The Boat Lullabies: April 2007 Archives

« March 2007 | Main | May 2007 »

April 24, 2007

New Booth Page Is Up

I just added the new photobooth page to Square America. I think this will be the last new page I'll add to it- 15 pages are too many so from here on out I'll just add photos to the existing pages. I did add a little extra treat for Boat Lullaby viewers- I've added a section of 20 of the new photos scanned 40% larger than they are in the regular pages. It's one photo per page. Let me know what you think (I know the design is clunky- I'll change the page forward/back keys and probably eliminate the top bar of links so you don't have to scroll down every time a new page loads). I really do want to steer clear of thumbnails- they're just a pet peeve of mine- so you'll just have to scroll through the lot. Eventually, I'll probably change it over to a slide show- what I'd like to do is do one small slide show of oversized scans(maybe 30-40 photos) for each of the big shows that will just highlight my favorites. As some of the shows run well over 200 photos it's just not practical to do each entire show in the slideshow format. I do like seeing the photos slightly larger though part of me is still resistant- I feel like it somehow changes them from snapshots to art objects in a way I'm not comfortable with. Anyway, click here to see the over-sized scans. Here are a couple to whet your appetite.

Posted by nick at 05:08 PM | Comments (1)

Back in the Booth

Sometime tomorrow I'll be adding a new page to In the Booth, my photobooth show over at Square America. Here are a few of the new ones.

Posted by nick at 01:19 AM | Comments (1)

April 22, 2007

10:00pm/2:00am

Posted by nick at 11:44 PM | Comments (1)

April 20, 2007

Forgotten

A few weeks ago someone asked if I would post some of the polaroids I took myself that I had posted to the original Boat Lullabies (now long gone). Most of the polaroids were photos I took using old 8mm home movies as source material which I'll collect and post at a later date. In the meantime here are some polaroids I had forgotten that I took of the window in my old apartment- they were meant to be part of a series (alas never completed) of little books called How We Remember the Sea which featured these polaroids plus some photos of 8mm footage of the ocean and some re-photographed photos by photographers like Sugimoto who photograph the sea. The text was going to be all collaged text fragments from Melville novels- a project that was almost certainly best left unfinished.

Posted by nick at 12:14 AM | Comments (1)

April 19, 2007

More Family

Posted by nick at 02:25 AM | Comments (2)

April 18, 2007

Family Resemblance (5)

p.s. I'm guest posting over at Swapatorium today with a bunch of slides of some randy, gun toting, porn loving hunters (a few of which have been posted here, but several new ones too) on a little vacation out at the cabin.

Posted by nick at 12:54 AM | Comments (0)

April 16, 2007

More Dynamics

Here are the some more candidates for the Family Dynamics show- I like the top one the best by far (though I'm more likely to add it to Love a some point than use it in this show). The other three are less likely but still under consideration.

Posted by nick at 11:01 PM | Comments (1)

April 15, 2007

How It Starts

You know, everyone is always asking me, "Nick, how do you go about putting together one of those amazing shows over at Square America?" Actually, nobody has ever asked me that but I thought I'd let you in on my thought process anyway. Usually a show idea will start with just one photo. A few days ago I loaded up my slide projector with a bunch of stuff I'd never projected before and one of the first shots was this.

Now some photos make an instant impression on you and some you have to live with for awhile before you really appreciate them- this was one of the former. I love just about everything about this photo- the incredibly saturated reds, the beautiful light, and of course the psychologically potent image of the woman, her expression impossible to read, on the telephone (to see a bigger, better scan of this photo click here). The focus is a little soft but I think it gives it an almost painterly quality. Instantly I wanted to stop my little slide show and build a new show around this photo- Untitled Film Stills was the title that came to mind though the photo reminds me more of Gregory Crewdson or Vermeer even than Cindy Sherman. It just seems cinematic- unlike many snapshots it feels decidedly narrative. Unfortunately, I wasn't really sure what else I had that would fit with it. Before I really get started putting a show together I like to have at least 5-6 really strong photos (10 or 15 for larger shows) that will serve as the basic structure of the show. From there I'll fill it in with photos that might not be quite as strong but that might play well off one another or serve as transition points between those initial images. As nothing was coming immediately to mind I continued looking at the slides.

