Cultural signifiers are analyzed to determine if photographs still have meaning in the age of the image as social currency

Posted on May 12, 2013 by joe

: The gallery owner told us there were many layers of meaning. This picture is about class war.

: When something tickles my eye, I take a picture. Meaning is assigned later.

: Covered vehicles represent mysteries. A futile attempt to fight entropy. A false sense of security. Did you notice the German Shepherd on the porch?

: Is this covered car photo more idyllic than the last two? Can an apartment complex be idyllic? If I say the words apartment complex again, does that help you feel anything?

: When you’re taking a photo of a pet hospital with the address numbers 666 and red shopping carts go by in a truck in the foreground what does that mean?

: Even a simple one-liner can have layers of meaning applied. This large ad is on the side of a beauty supply store.

: A lowered classic Lincoln in front of a car repair shop. Is it just a cool car, or can you find other signifiers?

: Covered car pictures make me think of Robert Frank. And didn’t he say that no photos have meaning anymore? Or was that Baudrillard?

: But surely there’s something going on in this photo of a stroller on the roof of a car with a broken window across the street from a U-Haul facility?

: In an instant, you’ve intuitively understood that this lamp painted like a mushroom is playing on the idea of man vs. nature.

: Or maybe it’s about video games. Or some sort of Lewis Carroll reference.

: Guardian lions date back to the Han dynasty, even if the door is from Home Depot.

: A color photo of a Bowie album printed on a postcard for an art show and then held in front of a 70′s black and white photo of a Chinese-American holding the same Bowie album. Half of the resulting photo is desaturated to add another layer of meaning.

: The gallery owner said San Francisco’s Chinatown is fake because it was designed by an American architect.

: We went looking for answers at the Buddha Lounge.

: When most people look at this picture, what do they see? Is there a subconscious understanding of a deeper meaning that could be drawn out with the right caption, or are they just cakes?

: If this photo was taken by someone famous in the 70′s on color film and the printed with a special process and put in a museum where someone said it was important would that change how you felt about it? What if I just posted it to Flickr from my phone instead?

: If I told you the chair was on the border of Chinatown and a wealthy white neighborhood, and I tilted the frame, would the photo have a different meaning?

: After Frank, after Eggleston, what can any of us do in the Internet age to make a layered, meaningful picture.

: Maybe layered meanings are only for academia and museums. For the masses, photography is now predominantly about social currency. I mourn this transformation by showing you a photo of discarded bbq coals in the street.

360 night tour of an abandoned cement plant

Posted on April 27, 2013 by joe

A full moon 360 from up on the catwalk at the abandoned cement plant

Long exposures at night with moving clouds can make stitching 360 panoramas difficult. The 6 panos in virtual tour below were shot some time ago. Over the last 6 months I’ve finally developed a reasonably efficient post-processing technique to get the clouds to stitch smoothly. I’ve also upgraded my pano player software to Pano2VR Pro, which makes building a virtual tour really fast. I’ll be adding 1-2 more panos to the tour over the next few weeks, and then creating a separate tour for another part of the facility. In a regular web browser, click the button on the bottom right to go full screen. The virtual tour also works on on iPad or iPhone. Enjoy the panos!

The Christmas Card Filter: Please Stand Clear While Dumping

Posted on April 7, 2013 by joe

360 Night Panorama: Stand Clear While Dumping

When I was a kid, my Mom would get Christmas cards from far away family members and people we knew who had moved away. The card or Christmas letter recorded the peak moments in a family’s year. So and so got married. So and so graduated from the University of Minnesota Duluth. This was more than enough news.

I want to bring the spirit of the yearly news report back. I want social media to be like a Christmas card. The volume is currently much too high. There needs to be a Christmas card filter for Facebook.

I’m willing to make a compromise between current reality and the Christmas card filter. How about a monthly update from everyone you know that tells you the one big thing that happened. Look at this awesome cat photo. I had the best Sazerac at this bar. You’d have to pick the best thing that happened all month, and that would be the only thing you could post. Facebook — limited to 1 post per month, and everyone could see your post without filters or promotions.

I’d even make a further concession. Using my Watching Reading Listening Doing (WRLD) formula, you could make 4 posts per month on social media. The best movie you saw, the best album you heard, the best book you read, and the coolest thing you did in real life. Once your posts were done for April, you’d have to wait until May for the next ones.

Think about how much time you’d save. You wouldn’t have to hide or unsubscribe to so many of your “friends.” The world online would be a much of a better place with some editing.

But I’m an idea guy. I’m not going to start my own social network. So you’ll have to continue to please stand clear while dumping. Break your own rocks online if you want to. It’s optional.

Take a 360 virtual tour of the industrial plant at night

WRLD: Indians, Road Movies, Apocalypse, Trance, Deadpan Fables, High-Rise, Math Rock, and Winogrand

Posted on March 24, 2013 by joe

Medicine from the 30′s and 40′s at Ruddy’s General Store in Palm Springs

Watching
Coming to Light: Edward S. Curtis and the North American Indians [Amazon | Netflix]. Amazing photographs, and a story of dedication to a photography project like no other. Highly recommended.

Reading
Driving Visions is an academic book about road movies that’s organized by decade. Laderman does a superb job of showing the evolution of the form from the 60′s through the 90′s. The analysis of 70′s existential classics like Two Lane Blacktop is particularly good. The book concludes with a chapter that analyzes the European road film, including a nice look at Wim Wenders’ Kings of the Road.
Beta Testing the Apocalypse is what would happen if J.G. Ballard could draw comics. Kaczynski has set the bar really high with the 10 stories in this dystopian graphic novel. Highly recommended.
Trance profiles Patty Hearst’s time with the SLA using a blend of history and fiction that often gets compared to DeLillo’s Libra. I couldn’t put this book down. And I also couldn’t get the Camper Van Beethoven song Tania out of my head. Trance has really great characters, Bay Area settings, and gave me new insights on the activities of the radical left during the 70′s.
Three to See the King is a simple fable by the author of the ultimate deadpan novel about work, The Restraint of Beasts. The subtle themes about home, relationships, and community have really stuck with me over the last few weeks. Recommended if you’re already a fan of Mills’ work. If you haven’t had the pleasure yet, start with Beasts or All Quiet on the Orient Express.
I realized after reading Kaczynski’s Beta Testing the Apocalypse that I’d never read Ballard’s High-Rise. Wow, that was demented.

Listening
Sleeping People’s Growing was a Pandora discovery on the Don Caballero station. If Fripp riffs haunt your dreams, you may want to give this great math rock band from San Diego a listen. Reminds me of Rumah Sakit’s great self-titled album on the same Temporary Residence label.

Doing
If all of the press and crowds have scared you off, visit the Garry Winogrand exhibition at SFMOMA in April — when members get in 1 hour early on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.