California.

Katie in bed without a head. 2009.

Two Noam Chomsky's in Oakland. 2009.

Bikes everywhere! Golden Gate Park, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. 2009.

View from our roof. San Francisco to the left, Sausalito to the right. 2009.

Katie and Mike. 2009.

Katie, California Coast. 2009.

So I've been here for 3 months now. We finally got internet this week, so I am making my rounds to the blogs slowly. Katie and I have settled into Berkeley, but now I already have to figure out where to move to for next year as I have to decide what school I want to transfer to after this year.  We found it a blessing in disguise as our 3 months surrounded by lots of concrete, we are already ready to move anyway.  We are thinking about Humboldt State, or possibly one of the UC's on the beach somewhere, Santa Barbara, or Santa Cruz perhaps.  I also made a huge decision to not go back to school for photography... I don't think anyway. I have come to the conclusion that I need to be a history teacher for high schoolers.  I haven't really even been looking at much photography, however, Katie and I did go to a Sebastia0 Salgado exhibit here in Berkeley which was very interesting considering there was also a meeting going on in the gallery about the crisis of the water here in California.  Very informative all around between the meeting and the photographs. We are also going to start a band as soon as she can get her cello.  We want to be ready for tour this summer.  Any band name suggestions?    

Frances Stark.

I have followed Ms. Stark...well since I used to babysit for her son, Arlo-who is totally awesome at air drums by the way (or at least at 2 he was). I didn't a thing about art at the time and so as the years have gone by since I moved away from Los Angeles I have aquired quite a lot. I just saw that she was in the guardian, not to mention the Whitney Bienniel in 2008. Lately, I have been obsessed with language and wanting to learn as much about it as possible. Her work deals with a lot on this topic along with the problems that arise from language, like social conditioning and the struggle of being an artist. Because of my fascination with language recently, I am super stoked to delve even more into her work and hopefully get back in touch with her to talk about it.

Polliwog Magazine

I will go ahead and crawl back into my cave of non-posting after this last one...you know, the important one and all since it's about myself...

Polliwog Magazine just came out with Issue #4, and I am amongst some really great talent which includes: Traci Matlock & Ashley Mclean, Shen Wei, Florian van Roekel, Jennifer Cox, Giorgio Bagnarelli, Lindley Warren and Katherine Squier.

I couldn't be more excited or honored to have been considered. Rebecca does such a great job and I'm glad she decided not to quit doing Polliwog because I am looking forward to what she produces in the future!

Words and Words and Words

It seems to me that America is the wealthiest nation because it faked it well enough. It seems more likely that we as American's got sucked into a linguistic black whole while leaving our logic and minds somewhere to be determined. The people running the corporation...I mean country tell us to do one thing because no matter what America is the best, the greatest and the wealthiest. But are we? There is not one iota of proof to back that claim up and in fact the proof I have seen says the complete opposite. We live in a country who doesn't care about the people only the numbers that accumulate in their bank accounts. Keeping in mind that the numbers represent the money that represents value which represents judgement which represents a feeling. Clearly, feelings and logic got lost somewhere in translation along with humanity in American/Western Society.

Smart Skool.

I followed Pete's link to NYtimes article on student debt, aptly titled, Fools Gold. It is basically a snipet of people sharing their stories about their student loan debt. I couldn't agree more with their logic behind what our universities should be structured like here in America. This is what they said:

