photographer of the day: kaylynn deveney

kaylynn deveney's book "the day to day life of albert hastings" is a touching and simple account of the last years of albert hasting's life. albert, in his 90s, was kaylynns neighbor and the two became good friends over the course of the project. kaylynn's work is always quiet, intimate and very personal. here are two of my favorite images of hers

both copyright kaylynn deveney

photographers of the day: ryan mcginley and serge leblon

i'm starting a new part of my blog today: the regular highlighting and discussion of wonderful photographers. for lack of a more genius title i'll be calling this "photographer of the day" even though there may be multiple entries on one day or none at all for a while. there are so many great artists out there i may include some non-photographers. really i just like to share great art.

#1: i recently found ryan mcginley's work and it is really beautiful. he shoots with luminosity, grace and naivete while retaining a lot of fun and hint of the brashness that accompanies a wild teenager. one favorite photo of his is this one of kate moss

copyright ryan mcginley

#2: my second POTD is serge leblon. he is totally spectacular. i love his intuitive sense of voyeurism and his ability to make you feel like you caught someone mid sentence (or mid crisis? or mid silence?) here is a blog posting with a lot more of his images. one of my favorites from the blog. my all time fave of his is nowhere to be found but this one is equally beautiful

copyright serge leblon

my crit group (and the skull)

three of my amigos (rob, sonya and charles) and i started a crit group. we meet once every 4-6wks and do three things:

1. show general new work
2. trade a piece of inspiration (poi) with someone else
3. show the new work based on last month's piece of inspiration

this past month was our first meeting. we had it at wonderful farleys and it was great. we showed new and old work, caught up about our photo lives and at the end we traded our poi's (ie our homework to each other.) sonya and i brought tears from magazines, charles brought an awesome huge paintbrush that looked like it was 30yrs old, and rob accidentally forgot his but would bring it to whoever was his trade. as the cards fell, sonya took my poi, charles took sonya's, rob took the brush and i put myself in rob's trust for his future poi. the next week he dropped this off:


ack! a skull! it had been a long day and i actually wasn't sure if it was real (no, it's resin). i've been racking my brains for what a skull could inspire me to shoot. here are my ideas so far:
- the actual skull as a still life
- the skull somewhere on location with me
- something that represents death, or someone somehow posed in a way that is related to death/rebirth
- someone sleeping ("the long sleep?"
- someone lying down
- a haunted, empty person

i had a shoot yesterday and tried photographing the girl lying down. that's checked off my list so far as a no-go. it looked pretty bad and i felt uninspired.

so mr. skull sits on my window sill next to my desk and i look at him every day in hopes that i come up with something genius to shoot either of him or inspired by him. for the first week i was kinda freaked out by having a skull sit next to me all the time, but now i've started calling him mr. skull in hopes that a friendly familiarity with my skull engenders a creative spark instead of blatant discomfort. i'll keep you updated.

mr. skull, speak to me.

days with my father

phillip toledano is one of my favorite photographers. he has creativity coming out of his ears. i regularly peruse his website and i just came across his spectacular new project about his father. these images are exquisite and heartbreakingly human. the accompanying text only heightens my experience of the project. for the last two days i've kept it open in a tab in my browser so i can keep looking at it over and over.

george clooney, move over

there's a new heartthrob in my life. oh canon, thank you for finally releasing my new love, the updated and totally rockin 5D mark II. i will soon be plunking down a big wad of cash to procure one for myself. mmm.

IPA honorable mentions

i just found out that these two images won 4 honorable mentions in the prestigious international photo awards!

jill greenberg + john mccain = political statement

(image copyright jill greenberg)

dear jill,

bravo on sticking your neck out there to make a political statement with your photography. most of us wouldn't have the cojones to do it. i know i wouldn't. of course there will probably be a brutal backlash, and some will say you went too far, but at the end of the day, political expression is one of the fundamental uses of art. sure, it's over the top, a bit disconcerting, and possibly not the best career move, but someone had to do it and you did it expertly. if your regular work didn't make people remember you, this certainly will (and that's half the game anway). maybe we should start calling you michael moore.

gobama.

cheers,

lisa

city of sun here i come

my la dates are confirmed. i'll be there from october 20-25. i'm planning to spend the week having meetings, showing my book and shooting. i'll be collaborating a lot with chloe and other photographer friends when i'm there. i'm really looking forward to doing some personal shooting in a fresh city. i'm in the process of lining up a great crew and wonderful models. it will be good to push my boundaries to produce new beautiful images.

GQ options my Wired story

my wired story (scroll down, it's in the middle of the article) was optioned this week for 2 international syndications of GQ. now only if i could get my hands on copies of those issues...

the new project

friday was a good day. i finally got my new polaroid 690 camera from the repair shop in los angeles and tried it out! and yes i know, it's a completely vintage camera but it's yummy and new to me! i took my very first polaroids with the sexy 600 film i procured.

yay! the new project on real polaroid film has officially started. stay tuned for updates because i'll announce the name and focus of the project as it flushes out. until then, just be excited for my having started it and loving the first few images!

in the meantime, check out my current "new polaroid" project