happy ugly

i know we were talking about the mashup of beauty and ugly this week, but here is something related: the potential for ugliness in happiness. if i find intrinsic beauty in the ecstasy and emotion in images like these, i have to also question—or trouble—that impulse when i look at the pure happiness on the faces above. context is all.

these are the folks who helped pass Prop 8 in California, the ballot measure with the title "Eliminates Right of Same–Sex Couples to Marry." they're happily celebrating their apparent victory, and all the gains it will bring them. the L.A. Times reports their names as "Bob Knoke, of Mission Viejo, Amanda Stanfield, of Monrovia, Jim Domen, of Yorba Linda, and J.D. Gaddis, of Yorba Linda," in case you'd like to write them a letter (Amanda looks a little conflicted to me, so maybe you can still make her feel bad).

despite being an empathetic person, and one susceptible to the emotional content of images, the expressions of joy and victory in the above image do nothing but make me angry. and my brain actually interprets their faces as violent and smug—how subjective.

today i offer you my happy face for the country for the presidential election results, and a sad face for us queers (and the foster kids of Arkansas who won't get homes now). both faces are a bit tear-streaky.

p.s. also, Queerty's take on the same image is here.

political-erotical-mystical

i just saw this quote on Exposure Project.

"I am for an art that is political-erotical-mystical, that does something other than sit on its ass in a museum." 

—Claes Oldenburg, 1961

love it.  i want to see a contemporary photograph that is full on political-erotical-mystical.  (all three.  not just two!)  

what have you got for me, internets?

here are just a few that i think nail two, but not all three categories:

erotical-mystical:

(Miranda Lehman)

(Hanna Liden)

political-erotical:

(David Wojnarowicz, from Rimbaud in New York: not a fresh, contemporary image, but still so amazing.)

(Jen Smith, quoting Catherine Opie.  Opie's work would fall into this category for me as well.  actually, a lot of work falls into the category of 'political-erotical,' but not all of it moves me especially...)

political-mystical:

(can mystical and political co-exist?  they often repel each other.  but i think this one fits the bill, by Guillaume Herbaut, from the Asgarda series.)

political-erotical-mystical?

please send thoughts my way!  you get to define the terms however you wish.

'cuz you got a crush...

okay, i've been out of the blogosphere for a while (traveling through North Carolina, Tennessee, Kentucky, West Virginia, Ohio -- in other words actual non-Brooklyn America) so i at first missed the email that cool photographer Ahndraya Parlato sent me about a new venture that begins on October 1st.

what do Susan Meiselas, Catherine Opie, Todd Hido, Katy Grannan, Uta Barth, and Abelardo Morell have in common? they are totally kick ass, and they are all totally participating in the Art for Obama auction. as if you hadn't heard. more scoop and more awesome photogs at http://www.artforobama.net

rich, ultra-conservative contemporary photography fans are just watching this auction, with twitchy wanna-biddy fingers, crying. if they exist. the rest of you can bid away. for America. i've been there, it's pretty.

the yummy photo above is "New Orleans (after Bellocq)" by Laurel Nakadate. i could have posted one of the Obama portraits in the auction, but somehow i don't think that's why you read Subjectify. :-)

Conscientious has an update on this project.  the money raised is now going to MoveOn.org.  yeah, i did wonder how they would sell $5,000 prints and not run amok of campaign finance rules and maximum donation limits...  more here.

the return of the amazons: asgarda

i am completely entranced by Guillaume Herbaut's project "Le Retour des Amazones," set in Ukraine.

it focuses on a group of 150 women, led by Katerina Tarnouska, who call themselves "Asgarda" and seek to bring back the Amazon tribal tradition. they have been training as a militia and as a community for four years. (i didn't realize that the Scythian Amazons referenced in Greek myth actually came from the area that is now south Ukraine—these women trace their mythological heritage back to those ancient countrywomen.)

there's more going on here spiritually, and politically, too—as you can see from the t-shirt in the top photo, these women also idolize Yulia Tymoshenko, the icon of the Orange Revolution and leader of the Ukrainian "Fatherland" party. (there also seems to be a bit of a Xena: Warrior Princess fetish going on too, if this photo is any indication.)

it's totally fascinating, and i wish i knew more (also, reminds me of a book i just read, as well as other utopalyptic thoughts i've been having lately.) but for right now, Asgarda's story seems relatively untold, except in these photos. more info here.

really great stuff! the photographer, Herbaut has been labeled a member of the "poetic documentary" movement in French photojournalism, which perhaps explains why his visual approach seems to blend photojournalistic and fine art styles.

(more selections from the project available on PhotoShelter.)

p.s. click on the top image to see it bigger because it is so rad! i want a sickle (or a scythe). the subject's name is Marianna Revenko and she's a 19 year-old student.

political portraits

my friend Fletch sent me this link to an earnest Daily Kos post about the importance of professional photography to political candidates, especially in state and local campaigns. it gives Tester, Webb, and Kleeb as examples of candidates who have done right by prioritizing professional photographs instead of "crappy photos taken by the intern with a consumer digital camera." (of course, the Canon Powershot A590 and the Canon EOS 10D are kind of consumer digital cameras, but point taken...)

i thought it was interesting, first of all just to read about photography qua photography being analyzed in the discourse of a political blog. second, because the particular pictures in question aren't all that great.


but i see what he means. i was intrigued by the Scott Kleeb photo (directly above) because i thought it was so cheesy -- as though it were an HDR ad from some big energy company trying to pretend they were going green and loved ethanol or something. but it inspired me to go to his website and check out his other photos -- and goddamn this man is like a HOT GAY COWBOY. i'm going to move to Nebraska and vote for him. i think Kos might be on to something.

and now back to our regularly scheduled portrait programming. :-)