AMERICAN STATES

Been shooting long commercial days these days, making
some of the fabulous moolah. Good thing, too, because
I’m also in the middle of production of AMERICAN STATES.
That’s a show of my American fotos that will be opening in
Ottawa, March 4th, at Exposure Gallery.

What with printing and frames and so on and so forth,
doing personal work costs some dough. And that’s with-
out even factoring in the cost of actually taking the pix.
Not that I would ever grumble about anything related to
personal projects. I pretty much live to shoot them and
accept (even adore) the fact that they require time, money
and emotion.

Anyway, because I’m going full steam ahead on this show
I’ll be hyping it up some here on drool over the next few
weeks.

For example: here’s some hype that Ottawa Magazine ran
in their latest issue and a snap of my workroom wall, taken
this morning.

Production, American States

19th CENTURY FRENCH FOTOS

If you’re in Ottawa these days it might pay to drop
by The Nat’l Gallery of Canada.

They’re mounting an exhibition of, yes, 19th Century
French Fotos.

Could be interesting.

TERRY RICHARDSON

Now I have to tell you, I don’t really check into too many
blogs on a regular basis. I find most of them boring. Of
course, I guess I could also put it like this: They’re just
not talking to me.

I’m not going to name names but I would like to mention
the approaches to blogging (and life) that leave me cold:

- Blogs that are only updated, like, 4 times a year
- Blogs that only list accomplishments and recent
assignments, with no value added
- Blogs that are only designed to attract fanboys
(and girls) with geek-talk and product placement
- Blogs with crap fotos
- Blogs with no sense of humor and/or irony
- Blogs that don’t question
- Blogs with no real sense of the author, or the
author is sentimental and/or sucky
- Blogs that are only about the author’s work.

The ones I follow (and there are only 8 or 9), are the
opposite of the above list.

Now, drool doesn’t really want to get all negative
here. I’m just sayin’. And, please remember, drool
doesn’t care what you, personally, like and hate, are
drawn to and repelled by, as long as you do love/hate,
and are attracted/repelled. Live a little.

It’s entirely possible that drool dribbles over into any
and all the territory I diss above. (Well, except the
only-updated-like-4-times-a-year one.) So be it.
drool embraces it’s contradictions. It’s also possible
that you check into drool once or twice and think that
it’s totally droll, that it sucks, that I’m a megalomaniac.
And you never return. Fair enough.

What, you might properly wonder, does any of this have to do
with Terry Richardson?

Well, these are just some thoughts I had as I moved Terry’s Diary
onto my bookmark bar.

I mentioned Terry’s Diary a few posts ago, and wondered then
why I was so attracted to such a thing. After having checked it
out day after day (and he usually posts 4 or 5 new shots every
24 hours) I have to say it’s because it’s funny and provocative.
It’s autobiographical in a way that appeals to me and, mostly,
you get to see, as new fotos keep appearing, how great he is
at using imagery to define his intelligence, to show us how
he sees the (his) world.

And that’s easier said than done.