Dmitri Shostakovich — by Joe Reifer
Below is a brief video excerpt of William Winant‘s ensemble performing at the Chapel of the Chimes Summer Solstice concert last weekend. More sprocket hole images from this event coming soon, along with some tips on shooting indoors with a Holga.
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The images below were shot on a walk through the neighborhood downtown using a Holga with expired, cross-processed Kodak E160T. After last week’s interview questions, I’ve been thinking a lot about how music and photography relate. Both the process, and the finished product. What soundtrack do you hear when you look at your photos? While downtown I bought the new Neko Case CD Middle Cyclone. Love all of her previous studio albums. Not sure about this one yet. Also picked up a Sublime Frequencies release by Syrian music legend Omar Souleyman that is absolutely brilliant.
While trying to sort out connections between the sound and images, I ran across a post on the WFMU blog called Captain Beefheart’s 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing, which contains gems such as:
5. If you’re guilty of thinking, you’re out
If your brain is part of the process, you’re missing it. You should play like a drowning man, struggling to reach shore. If you can trap that feeling, then you have something that is fur bearing.
The images above were shot on Fuji RTP 64T tungsten slide film and cross-processed in C-41 chemistry. I often shoot Kodak 400VC film in the Holga, preferring to err on the side of overexposure when shooting negatives — sometimes 160VC just isn’t fast enough on cloudy days. I was a bit concerned that the Fuji 64T wouldn’t be fast enough, but cross-processing yields an effective 1 stop speed increase and it’s been sunny lately. The Fuji film is $4.95 per roll, and also works really well for night photography.
On a musical note, I was doing some organizing in iTunes a few weeks back and stumbled across a track from the Hammers of Misfortune album The Bastard. Somehow I never bought the CD before it went out of print. According to the Hammers website, The Bastard will be back in print soon. I happened to have an Amazon gift card and found I could download the album for 9 bucks. I’m kicking myself that I waited so long to get the full version of this masterpiece. The second Hammers of Misfortune album The August Engine
Update: Apparently a new Hammers of Misfortune double album is due in late October – there are some pre-release MP3s posted here.
Best? Fire? — by Joe Reifer
is an amazing mix of rock, funk, surf, and disco music played in a way you’ve never heard it before — highly recommended — featuring a shredding Gato Barbieri before he went smooth, Karl Berger’s wonderful vibes, Aldo Romano on drums, and Bo Stief on bass. Another great free jazz release from ESP-Disk. Welch’s work is rooted in the tradition of Lynne Cohen, with a bit more vibrance and humor (not that I don’t enjoy the bleakness in Cohen’s work). The exploration of the ordinary is a common trope in modern photography, and tough to pull off convincingly. Welch’s book is a rare example of a book in this genre that really works — subject choice, composition, color, and image editing are top notch is the definitive indie-film about making low budget movies. I’m a big Buscemi fan no matter how many times the Coen Brothers kill him, and he plays a photographer in the movie — how could it be bad? Well, you might want to wait until this one comes out on DVD is a frenetic, foot stomping, genre mashing blend of prog rock, middle eastern, jazz, and metal in the vein of Mr. Bungle or Trey Spruance’s Secret Chiefs 3, but with it’s own unique sound. Here’s a live video, and there’s reportedly a DVD coming soonI usually don’t pay much attention to pop music, or music videos. But while reading the always entertaining Bummer Life, I found the video above by the group Bat for Lashes. The video evokes such a great, eerie mood — made me think about photographers Gregory Crewdson and Ralph Eugene Meatyard.
How often do you see a movie or a video that inspires your photography? I’m not just talking about just the technical aspects such as lighting and cinematography, but something that strikes an emotional chord with what you’re trying to achieve in your images? Do you consciously see cinema through the filter of still photography?
If you had to identify the influence of one filmmaker on your most important body of photographic work, who would it be? Or perhaps here’s another way to attack this question — if you think of your favorite directors, can you find their influence in your work? I explored some of these questions last year by taking screenshots of Soderbergh’s film Bubble. And the influence works both ways — Soderbergh mentions both Crewdson and Joel Meyerowitz in the DVD commentary.
Ornette Coleman, 1979