gotreadgo

like a deer in the headlights.

2001-12-31T15:43:44Z

couple quick things on a monday to stop you in your tracks... new fraction magazine, nice stuff and pal o'mine Gordon Stettinius brings the heat with a few frames from his Notes from U.S. Route 1 series, stellar. loving the look of Grace Kim's artist book (via The Independent Photo Book blog). been familiar with the series Love Hotel for a while but the presentation in collectible form is a ass-kicker. all strangers looking to buy me something for valentine's day, have at it. while you are looking at or making photos, you need new tunes right. check out The Soft Pack outta L.A. Calif. really great stuff, perfect balance of balls-out rocking and sublime songsmithing...you will like. hope i will eventually lay eyes on 'em. oh, don't forget, lexington, central kentucky folks who dig UK basketball and like to show it fashion-wise, love to shoot a shot of you for an upcoming project. i'll be a espn's college game day this saturday--trying to do the do as best i can. hit a brother an email. something else on the horizon, soon, maybe i'll talk a bit about it... deer eyes. Panasonic DMC-FZ20.

the high art of fandom.

2010-02-05T13:31:17Z

i've touched a bit on what it is like to grow up a follower of the University of Kentucky. it's special. some might think just a little too special. so here's what i am planning to do if possible as a lead up to March Madness and what i see as our run to what is surely going to be another National Title. imagine this as a call to UK fans. i'd like to shoot your photo, you all decked out in you best Wildcat wear, face paint, blue hair, crocheted vest, you name it. in the end, i'm gonna publish a little artist's book of you, me and other images relating to the cheering of the go-ing and the big-ing and the blue-ing. so if you are into it, and if i am into it, too--then you can drop an email to tread (at) gotreadgo.com or if you twitter, follow me @gotreadgo and drop me a mention or message and we'll see if we can make it happen. no pressure, i'm not into taking 25,000 toy camera photos in the next month but you just never know...we shall see, is this a project? i guess it is. if you know anyone who might be willing and necessary, please pass along. wildcat. Holga+Polaroid back. Polaroid Type 87.

on and of a boy.

2010-02-02T11:49:29Z

People always clap for the wrong things. --Holden Caulfield, The Catcher in the Rye just wanted, days later, to mention the passing of J.D. Salinger. it's worth noting. he was that important to us, even 59 years after releasing The Catcher in the Rye on us. yes, 59 years later and it still talks to us, how is that even remotely possible? i'm not interested in how Salinger lived his life post-dismissing himself from society, it's interesting, sure, but i think he said it best when he said that whatever he had to tell us, he said it in his books. i think he just that. is it such a stretch to think of Salinger as his most famous character, Holden Caulfield? that's the way i think of him, i always will. holding that book, that character in your hand, it has and will continue to be a strange act of rebellion. of calling out the phonies, of rooting out hypocrites, and trying, desperately to grasp and keep the innocence--while seeking with reckless abandonment the very things that will destroy it. oh, Holden, you are so many of us, you, there on the page saying what we all were thinking, what many of us are still thinking. getting it wrong, getting it right, hell, just getting it, trying to figure it out on your own, lonely, lost and living. sure, some write off Salinger as just Judy Blume for boys but rarely is a book considered both a pop culture icon and a great work of American literature. RIP Mr. Salinger, but you ain't really dead to me, you are just leaving that school, i bet don't even know what you were running for - i guess you just felt like it. your mark, indelible. no blood, no foul. Blackbird, Fly. Konica VX200.

the crowded frame.

2010-02-01T12:12:19Z

winter arrived. snow in inches. below zero temps. kentucky in the winter isn't much different than say, new york in the winter. you grab a camera if you feel up to it. yes it's really too cold to unless you are bundled up and and still think clearly under all the wool, cotton and down. i can't really. i have good intentions, i really do but the weather always seems to win, i'm just not much of a cold weather shooter. i did manage to finish my january photography for The Art of Waiting project. i have decided to shoot one 12 exposure roll of 120 each month in my favorite old HolgaMods camera. 144 frames in a year, won't process until next year and we'll see if i had anything to say over the year or what. i suspect it will be intriguing even if the story is somewhat a mishmash of ideas that ebb and flow over the months. anyway, back to the cold and trying to be creative in the elements. i did manage maybe a dozen frames in the morning light which was crazy with the white and blues and golds and all that but i don't know if i really have the penchant for 'purty pitchers.' but i did like all these limbs trying to crowd the frame as i was looking for something to shoot. i didn't really have the energy in the cold and without much coffee to keep them out, so i succumbed. trees, ice, sun, sky, fence...they are all there and you'll just have to decide what you want to look at. crowded frame+winter. Olympus e-520.

why here?