I never understood the reason why so much money is asked. Fear of debt and high tuition prices (or overpriced accommodation nearby) are the best way to discriminate between the better off and the less so. This prevents from the majority of society to access to good education, a majority that has proportionally within its ranks the future thinkers of a nation.
Also, what I cannot comprehend is how it is that society accepts this system. One would expect that a more educated society is in the interest of all the nation. Why then prevent people from accessing this education?
The whole idea of seeing if higher education is “worth the debt” is completely wrong. It is not only worth to one individual, but to society as a whole. Somebody with higher education - thankfully - would make better and more informed choices be it at the work place, or when voting, raising a family, analysing the news, participating in the public debate, being critical of the political power….Also, making it “worth it”, devalues academic degrees. People get an incentive to study a degree that gives them a specific job, rather than a degree that teaches them ways to analyse things differently, think creatively, make reasonable choices, preserve their critical spirit and curiosity, all of which can be applied anywhere. It removes people from research, the humanities and classical studies.
University is about having people being able to think for themselves and adapt to various situations.
I am French. Higher education is free (or very close to), enormous amount of people go to University, most are bared after two years because they do not have the level or the motivation. But they could give it a try.The levelling is dependent on your capacity at working and if students from better of families have a higher rate of success, the possibility for all levels of society to succeed is possible. It is also possible and it is increasingly done, to return to university for a year or two while having a job. Again this participates to have a more educated and informed society.
And after all, our graduates are not worse than any other country. If our universities make it rarely in the “world league” it is because the student:staff ratio remains high (but mostly at early university levels since at masters level it is between 1:2 and 1:4), there is little sport, large turn out, and above all, no ranking within France herself (all institutions just provide education) and because fundamentaly we see higher education differently from anglo-saxon countries.Another factor might be the wages after leaving university. But since education is cheap in France, it does not mean that we have to get a high wage job to repay a student debt. We can do what we like.
Why can’t people study for the pleasure of studying, increasing their knowledge and skill of analysis? Society benefits.
Thinking of university and higher education in general for the sole purpose of giving jobs needs to go. University is so much more than just that, but this is not quantifyiable.
Amaury

I find these days moving along quite swiftly. I finally found a job after looking for four months. Nothing extravagant-part time at a hotel, but I love travel and I find myself traveling vicariously through my guests that arrive always asking them about their trip. I haven't been looking at much photograhpy lately as I have been busy looking for a job then working at said job and getting ready for our big move out west. Things are finally coming along nicely and it seems that everything is in reach and going to work out.

Lately, I find myself questioning photography/art in general-and I know Pete has been touching on this subject. I've been reading a lot of Henry Miller and he made me feel a lot more peaceful about my passion which was something to the effect of-most people paint to paint a masterpiece, I don't care whether the painting comes out good or bad-it's the process of painting that makes me happy. I can't help but think that if I were to sell any of my images I would essentially just be selling my own memories and how do you put a price on that and why doesn't everyone just take pictures and and and and yeah. It isn't so much the act of taking photographs that gets me its the consumerism side to it that doesn't sit so well. I definitely want to continue making photographs and to do so I need funds since everything that has to do with photograhphy involves money one way or the other. I initially came to the conclusion that I would just shoot for others and get paid that way, but for the most part that would mean that I would have to completely sell out my morals to do so. I still don't have a resolution and I may just have to suck it up if I want to stay a part of society (which I'm not so sure that I want that either, but until my sister and I run away to the forest...which reminds me, we thought about living in a redwood tree and making a vertical house where there would be rooms hollowed out vertically...so the kitchen would probably be on top and then our bedrooms and maybe the "living" room on the bottom).

Zombieland.

These days I find myself wandering between day and night.  The lines have blurred as to whether the sun has just risen or set and my head is cloudy.  

My friend Jordan

Urbanautica, Liz Kuball and Dave Jordano

Woke up this morning and made my daily rounds on this here interweb-which led me to discovering the website Urbanautica via Jennilee Marigomen's flickr (which she was just featured on).  It is a very neat site which forced itself upon me to look at every image and to read each statement by each photographer. I'm just warning you now to be prepared for its aggressive guerilla tactics at making the viewer stay on its site until completion :).  It's worth it though since there are so many amazing photographers on there some huge- like Alec Soth and Amy Stein along with the likes of up and comer's like Will Govus and Marigomen.  However, I was really struck by two people I had previously never seen, Liz Kuball and Dave Jordano.  The website is a compilation of photographers who work in documenting the land wherever it may be that people inhabit.

Liz Kuball is based out of Southern California by way of the east.  She followed the westward dream like many of us do(myself included) and documented this process of discerning reality from fantasy that us transplants often come to fruition.  

from In Store. Liz Kuball.

from California Vernacular. Liz Kuball.

from California Vernacular. Liz Kuball.

Dave Jordano returned to shooting outside of his studio after a 25 year stint hiatus of shooting images inside for clientele.  I am glad he ventured back out into the world and so far he has brought us the stories of life on the fringes of society along with portraying a life that once was in his series on the Chanute Military base in Illinois. 

from Prairieland-On the Fringe. Dave Jordano. 2005.

from Prairieland-Habitants. Dave Jordano. 2005.

from Chanute AFB. Dave Jordano. 2007.