A few slides later I found another keeper.

Again, this photo just kicks my ass- beautiful color, great framing, and a great inter-generational thing happening with the young pregnant wife and her barely present husband in the foreground and the girl's father or father-in-law in the background but linked to her via color (both wearing pink). Again another title popped into my head- Family Dynamics (though if the show is ever finished I doubt that will be the title). Anyway, I instantly thought of another of my photos- this one already on Square America.

As I don't mind re-using (or re-purposing if you will) photos from other shows as long as 90% of the photos are new I thought I had the start of something. As I continued through the slides I came across this one which I thought might make the cut.

While I like the slightly blurry kid in the foreground and the harried looking mother in the back I'm not sure it would be strong enough for me to use. I came across a more likely candidate later on- I'm a sucker for angry women with cigarettes.

Even more likely was this photo.

The resemblance between the father and son immediately brought this photo to mind.

I've always wanted to do a show based on family resemblance but every time I've tried to put it together I've been a bit disappointed- after 10 photos or so it seems to lose steam. As part of a larger family show however, I could use them as a nice recurring structural element to help tie the show together. Here's another which I posted here on the blog in the past that I'll probably use in the show.

Once the show begins to take shape I'll start looking through the rest of my collection to see what else might fit. Here are two photos I came across in the first box I looked in. The first one's a possibility, the second a sure thing.

From here, I'll keep digging and keep my eyes peeled at the flea market and in a few weeks (or months) I should have a new show finished (if I don't get side-tracked by the polaroid show I've been wanting to put together for years, or that Adventures in Amateur Ethnography show I promised at the beginning of the year, or that show This is How the World Ends: A show of fires, floods, and wars- the end of world and what was left behind that I promised way back in January of 2006, etc...).

Posted by nick at 09:23 PM | Comments (2)

April 14, 2007

Supper

Posted by nick at 03:34 PM | Comments (0)

April 13, 2007

Life On A Wire (Sioux City, Iowa 1918)

Posted by nick at 12:39 AM | Comments (0)

April 12, 2007

Splendor in the Grass

Posted by nick at 12:12 AM | Comments (0)

April 11, 2007

The Passage Of Time In Birmingham

March 1935

August 1937

Posted by nick at 12:43 AM | Comments (1)

April 10, 2007

Flaming Creature(s)

Posted by nick at 01:54 AM | Comments (1)

April 09, 2007

Varmints

Posted by nick at 12:24 AM | Comments (3)

April 08, 2007

Risen

Posted by nick at 10:23 PM | Comments (2)

April 07, 2007

Vanquished

Posted by nick at 01:29 PM | Comments (0)

April 06, 2007

Snared

Posted by nick at 12:17 AM | Comments (0)

April 05, 2007

Measured

Posted by nick at 02:20 AM | Comments (0)

April 04, 2007

SX-70

Did you ever stop to consider how amazing polaroids are? The color on the SX-70s was so distinctive. Here's one for your viewing pleasure.

Posted by nick at 12:33 AM | Comments (0)

April 03, 2007

Cherry Picker

Posted by nick at 12:38 AM | Comments (2)

April 02, 2007

The Way Of All Flesh

Yesterday at the flea market I picked up a small cosmetics case stuffed with photos almost all of which were of the same woman. The bulk of the photos were photobooths and portraits documenting her as she aged over the course of about 50 years or so. I'll probably eventually put them all up over at Square America but until then here's a bunch- the dates where available are underneath each photo. Given the date of the first photo I figure she was born in late 1937 or early 1938. The last photo dates from the early 90s so she's somewhere in her early-to-mid 50s there.
**For an update click Here.**

9/28/38