2010-01-29T09:18:12Z

making art somewhere other than a major metropolitan area is intriguing to me. it's actually better than one might guess, finding inspiration sometimes tough without the cutthroat mentality of the big city. i can always make the excuse for the fact that i am anti-social, that i don't share much in common with fresh-faced kids out of the art program at UK or those who went off somewhere else to create then landed back here to continue. but i'll admit they are just excuses, i just don't socialize and just choose see the shows outside of the openings and receptions and events. i miss a lot i guess but at least i don't miss the art parts even if i do miss the drinking. at least Ace Weekly and Tom Eblen of the Herald-Leader keep ears and eyes to the ground and actually bother to talk to artists locally and give them space in their publications, without that, well, i don't know but i am guessing that most shows would go unnoticed. we do have a new person at the Lexington Art League in charge of programs and exhibits which leads me to believe the future there is bright. i'm also very please with what Institute 193 has done with Louis Z. Bickett II and Bruce Burris. stellar, really and the mind and heart are both in the right place as far as vision goes for the venue. featuring two of the world's best artists who happen to reside here for the first two shows really was a kick in the teeth to any other venue. everyone else, take heed, no half stepping. so yes, back to me. in the end i don't do much here at home as far as showing my pictures. the toy polloy was a success, got a best of show at a juried LAL show and had a couple in a couple other shows but still have yet to have that 'solo' show. i still don't know if i'm even close to ready for that. are the images there, is the story in them? does anyone care? but i'm here. bike+tracks. Minolta Instant Pro. Polaroid Type 990. Expired.

five things.

2010-01-27T10:24:25Z

today, here's five things, you figger out your next move. 1. do not talk to me about the wildcats, being (not being) #1 or loosing. 2. waiting. 3. sic alps. 4. muddy treads. 5. we will someday, someday we will. me times five. Minolta Instant Pro+Multi-Filter. Polaroid, Type 990, expired 1998.

i just need to sit for a moment.

2010-01-25T10:50:39Z

the news lately really has me chasing my tale a bit. haiti, health care, conan, tiger's mistresses, screwball voters in mass., frighteningly paralyzed dems, avatar...it's a bit much really, don't have time to focus when i'm allowing thoughts like 'i think anderson cooper shaves his forearms,' and 'leno's a douche' fill the grooves of my grey matter. oh, and playoffs, did you say 'playoffs?' and hell, goddamn yes, the University of Kentucky Wildcats are truly #1 as of today and still undefeated. hate on haters, it's good to back and now please get back to calling us cheaters and racists and all that other stuff you love to say about UK basketball, your scorn is our gasoline for the long ride to a national championship. see what i mean, i get caught up in my own damned thoughts. create, create, right? so yeah, a little lively discussion about the state of the art of photography via email and comments here. that's good. don't get me wrong, photography is currently alive and well and if you don't believe me, please check out some of the great independent photo books that are currently out there. i like what The Independent Photo Book blog is all about. it's a joint effort from a couple of the best art/photo blogtypes out there; Conscientious and Mrs. Deane. just take a look, you'll get it. personally, i think this might be a nice 'movement' in the evolution of photography as art form. as someone who has a bit of a past in the 'zine world' of the 80s and 90s this is really nothing new, but it warms the cockles that photographers aren't waiting to be justified by book or magazine publishers out there. here's a really great resource to find quality photo books that aren't going through the mainstream and yes, some are even affordable to the common man. anyone remember Mike Gunderloy's creation Factsheet Five? yes, i know, i am old, the internet killed self-publishing, right? everyone has a blog now, right? well, i know that there's others out there who still want to have and hold something. there is still a Factsheet Five out there and there are still tons of folks self-publishing some incredible stuff that you can actually touch. stay vigilant folks. us punks had the whole diy thing down pat 30 years ago...and we ain't forgotten it either...more, eventually. i sat and the house split in half. Olympus e-520.

butt of a joke.

