue, Feb. So once again…)
The actor, Alex Kaluzhsky, shot for Interview.
Alex Kaluzhsky, NYC, 2009, ©Graeme Mitchell.
Alex Kaluzhsky, NYC, 2009, ©Graeme Mitchell.
Stylist: Miguel Enamorado
Groomer: Laura de Leon (w/ Joe Management)
Photo Assistant: Nyra Lang
Location: Fast Ashley’s Studios
More, yet:
We have a few old mouth-to-mouth tales, we exhume from old trunks and boxes and drawers letters without salutation or signature, in which men and women who once lived and breathed are now merely initials or nicknames out of some now incomprehensible affection which sound to us like Sanskrit or Chocktaw; we see dimly people, the people in whose living blood and seed we ourselves lay dormant and waiting, in this shadowy attenuation of time possessing now heroic proportions, performing their acts of simple passion and simple violence, impervious to time and inexplicable
-from Absolom, Absolom! by William Faulkner.
photo: Flowers from the Fall, 2009. ©Graeme Mitchell.
photo: Flowers from the Fall, 2009. ©Graeme Mitchell.
photo: Flowers from the Fall, 2009. ©Graeme Mitchell.
More of these,
photo: from light study, 2010, ©Graeme Mitchell.
photo: from light study, 2010, ©Graeme Mitchell.
photo: from light study, 2010, ©Graeme Mitchell.
photo: from light study, 2010, ©Graeme Mitchell.
Been awhile.
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
It’s not news that I like Japanese photography from the 60s and 70s (see posts, here, here, here, here). Why is for much the same reasons I return often to French New Wave cinema. Call that reason a stripped down aesthetic which verges on a sensual brutality. Nearly able to chew on it. But what saves it from being trite w/ brutality, is a delve headfirst into the subconscious – wait, no, subconscious might prompt something psychoanalytic. That’s too much for here. But by subconscious I mean the very deepest and most uncontrolled and most fundamental mechanisms taking place in our minds. I guess it’d be easiest to just call it, our dreams. (Makes me think of Joyce writing in Ulysses, “history is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.”) It’s a documentation of an entirely different sorts, and it makes the work not brutal, but rather almost unbearably human and gentle.
I’m not informed enough to make theories on the reasons, the whys of parallel creative evolutions, but just look at Shomei Tomatsu’s work and then go watch Chris Marker‘s short film, La Jetee (here). Breathe deep.
photo: still from Chris Marker’s film La Jetee
Or, make a literal French to Japan connection w/ Hiroshima Mon Amour by, Alain Resnais (like Marker – and also Agnes Varda – one of the Left Bank New Wavers).
photo: still from Alain Resnais’ film Hiroshima Mon Amour
There isn’t going to be order here though.  Ramblings. B/c what I really wanted to do was just list some old Japanese photography. The inspiration being a well done new book out by Aperture Foundation called Japanese Photobooks of the 1960s and ’70s, which reminded me recently how important this work is.
Jun Morinaga, namely his book River: It’s Shadow of Shadow:
photo: from River by Jun Morinaga
photo: from River by Jun Morinaga
(These tiny and poor jpegs are not doubt not representative of the quality of this work – this stuff is not easy to find on the internet…a fact that gives me a little hope this morning.)
Masahisa Fukase, and his series Solitude of the Ravens:
photo: from Solitude of the Ravens by Masahisa Fukase
photo: from Solitude of the Ravens by Masahisa Fukase
photo: from Solitude of the Ravens by Masahisa Fukase
Tetsuya Ichimura, who’s work is almost impossible to find online, but he’s done a number of books, all now very rare I think:
photo: from Salome by Tetsuya Ichimura
photo: from Salome by Tetsuya Ichimura
photo: from Salome by Tetsuya Ichimura
Nobuyoshi Araki, who we all know as a photographer of gorgeous flowers and gorgeous bound women, but his book Sentimental Journey reveals a side of him little known. This older work is, again, almost non-existent online.
photo: from Sentimental Journey by Nobuyoshi Araki
Eikoh Hosoe, who I’d not heard of until just recently:
photo: by Eikoh Hosoe
And a few more obvious ones I’ve touched on before on this site and who are very well known, ShÅmei TÅmatsu,
photo: by ShÅmei TÅmatsu
For God’s sake, now that (↑) is photography.
photo: by ShÅmei TÅmatsu
and DaidÅ Moriyama:
photo: by DaidÅ Moriyama
A friend recently offered me a simple and apt definition of good art, saying it “is something people want to experience again…after seeing it they immediately want to relive it, and then again and again.” This work then, to me, is good art.
Yes Yes. Tremendous.
This is a continuation of the series I began, here.
photo: from light study, 2010, ©Graeme Mitchell.
photo: from light study, 2010, ©Graeme Mitchell.
photo: from light study, 2010, ©Graeme Mitchell.
photo: from light study, 2010, ©Graeme Mitchell.
I’ve posted a number portraits of the painter, Alex Steckly over the years, and will continue to do so. Like Julian in the last post, Alex is someone who I try to take a portrait of when the opportunity arises. There’s an old writing saying that goes, “write what you know.” I believe in this for photography too.
photo: Alex Steckly in his studio, Portland OR, 2009. ©Graeme Mitchell
Julian is someone I have the pleasure to photograph whenever our schedules allow. It is always a great pleasure.
photo: Julian in my basement, NYC, 2009. ©Graeme Mitchell
He is a friend, a musician, and a wonderful mind.
Here is a song:
[audio: julian-tulips-licorice-dolls-arent-supposed-to-bite-percoset-mix.mp3]
song: Dolls Aren’t Supposed to Bite by Julian Tulip’s Licorice
And – peelug -Â he also did the music for the Unreal City Slideshow.
I took a portrait of each of my brothers while visiting home this winter. This trip was a supposed conclusion – 2 years later – to what I first mentioned in this post. I found out though, that nothing is ever actually concluded. The expanse behind what we realize is infinite. Think of it as a movie stage facade on a clear cold morning with an unknowable and unending landscape falling behind it to a dark horizon line, to where your imagination ends. And I’d wonder at anyone who does not stop in awe of this notion, of this incredibleness of existence.
photo: Ian Mitchell, Portland OR., 2009. ©Graeme Mitchell.
photo: Scott Mitchell, Portland OR., 2009. ©Graeme Mitchell.
Will have some new work to share after the holidays, but in the meantime two cracking MJ remixes to get your New Years jammin, both by Code Talkers.
[audio:they_dont_care_about_us.mp3]
song: “They Don’t Care About Us (codetalkrs mix2)” by Codetalkers.
[audio:blood_on_the_dance_floor.mp3]
song: “Blood on the Dance Floor (MJ remix)” by Codetalkers.
These are from a job shooting portraits of a legal company for their marketing needs.
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell.
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell.
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell.
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell.
photo: ©Graeme Mitchell.