On the Wall

My boyfriend Chris and I leave each other stupid little drawings almost every morning before work. The other day I asked him to draw me a cupcake lady, and he went all out in Illustrator and created this hot little mama for me. It definitely beats my crude drawings of hot dog men.

Persona is by far my favorite film by one of my favorite directors, Ingmar Bergman. It is one of the most brilliant and original movies I've ever seen, not to mention every single shot looks like a beautifully composed photograph. Here is a very short clip from the movie- although I highly recommend watching the film in its entirety.

Adde Adesokan is a photographer I came across on Flickr recently, and I find the concept of his triptych work very interesting. He meets strangers, talks to them to get their story, and gets photos of them in three different ways and composes a triptych. The photos are beautiful and intimate, and become even more so when paired with each individual's story. View more of Adde Adesokan's triptychs here.

This weekend Chris and I met up with my father and his friends in Norwalk, Ohio for the NHRA races. It is truly an experience like no other and there are some extremely unique and interesting people at these races (my father and his group of friends included). Here are a few of the photos from Saturday.

Chris developed a roll of 35mm film the other day and this was on the roll. I nearly forgot I took my Pentax to Florida since I hardly took any pictures with it, but I like what's going on in this one.

Today I came across the work of Alexis Mire on Flickr. She takes some really strong self- portraits and overall interesting photos. Check out more of her work here.

La Jetee is a 28-minute French film composed almost completely from still black and white photos. It was directed by Chris Marker in 1962, and inspired Terry Gilliam's 12 Monkeys. The main character of the film is held prisoner and subjected to time travel experimentation, where he essentially realizes that a death he witnessed as a child was actually his own death. I am in awe of how such a brilliant short film can result from still photos.

I stumbled upon the work of Ben Anderson one day last year while browsing through photos on Flickr. He is definitely one of the most talented photographers I have come across on the site. He takes beautiful portraits with perfect exposure and color, especially of children. I am normally not a fan of children photos, but he does it extremely well which is difficult to achieve. The adult-like demeanor of the children in many of the photographs is reminiscent to the photos of Sally Mann. You can view more of his work here.

I've been pretty good about posting something every day since I started my blog with the exception of this weekend. I went camping with my boyfriend and his family, and it was one of the only times I've ever been camping that it didn't rain. I'm always surprised how much fun camping can be. Here are some of my favorite pictures from this weekend.

Today on the radio I heard Grand Funk Railroad's "I'm Your Captain (Closer to Home)." This song is one of a handful of songs I most clearly remember loving when I was five years old, and hearing it brought back early childhood memories. Keeping in tune with these nostalgic thoughts, I decided to post the only photo currently in my possession from around that time. My parents are on the top left, I'm in the dress with striped sleeves and my brother is in the red shirt. This is one of my favorite family photos- everything about it is hilarious.

Mary Ellen Mark was one of my biggest inspirations when I first expressed interest in photography. She has had an extremely successful career, even photographing Federico Fellini on the set of "Satyricon" in her younger years. All of her portraits really seem to capture the essence of the individual. The photos speak for themselves. For more of Mary Ellen Mark, click here.

I was recently introduced to the work of Todd Hido, and I find his work to be ridiculously good. His portraits are extremely unique, often taken at a far distance, and even taken at angles or in lighting where the subject's face is not distinguishable. I am most intrigued by his interiors work. I see some similarities with my own interior photographs, except the level of his work is where I hope to be one day. Click here to check out more of his work.

I have always had a bizarre fondness for motels, but it has recently turned into sort of an obsession. The cheap floral bedspreads, the stiff sheets, the thin bath towels. Not to mention the interesting people you may run into. I love all of it. I plan on hopefully working on a photo series of motels in the near future. Here are a few photographers who have taken some stupidly beautiful motel photographs.

I just got back from Florida yesterday, and these are a few pictures from my trip. It's difficult to tell, but in the third to last photo the object in the middle is a large five foot (?) marble elephant in the backyard. When I went to take the photo the owner of the house came out and talked to me about the elephant. People tend to be very friendly down there. It's a nice change of pace and definitely refreshing.

After my last two posts, I started thinking about my newspaper experience. Out of the nine months I have taken pictures for weeklies, there is one event I photographed that sticks out among the rest as my favorite. Last fall I photographed SugoiCon, an anime convention, for City Beat. I know nothing about anime, but there were so many creative costumes and friendly people.