Photographers in California! My friend Allan of Venus Wept Photography is going to be co-teaching an amazing photography workshop called “Fetish Fashion Fuel” this June in Lancaster, CA. There are a lot of things about this class that make me want to sign up. First of all, the models: Ulorin Vex and Kumi are flying in all the way from Europe, and Mosh is flying in from DC. Quite a rare eclipse!
Kumi, Vex, Mosh by Gilles Berquet, Alan Amato, & The Stuntkid
Then, there’s the location. One of workshop days happens at Club Ed. Named after its original caretaker, this location was originally a Hollywood set for the 1991 film Eye of the Storm. The set includes a circa-40s/50s American diner, gas station, autoparts store and motel with a pool - all in the middle the desert. And then there’s the wardrobe. Mother of London? Check. Antiseptic? Check. In total, there are 7 confirmed models, 2 instructors, and 15 students. Not a bad ratio! The course covers not only shooting, but also post-production in Photoshop. 6 seats are still available. All the details can be found here.
Is it pricey? Yes. The course is $995. Is it worth it? I think so. There are many workshops like this all over the country, but none of them offer such a unique mix of talent. I know Allan to be a generous teacher with impeccable lighting technique. I can’t wait to see the images that emerge from this adventure.
I love the low-tech cyberpunk styling of these images by Louis Decamps. No heavy digital editing here, instead it’s back to basics with lighting, wires and circuit boards we hold so dear.
The projections on the models’ faces suggest an imaginary environment; the glow of a lab, distant explosions, blue acid burn. The face paint and textures add to the storytelling aspect of this series, featured in issue 2 of Wound magazine.
I do question the series title’s I-Do-Ru reference: while awesome, its imagery seemed cleaner than these photos suggest. In any case, this is some crunchy eye candy!
“Harajuku girls are the new Geisha” is the name of this Flickr set belonging to photographer Ajpscs . I’m only completely in love with the image above - usually heavy photoshopping is a huge turnoff or me, but here is makes a kind of strange sense.
In the context of Geisha, whose snow-white face paint amplified Japan’s desire for artificial, impossible beauty, the Harajuku denizens’ makeup echoes the same. The over-saturation and airbrushing almost highlight the flaws in application, damaged hair and imperfect skin, making these images all the more human.
White is the color of innocence, chastity, napkins and polar bears. It also happens to be one of the most difficult colors to photograph because it’s so easy to overexpose. I’ve recently noted that though I’m obsessed with the look of white-on-white in photography, somehow in my own four years of taking pictures I’ve failed to do a single shoot with this color concept. The realization led me to do some research. What follows is a top-10 list of my favorite white-on-white images, compiled as reference for a future photographic project and for you to enjoy. Feel free to post your own white-on-white finds in the comments.
They say that you can never truly see yourself; not in mirrors, or photos, or windows, or water. All you see is a flat reflection. You go through life with only an idea of how other people see you in the three dimensions, always one step removed from every true angle. Unless you’re (un)-lucky enough to have a twin - “the creepy kind,” as one of my friends with a non-creepy, fraternal twin brother would put it. From mythical manifestations as partners-in-crime who finish each others’ sentences to polar opposites who seek to annihilate each other, the concept of twins has always enthralled and horrified the human race.
Photographer Janieta Eyre doesn’t have a twin sister, so she decided to make one for herself. Are the self-portraits a manifestation of her desire to see herself in more dimensions, act out a wish to have a twin or explore the creepiness of having one? Another interpretation is that the pictures are about choice, the aching wish that we all sometimes have to be able to make two choices simultaneously at one moment in time.
Two images by photographer Janieta Eyre, featured at [FAT]
If you’re in Toronto, check out [FAT], or Toronto Alternative Arts & Fashion Week. The annual festival, which takes place from April 8 to April 11 this year, combines art, fashion, photography and performance. From their website:
Toronto Alternative Arts & Fashion Week is a multi-arts festival with a mandate of showcasing artistic disciplines rooted in fashion, and their exploration of the human body in today’s time. The festival aims to emphasize this mandate through the artistic disciplines of fashion design, photography, installation, video, performance, music and dance, in an effort to push forward and redefine our perception of the fashion phenomenon. When presented jointly, the underestimated social force of fashion is showcased, redefining its role in contemporary Canadian society as not only an economic colossus, but also as an engineer of social practices and vehicle for personal expression. The Toronto Alternative Arts & Fashion Week intends to introduce a broader audience to these related creative fields, building public interest while simultaneously creating a forum where artists can learn from and collaborated with each other.
When I first followed Beth’s suggestion and looked over Jeremy Harris’ website, my love of portraits naturally drew me to that section of his portfolio. The style there didn’t appeal to me at all - not stylized enough for my taste. But it turns out that’s precisely what makes his photos of asylums so spot on.
With somanyphotographers using lights and Photoshop to accentuate spookiness when capturing old hospitals and decaying buildings, Jeremy’s plain, day-lit images stand apart. There is a simple honestly that allows us to not dwell on various effects, however pretty they might be, but instead reveals the heart of these spaces. The result is more brutal and attractive than one might expect.
Venus Wept: “Justice is blind and, apparently, naked.”
Antiseptic is relatively new, and over the past year I’ve watched their designs get more and more complex. Their riveted leather corsets look aggressive by themselves, but when coupled with Venus Wept Photography’s hyper lighting, the augmented sharp edges and textures show you something even more dangerous and pleasurably painful-to-wear. A stylistic joyride that weaves through 80s dystopia chic, medieval armor, medical fan lacing and many other real and imaginary places from different times, the designs owe a debt to alt-fashion predecessors AMF and Mother of London, with Antiseptic’s designers on a fast track to a voice that’s completely their own.
The San Francisco-based duo behind Antiseptic doesn’t seem to be interested in commercial manufacture, and focuses on showing off their designs on runways and in elaborate fashion shoots. Most recently, they staged a fashion show the San Francisco Fetish Ball that brought together some of my favorite models for the first time.
As a brief follow up to this recent post regarding Miss Jackson’s freakatude, let us ruminate on the April cover of BackBook magazine. Here she’s caged and dressed in latex by Polymorphe, House of Harlot, and Syren. Inside she’s snarling from behind some Very Serious headgear.
The BlackBook article describes this Matthew Rolston shoot and tells of “codpieces, feather ticklers, steel pelvic thrusters relieved of their phallic attachments, barbed cowhide whips are fanned out alongside some kind of automaton skull with a full set of human teeth and gums” here. Oh Janet.
Placid nuns with milky alien-beauty faces, glowing children with otherworldly skin conditions, and the most ordinary faces made strange by details such as a chalk-white complexion, a subtle change in proportions, overly-glassy eyes. These are the images of Russian artist Oleg Dou, who combines conventional photography with graphic rendering techniques to produce matching portraits of unsettling consistency.
Like many other good things, Oleg Dou’s art was introduced to me by Elegy Magazine. Elegy just released Issue 52, which features Alexander Hacke, Thurston Moore, Tim Burton/Johnny Depp, Nick Cave and Lisa Gerrard.