Everlasting Moments

I think this may be good. 

Stephen Shore...

makes my heart drop into my stomach. Just so you know.

"What I guess goes through my mind when I'm taking a picture is I'm thinking wordlessly about how all these elements relate to each other..."-Stephen Shore.

Perfection-thinking wordlessly. 

Nienke Klunder

from Sequence 5, Nienke Klunder. 

It is insane where she starts from to where she 

ends up and all the people she can become in between.  

The image above and below are examples of one of 

her sequences.  She started off as a soldier

and ended up a clown.

from Sequence 5, Nienke Klunder.

from Zen Moments, Nienke Klunder.

from Zen Moments, Nienke Klunder

Nienke Klunder is a multi-media artist; however, I am naturally drawn to the photographs she makes-and for good reason!!  Her photographs deal with consumerism, identity and myriad of other things (depending on how you want to read into them).  They are mostly all self-portraits which I think is poignant considering her topic of exploring identity.  Her images are technically beautiful and conceptually beautiful.  On top of that they are also humorous-but of course while still delivering her message. I am constantly blown away when I return to look at her work each time. 

Spam

I like how my junk mailbox now tells me before I even open it that it's spam. 

Emily Shur/Too Much Chocolate

Michael Cera by Emily Shur

Adam Brody by Emily Shur

There is also a really great in depth  interview under the interview section by Jake Stangel of Too Much Chocolate on my favorite editorial photographer, Emily Shur. (Not to mention, I also love her personal work as well...)

Lately....

I've been going back and forth between Huntsville, AL and Nashville for the past two weeks now ever since my little sister moved down there.  I find it weird that when I come back to Nashville it seems like such a big city to me after being in Huntsville.  I went and saw Phosphorescent last night.  It was strange because they had seats in the venue so mostly everyone was sitting down but for one, I hate sitting, and for two I hate sitting when seeing a band play. So I stood.  Because so many people were sitting down there were maybe about 10 people standing and my sister and I were on the side when Matthew Houck got off stage and walked over to us and sang directly to us.  Needless to say it took everything inside of me to not indulge in the instant weakness I felt in my knees and not collapse!!  I couldn't help let the huge smile come over my face though.  I don't normally get like this with people but I will be honest in admitting that he is idealized in our heads.  We listened to Phosphorescent the entire roadtrip to Cali practically and his music just really lives up to all the hype.  

Sunday, the Optimist Manifesto had our pillow fight at Centennial.  It went down a lot different than our first one we threw, but I would say it was still successful in spite of everything.  Metro Parks found out about it...probably no help from being on the front page of the MetroMix newspaper...and called Caitlan up telling her that the Optimist Manifesto had to cancel the event since we didn't have a permit.  Too bad for them we never wanted to obtain a permit...We showed up at the park and we were willing to move the event to another location, but everybody there wanted to have it at Centennial and we have no control over another individual so the feathers flew for at least 45 minutes before the cops showed up.  There weren't as many people this time but it really isn't about how many people show up, just that there were people.  My favorite part of this pillow fight was when the cops did finally show up the people got more excited, and when they turned their sirens on the people cheered and then they started a new round of fighting.  

I have shot 20 rolls of film now but have yet a way to pay for any of it to be developed.  I also shot my first "fashion" shoot for a clothing line called Parlour based out of Nashville.  We shot a pack of polaroids and the rest on film.  These are a few of my favorite polaroids that came out of the shoot...

Definitely a nerve wracking experience as I am  used to shooting for only myself...not two other people as well on top of it being my first "fashion" shoot also.  

Pimped Out Cars.

I love how I don't have any images of cars in my photostream on flickr, yet somehow through yahoo image search they refer the searcher/e to the plethora of pimped out cars I so often never shoot.  I'm not complaining, I just think it's funny.

Home

Location: Coolidge Drive, Sarasota, FL Age: 0-1yrs

-My parents lived in this duplex right off the beach, 

the night before I was born my mom was swimming

in the ocean.  I need water, I can honestly say

I feel connected to it.

Missing my Grandmothers house in CT. Apparently google 

earth doesnt have any cameras on her street. Age: 1-3yrs

Location: 1503 N Conrad Ave, Sarasota, FL Age: 3-20yrs

When I was 3, my mother and I planted that palm

tree in the front yard for father's day.  It was the 

same height as I at that age, it has far surpassed my

height now.  It also leans slightly because 

of a tropical storm that came through.

