Wednesday, August 31, 2005

No, that's not all I do...


Sixspace Gallery, July 2004

I received an unusually odd comment last week from someone at a signing basically condemning me for doing non-fetish photography. Some people take fetish way too seriously. Do they have any real appreciation for art or do they only like what's IN the art? I take photographs because I feel compelled to record the world that I see. I see beauty all around me whether it's the light shining off a body-forming latex dress or the accidental stain on a mechanic's office ceiling that I just happen to notice while patiently waiting for my car. Having a phone-cam lets me instantly record these moments of unintentional beauty. It's what I react to. It's me. One unfortunate thing about being pigeonholed in the erotic/fetish genre is the closed-mindedness of *some* of the people who like it. Again, it's rarely about the art but what's IN the art. In their minds, photography is merely a means of documenting something that arouses them. Nothing more.

Then there's the technology factor. I happen to love the low-def quality of a simple phone-cam shot. It's the same way I love the low-fi audio quality of PJ Harvey's "Four-Track Demos" album. It's music reduced to its most simplistic and raw elements. It's this rawness that makes the art even more real and emotional. There's no fancy technology or manipulation masking whatever defects are laying within. Combine this simplistic rawness with engaging composition, and I accomplish what I want visually. It's sad to me that some people judge quality by megapixel size. They're the same ones who value quantity to quality.

It's funny, I've been doing my phone-cam art for a little over a year now, and I've received more significant exposure in the mainstream art world than I've ever had for my 15 years of fetish work. That's something to feel good about.

Thursday, August 11, 2005

Billy Bob Thornton



Since I moved about a month ago, I started finding all kinds of things that I had forgotten about. I figure I'll post some of them here for all to see. Otherwise it'll all stay in a box unseen for years to come.

Above is a photo of Billy Bob Thornton that I took on the set of Some Folks Call It A Sling Blade in 1993. I did all the photography for the DVD cover as well.