"potatoes" 2006 © Flickr Username: barkeaterI'm giving up on the Self Portrait Of The Day (or SPOT'D) component for the blog. I was searching "self portrait" on flickr and looking for a favorite shot taken the same day as the post. It was tiresome and annoying that the majority of images I liked were all copyright protected and I was unable to use them on my blog. I tried sending them a flickrmail, but they never respond in time and the whole point anyway was to show images taken that very same day. So after resorting each time to my 5th, sometimes 7th or 8th choice, I just got sick of it and stopped.
Unfortunately, folks have apparently been jaded and freaked out by photo theft and/or plagiarism on flickr like nowhere else I've ever seen. Which sort of sucks for them because I was just going to share their work to my decently sized audience of non-flickr folk.
sidenote about the image: For you warm weather folk, this is how northerners protect certain types of plants from damage in severe cold. I'm just not sure why someone covered what appears to be a pine tree?
I am a fan of unusual situations/settings/etc, that are unusual without overdoing it... and found a few in today's search.
"untitled" by emmzies
2 Birds 1 Stone by Violentz
back to our regularly scheduled program...
Today's SPOT'D from flickr is my favorite from the self portrait search results because it is one of those elusive candid self portraits, or at least it comes across as one. I believe I've spoken before (either internal dialogue with myself or on the blog?) about candid self portraits?
This one reminds me of my Hatman in Europe vacation photos (link) I took during a trip to France and England for one of my openings last year. As my regular readers can attest, I don't like taking photos unless they involve a staged narrative of some sort. No recreational family snapshots for me. But I couldn't conceive of taking a trip like that and have nothing at all to remember it by. So I took along my 4 year old son's compact 5mp Kodak camera and without framing or posing I would whip it out at some major touristy spot (the Louvre, Tower Bridge, Arc de Triomphe, etc...) and snap a pic. _Action Jackson's shot reminds me of that style.
"01.15.09 me + brick" by _Action Jackson (link)
I do love me some Caravaggio. I'd kill to have one for myself other than the one I have as my CPU wallpaper. This image is very reminiscent of his work.
"Life's moment" by martikson
And I'm not sure what to make of this one? I like the ominous mood, but I'm not sure it was intentional or what exactly this image is about? I like it though.
"Murf7-Twitter365" by Murfomurf
unrelated sidenote: I was approached by a major film company based out of LA and London. They inquired to see if I had any interest in directing. I'll keep ya'll posted as to how that progresses. With the economy the way it is, that could be a huge relief to slumping print sales.
both images titled "1/6/09" by visibleductsSometimes images are uploaded to flickr for reasons unknown to most. These "cutter" images bring up an incident I read about a few weeks ago. The incident involved a suicide via webcam (link). Hundreds watched, joked, encouraged it, tried to help, but no one truly knew if it was for real until the next morning with the feed still streaming, police came into frame and it became evident that it was not a prank.
This actually all shares some inspiration/motivation for a new project I have been brewing for sometime and am slowly but surely beginning to work on. Mine is much less troubling and is sexually slanted and borderline humorous, but it's still about the accessibility into other people's lives that has never happened to this extent throughout the history of mankind without the help of the world wide web.
Unlike my cinemascapes that are self-portraits with no need for planning and/or model meetings/scheduling/etc... This series is gonna take a long ass time. No more cranking out 100 shots a year, this will be more like a few shots a month at best. My goal is for 25-30 "keepers" within two years.
I've always liked the combination of french girls and cigarettes. I don't know why, but I think they go together nicely? I also liked finding the almost perfect finger or thumb print on the glass.
UPDATE: I didn't look at her profile until just now... she is Portuguese, not french. The name l'enfant oiseau threw me off. I guess portuguese girls and cigarettes work well together too.
"auto-retrato | self-portrait" by l'enfant oiseau (link)
a couple for today's spot'd
love the candid nature of this one and the "pink" sweats. "juicy" would have been acceptable as well.
"the balcony" by Elizabeth Sarah (link)
an all too familiar scene around my household...
"too tired to ash" by naysheℓℓ64 (link)
and happy new year to all ya'll out there.
"potatoes" 2006 © Flickr Username: barkeater