Location: 1750 N Sycamore Ave, Los Angeles, Ca Age: 20yrs-20yrs

This was one of the best places I have ever lived. 

The place isn't that great or anything, but the people

and the landlord, Susan, are amazing.  It felt like

a community here.

Location: 734something Hollywood Blvd, Los Angeles, CA Age: 20-21yrs

(bottom left hand corner apartment 201)

I only lived here a short while with my friend Colleen.  

I loved this apartment though, it was huge but we 

still had to share a 1 bedroom. 

Location: 5140 Brittany Drive, Old Hickory, TN Age:21-present

(p.s. that is my cat sitting on the front stairs)

I have lived in Nashville for 3 years now.  It 

took me a while to really like it here, but I do. 

There are great things about this place that I will

miss, but for now I have the summer to enjoy it

and will be going kayaking every chance I get!

I recently became obsessed with the powers of Google Earth.  Sure, I've used it before, but I had yet to be privy to the new version of it.  I was so amazed at being able to type in an address almost anywhere and be able to have a panorama street view of it.  Naturally, I did the obvious, I looked up all of my old residencies.  There is nothing like being able to go home, even if it is a hyped up futuristic trip. Lately, I've been missing all of the places I've ever called home and I know that when I move in the summer I will miss the place I now call home as well. It is nice that there are photographs to help aid in the memory process. 

I would like to see where you come from too.  Your challenge so you chose to accept it, leave your address or any address you want to share as a comment. 

Courtney Greenlee

My good friend Courtney Greenlee has recently just launched her new website.  These are just a few of my favorite images of hers, the rest can be found on her website.  Courtney was a fellow student at Watkins when I attended there, which she still currently attends.  I love her and her work and I wish her all the luck with the future.  It is a wonderful website and even more wonderful is that she has a place to show the world her wonderful work!  I love the way Courtney sees the world and I'm glad she has a showcase for it now. 

Twitter.

Also, I joined twitter so if you have it please add me and I'll add you back.  I don't know how else to find people on it.  It is very new to me and foreign so I am still getting used to it all.  www.twitter.com/armphotography

Throwing this image of my cat in here of her licking herself. Enjoy.

Joel Sternfeld-Sweet Earth Experimental Utopias In America

I finished reading Joel Sternfeld's Sweet Earth Experimental Utopias In America tonight and I found it so inspiring.  I guess I'm at that idealistic age in my life where communal living sounds like the perfect life, but beyond that the book also has as lot of history that I found interesting.  It seems that a majority of communes tend to have a religious swing to them but no matter what type of commune it was specifically they all seemed to share the thread of tending to the land.  

The Farm in Summertown, TN originally had 1400 people.  It started in the 70's when a bunch of hippies from San Francisco drove buses to Tennessee and started a commune.  They also have a volunteer wing called Plenty.  Plenty was one of the first groups of people to get down to and help during Hurricane Katrina and they have groups set up in Guatemala and other places as well.  I am looking into going down there soon to volunteer, at least to put my ideas to the test anyway.  Sternfeld had two pages of text and two pages of images for this commune, more than any other in his book, so it seems that even to him this was a pretty important place.  I'm glad that it is only an hour away from Nashville.  

These are some of my favorite images from the book. 

I Thought I Was Alone

Dana Goldstein.

Todd Fisher. 

Bea De Giacomo

Luca Gabino, from Queensland.

Jennilee Marigomen. image from Whimsical Bullshit. 

These are a few of my favorite images from the collection of photographs and photographers over at ithoughtiwasalone.com

It is definitely worth it to take a look at the rest as well, along with looking at these individuals websites. 

Roger Ballen

Broken Bag. 2003. Roger Ballen.

This past semester, my teacher Caroline Allison, showed us Roger Ballen's work.  This was the first time I had ever seen his images and I was enamored by them.  He actually achieves to make me want to shoot black and white photography again, which I never thought anyone or thing could make me want to do again.  You may have or have not heard of him, but regardless there is a new audio interview of him on the lens culture site where he talks about how he started shooting photography and some of the things that recur in his photographs and why they do and you should go listen to it. I love listening to photographers talk about their craft. 