2010-01-21T12:41:16Z

A photograph passes for incontrovertible proof that a given thing happened. The picture may distort; but there is always a presumption that something exists, or did exist, which is like what's in the picture. --On Photography, Susan Sontag. dug my old copy of Sontag's 1977 book, On Photography out of a box of old stuff. if you haven't read it, you should. it's a bit lofty, even at times pretentious and too self-serious but touches upon themes that in the digital age are even more relevant. i won't bore you here with details of Sontag's storied life, there's plenty info available but mention of this book is a great jumping off point to talking critically about art and photography. so art and photography. warren brought up a point a few days ago with a comment about getting tripped up by the 'C' word. that word being 'contemporary.' i get where he's coming from. the fact that there's a core group of people who were using toy cameras before they became trendy and urbane, making what we would categorize as 'art' and what we might also categorize as 'outsider art' with a nod more to the past than to anything contemporary--puts us in a weird place in the photo mishmash. i've made the point here before about my feelings of Lomography and others co-opting the interest in making pictures with toy cameras and therefore potentially killing any real artist merit to what some of us practice. it might get tougher to get images in a 'serious' photo show when the tools of your trade seem to the equivalent of attitude glasses, spiked belts and skinny jeans. in the end, it's still about how interesting the photos are and the ability to say or not say something in your images, i get all that, but something once unique now being kitschy and cute and very commercial sort of sucks. but i'm getting off topic. when you really look towards the future of photography and this notion of 'contemporary' it's not too far off the mark to proclaim photography as 'dead.' seriously, it just may be. with the quality of HD video available on low light capable still cameras and the imagery possible, it amps up the ability to tell stories 100-fold. not to mention the ability to create realistic images with computer renderings that may overtake the need for most product photo work. will galleries and book publishers continue to support a medium that technology is rewriting and maybe even bypassing? and what of books in general? and if a gallery can just install rooms of flat screen monitors that roll artistic media who needs a framed print? yet, here many of us are. toy camera shooters, slr and rangefinder enthusiasts, view camera masters and others with point and clicks, polaroids and any number of cobbled together black boxes. can we be relevant beyond just being outsiders? is it important that we are recognized outside of our tribes? what is success, how do we know if we've succeeded and who are the world's scorekeepers and who is qualifying those in those roles? is our work, gasp, contemporary, when the means in which we create is far from it? all questions to ponder while we still shoot and still try to narrate our lives through photography. here's to eventually being the butt of the digital joke. just don't run me over with George Jetson's car just yet. under the butt. Holga. Ilford Delta 400.

but for the salt.

2010-01-20T14:36:24Z

i wish cleanliness really was next to godliness. it's at least a block away. wash it away. Olympus e-520 set to stun.

contempt-orary photography?

2010-01-19T12:44:42Z

'A show of hands of the 65 people in the audience was nearly unanimous that the name contemporary is not the best one and it should be replaced with a more appropriate term.' --Contemporary photography - on-going debate over what constitutes 'contemporary' photography-PSA Journal, March, 1994 16 years ago, the great minds of photography were dealing with the same issues photographers, curators, publishers and gallerists are pondering, 16 years previous to that i'm sure it wasn't much different. it's been going on since Niépce and Daguerre first conquered silver and latency. contemporary photography in the digital age is an interesting, if not impossible to pin down, notion. when i hear the term i almost instantly think of the current crop of sterile, muted, huge scale landscapes of empty buildings, swimming pools and back yards with blank skies that seem to grace a lot of book and gallery space. oh, then there's also the naked teenager who is neither ugly or pretty, preferably male armed with protruding hip bones who has either cut or scratched something on his body or has just maybe jumped out of something or is hiding in a tree or corner of a shed or just standing there, waiting for something. which is how many of contemporary photography's latest trends leave me...waiting for something. but for every hand full of misses, i'll catch a modern day shooter at Conscientious, The Black Snapper, Flak Photo or Mrs. Deane that truly grabs my gut and defies and defines contemporary photography. the discussions on these sites-- the blogs which tend to lean towards critique of current trends and shows echo many of my own thoughts on the subject. contemporary photography is not really one thing right now. Hell, it isn't even a dozen things. so i am going to try and begin a little more talk on the subject here at GoTreadGo. there has be room for one more loud-mouthed student of post-post-post-whatever in the mix. the resurgence in interest has brought a flood of good to great imagery out there from both traditionalists who are still clicking away on frames of film whether it be through toy cameras and the like and view camera purists--or those who have adopted all the new tools and are using the latest high-end digi-slr and software. perfect example, Photo L.A. 2010 just ended. 'best in show' went to pal of mine in mind and spirit, Susan Burnstine. susan makes her own toy camera/lenses to capture her images. most all are black and white and almost all contain humans in the frame, rarely naked or the least bit 'contemporary' by definition. yet, her work captivates, breaks new ground and has a solid following in the gallery world. another and completely different shooter than susan that i continue to follow is Emily Shur. she seems to make a good living as a shooter of the famous, but her personal fine art work is what i find intriguing. i always go back to a series she calls wild, wild life to remind me the connection between the seemingly banal and visually compelling. just taking these two photographers and contemplating that both they and there visual style belong in the discussion of current and contemporary photography shows how promising photography as art is. my best advice, get out of your comfort zone and look around, i'll try and remind you to as best i can...while reminding myself. testing, testing, 1, 2, frame 3. Olympus e-520.