Barack the Vote!

(snagged from Flickr)

Lumas Photography Exhibition

There’s a great photography exhibit at the Lumas Gallery in SoHo featuring an assortment of artists. I love the mantra of the gallery, which is to make fine art accessible. Signed and numbered editions of work can be purchased at a price range that doesn’t exclude everyone who isn’t in the super-rich category. And we’re not talking tiny postcard sizes; they’re generally respectable sizes that wouldn’t get lost on your wall.

The True Romance photo series by Jacques Olivar were particularly striking to me. The style is evocative of Cindy Sherman’s Untitled Film Stills, which I have always loved. In both artists’ work, there’s a juxtaposition between the sense of a candid moment while being obviously posed. There’s sensuality and vulnerability. A fragment of a story is being portrayed and the viewer is left to fill in the blanks. Olivar pushes the fashion model aesthetic of the subject further than Sherman did, thus widening the extreme between the person and the surroundings.

In Olivar’s piece, I love how colors of the subject’s dress and hair mesh perfectly with everything around her, yet she still stands out. It actually resonates with me personally, as if polar environments of my recent life are colliding: the fashionable beauty from New York City being dropped into the time-worn surroundings of a Texas dive bar.

Even though I was touting earlier the affordability of Lumas, this piece sits at the higher end, probably due to it’s large size. So as much as I’d like to have it adorn my wall, I’ll have to settle for a jpg on my blog. Although if she had been holding a Shiner, it might have sealed the deal.

Fun with photobooths

Finally...

I’ve toiled for the past few days to update my grossly neglected photosite, which was months behind. Nothing too spectacular lately but it’s a load off my mind for now...

Obscursion

Where did all the good times go?

It seems like ages since I’ve checked back into my blog. Not that I’m abandoning it, unlike others (ahem... Matador, Best Ever and Monster), but other things have been requiring my focus.

It’s been pretty crazy for a while with the hunt for a new apartment, and working almost from scratch to redo my portfolio and website. And it doesn’t look to let up for a while, since the apartment is going to shift gears to apartment moving which may be as painfully time-consuming (if not more so) than the hunt.

Speaking of hunting, if anyone knows of a graphic designer position in the city I’d be happy to hear about them. I should stipulate that the new company shouldn’t be staffed with complete assholes because I already hit the mother-load on that one. It’s getting harder and harder to muster the energy in the morning to even get up to face an entire day in that dreaded place.

I’m also acutely aware that my photoblog site has similarly been woefully neglected. Hopefully things will settle down soon and I can get back to enjoying the pleasures of life again.

Just to indicate how busy (and monetarily strapped) I’ve been: Gomez is playing for three nights at the Bowery Ballroom and I passed on the chance. Shocking.

I even missed out on Neko Case and Beck, which disappoints me more than I can describe.

At least I’ve got Texas Tech football and Netflix to keep me going through these troubled times. (Don’t even talk to me about the TCU game.)

See the world through laoser’s eyes! (or how I learned to stop worrying and give Flickr the big "F-You")

A few months later than anticipated and after some tedious programming, I’m finally ready to unveal my very own photoblog site, Obscursion. Time will tell if I can keep this going, which will hopefully prompt me to dish out the cash for a unique URL, but for now, this is an experiment.

Actually I have nothing against Flickr, but when I decided to buy a digital camera and post photos on the web the designer in me wanted to actually have the site fit my aesthetic and work like I wanted it. Still, I will definitely miss some of the perks and features of Flickr. Since I’m no HTML wiz, I’m sure that some of my methods aren’t as streamlined as they could be, but maybe I’ll figure those things out as time passes.

I’m still learning how to get the best pictures out of my new camera, so the goal is to improve the quality of the photos as well as refine my viewfinder eye. All in all, I’m looking forward to seeing how this works out.

One last time

In an effort to keep this blog from becoming completely pro-Gomez agenda pushing, I wont say anything about last night’s show at the Housing Works Cafe.

Instead I’ll showcase some of my own photography. Featuring Gomez.

Picture time

Here are some photos off of my Holga camera from my birthday (the day that won’t ever quit apparently):


James and Courtney


Ingrid, Davy, Beth and Brian


Hero shot

I didn’t take these, but here are a few from Design Ranch:


The Dining Lodge


Wow


Screen printing with Decoder Ring


Uh... yeah

Gomezmerized

Yeah the concert was over a week ago but I was holding off in the hope that my Holga would pull off some photo magic. No such luck so here are some by another fan with a more sophistimacated camera.

Another great concert by Gomez. I love these guys live. Here’s a taste, from another gig, but I had to share an amazing Beatles cover: Don't Let Me Down

Ben
Courtesy of RabidDog.

Ian and Tom
Courtesy of RabidDog.

Ian and Ben
Courtesy of RabidDog.