Mark Wickens

Mark Wickens. 2009.

I can't get this image out of my head.  It just strikes me as so odd.  I grew up in Florida surrounded by pelicans and I cannot recall ever seeing one dead.  This is a beautiful image and he captured the essence of this moment wonderfully.  I love all the foot prints in the wet sand surrounding the pelican and the fact that the water must keep rolling in and out deepening the colors and saturating the dead bird. I honestly keep going back to his flickr to look at this image over and over again. 

The Most Beautiful Photos Of My Life Occurred Yesterday and I Didn't Have a Camera.

Being a photographer and being without a camera can be absolute torture-or it can be a blessing in disguise.  Yesterday my sister and I went on a drive and it was quite warm out for what it has been recently.  The sun was shining in all the right places.  We had my mom's car-left mine at home to save gas (ha!), which meant that I did not have my camera on me since it was in my car.  In all fairness, we were not supposed to go driving, we were supposed to be looking for jobs, but it was just too nice outside!! Consequently, everywhere I looked yesterday I saw an amazing photograph in front of me.  Of course that type of lighting makes everything beautiful, and it did...but that's the point anyway. At some points I almost felt moved to tears at the beauty in front of us. 

Missed Photograph #1:

We went to a lake and my sister was sitting on a dock, she was wearing mostly black with red shoes and her red fingernails and I could see this pop of red from quite a distance while she was surrounded by water and the last burst of sunshine for the day was hitting her face.  

Missed Photograph #2:

All the meantime I'm walking by this pavement that has insane tire markings that made many a design.  

Missed Photograph #3:

When we had first pulled up Katie got out of the car to make a bouquet and as she did that I sat in the car noticing the side-view mirror's reflection was of the lake behind us, the sun setting gradient sky, and the silhouettes of the leaf barren tree and foothills and the light falling inside of the car was quite soft while Katie stood behind the side-view mirror in front of bushes that were being kissed by the last of the sunlight.  

Missed Photograph #4:

On our way to the lake, there was this guy on his motorcycle next to us.  I could see him in the review mirror perfectly with his oakley style sunglasses wrapped around his eyes.

Missed Photograph #5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12....:

Everywhere I looked yesterday.

Missed Series #1:

Central Pike, Mt. Juliet, TN. 2009. I want to shoot an entire series down this road. Ending with the end of the road where there is a high school.  There is this exposed rock from part of the foothills and they pained a huge flag on it along with a peace sign and names. 

As much as it hurt not to have a camera on me, I realized that if I did have my camera on me yesterday, I would not have been able to see as much as we did because we simply would never have had the time to get to all the places we did before the sunset and now I know of all the places we went to and can go back to them and take my time discovering the areas with the camera.  It will probably never be quite the same again, but I can at least try and capture the essence of the beauty we saw yesterday. 

When the Snow Melts...

As we all know, yes all-as in the whole world, today is the last day the Bush regime will be in office.  I have to say as much as everyone hates him, I think he was just as scapegoat.  I don't think he was smart enough to pull off the majority of the things that went wrong the past eight years, nor do I think he even really knew about it, but rather that the people in his cabinet used him to get away with all of the atrocities that occurred in the past eight years.  This way we all turned our eyes away from the source and kept them on the monkey in front of the cameras.  And he was a monkey. 

By the time the snow melts today Barack Obama will become America's president.  I couldn't be more happy that the right person finally gets to be in office.  I don't know if he will or can fix everything that's been left to him, but the entire world has hope in him which is a lot more than you can say for anyone else that was or could be in his position.  

It's the first snow of the year here in Nashville, and by the time the snow melts we will have a new president.  You know, once the white stuff is gone, the snow I mean! 

And They Brought Their Swedish Cats-Part Two

Sannah Kvist. from Habitat. 2007-2008

Thobias Faldt. from Alternative Universe.

 

Gustav Gustafsson. Two Cats, One Stone. 2008

Gustav Gustafsson. 

Erika Svensson. 

Sannah Kvist. from Habitat. 2007-2008.

I couldn't help but notice the aforementioned photographers affinity for capturing their feline friends.  I love this because I remember being in photo 1 and my teacher was furious when a student put up an image of their cat on the wall.  From then on we were not allowed to have any images of animals in critique.  So here's to her!