"The Soiling of Old Glory"

My parents were in town this weekend. We had a lovely time walking around the city, eating and seeing the sights. Mom and Dad lived here for a long time before they had us kiddies, and they like to show us places they used to go back then. Mom asked me if I'd ever seen the following picture:

The name of this image is The Soiling of Old Glory, taken by Stanley Forman in 1976 during a series of protests against court-ordered desegrated busing and the winner of 1977 Pulitzer Prize. The man under attack in the image is Ted C. Landsmark, a remarkable Boston figure who is a lawyer, a civil rights activist, and the president of the Boston Architectural College. Back in 1976, he was also the properietor of a small, non-profit Boston art gallery who sent all monetary benefits to the artists that displayed in it. This art gallery had only one employee-- my mother, then only twenty-four years old, getting her masters in fine art downtown. She says he was a very cool man. And I think it's cool that she knew him.

I want to take a picture like this

I really don't like Kristin Stewart, I think she's incredibly bland, both in appearance and as an actress, but I love this picture. I got it off 's Tumblr. If I am interpreting this correctly, both of these models are her.



I would love to take a picture like this. I've been meaning to drag myself out as far as I'm capable and photograph myself. I really like the juxtaposition of the feminine version of Stewart with her masculine version. I've watched some makeup tutorials on the Internet about how to make your face more masculine but I haven't tried them yet. I would also love to try to do my hair like man-Kristin's, all sleek and slicked back. And the suit with the suspenders is pretty cool too.

The Isabel Series

A few weeks ago I did a photoshoot with Steph. This one came out of reflecting on the fact that I don't have a lot of interesting locations to serve as backgrounds for pictures... but one I do have access to that's kind of neat is my kitchen. It's bright and airy and blue-and-white, one of my favorite color schemes for decor. (I know, I'm an old lady.) I also have lots of blue and white household items to serve as props, and it also goes well with the color of my beloved copper cookware. So in order to take advantage of this, I created kind of a Perfect Hostess character named Isabel for Steph to pose as. I like the act and accoutrements of cooking, though my desire to not make a mess and the slow speed at which the process goes made me cut back on the verisimilitude. Also I wish my microwave didn't love over the stove. Microwaves are not lovely. Aw, well.

These photos are, as usual, minimally edited, just cropped a little and with the color saturation punched up. One of these days I'm going to have to learn how to use a more serious editing program. I'd love to have these with real stark white, very rich blue, and extremely bright copper. Add that to my ever-expanding projects list. They are full-sized so they LiveJournal does not make them fuzzy.

Study in graphic novels next semester

Just got an email from one of the administrators at my school about my interdisciplinary study. Today she is going to be talking to a professor about being my adviser in my secondary study for the semester, which is going to be about the writing and creating of graphic novels! Last semester I attended a seminar on them during the residency, which alerted me to the fact that they would be an option for my IS. I thought that sounded great, so now I'm going for it. I'm a huge fan of the comic book form, so this is going to be really interesting.

The thing is, I will likely be expected to also provide images to go along with my script, given what a huge part of the medium they are. I can't draw well enough to support a whole comic, but it occurred to me that I might be able to use photographs. I could cast people I knew as the characters and have them model for the shots I would need. I really really like this idea, and I think it would be a lot of fun to do. I don't have an idea for what my piece would be about yet, but it would probably have to be realistic, set in the modern day, to faciliate the kinds of pictures I would be able to take. I have some ideas about the people I'd like to use as models, but of course I'd have to come up with a story first and see who fits the characters that emerge. The idea really excites me, so hopefully I'll come up with something good.

The Daphne Series

Here are the roughly edited photos selected from the awesome photo shoot I did featuring the lovely niobien*. I just can't get over how amazing she looks.

Carolyn is playing Daphne, a dancing nature spirit.