I know it has been way to long, and for that I am sorry. I thought I would make it up to you by showing you my favorite project this year. The idea was that we had to shoot a series of objects. I took it one step further and did a series of ideas. In this case the ideas were the 10 commandments.
How this happened was, I had been wanting to do wine glasses for a while now but I needed an idea to put them with. I’ve wanted to try something like this ever since I first found Dave Nitsche’s work. I wanted to make people think I guess.
We also had to do 10 pictures and that number sparked the idea of the 10 commandments. What would they look like in wine glasses… Concept moment. Then I just ran with it.
I don’t know if you have heard, but there is a new show on ABC that just premiered for the first time this Tuesday. It was entitled ‘Cupid‘. It tells the story of a man who may, or may not be cupid. At least he believes he is and must connect 100 couples in true love before he will be allowed back to Mount Olympus.
The thing is, I love Greek mythology and by extension Roman mythology as well. My favorite story of all is that of Eros and Psyche, Eros of course being the Greek name for Cupid (Cupid being the Roman name). I’ve been seeing commercials and ads for this show for a while and was dieing to see what it was all about. I wanted to see how much of the Greco Roman ideals played into the story.
Imagine my surprise when I was browsing through SideReel last week, when I found out that ‘Cupid‘ is actually a remake. Global had the show in 1998. It only featured 15 episodes before it was canceled, but here was my in to the possible direction of the new show.
I felt so lucky when I found a place with all 15 episodes. I loved them. Jeremy Piven, who played cupid was amazing. I wanted to put him in my pocket and take him home. Why? Well because he was such a babbler and I loved it. His references to pop culture and others things was great (even if they are over ten years old now). Plus you can’t imagine how many familiar faces I saw guest starting on the show. It was ridiculous.
What was even better was the dynamic between Cupid, a.k.a Trevor Hale, and his doctor Dr. Clair Allen (this is a psych doctor who usually deals with couples and people with relationship issues). They were great together. Always some kind of banter going on. I started to wonder how different the new show was going to be.
Guess what, I now have my answer. Besides the fact that Trevor Hale is now Trevor Pierce (though the name originated from the same place in both shows; the saying behind the judges at his release hearing), the good Doctor and Trevor remain very much the same. Most of the first episode is similar to that of the original pilot, at least there was a lot of very familiar dialog between Clair and Trevor. Of course there is some, okay quite a few, minor differences. The dynamics and basics are the same. I even laughed at the fact that the beads are back. (the beads are what keeps track of how many couples Cupid/Trevor has hooked up – and remember it only counts if it is true love).
What remained the same was Clair and Trevor. Their personalities are still intact, kudos to Bobby Cannavale and Sarah Paulson (who I was just, oddly enough, watching in ‘American Gothic’ before I heard about any of this – but that is another story in it of itself). I felt myself falling to the familiar routine. In both versions Clair leads a Singles group to help singles deal with the fact that they are single, and try and find ways to help them deal with that or learn to find the right match. The location for this group is vastly different. The original took place in Chicago. The newer one now takes place in New York city. Some how that really doesn’t surprise me. But in both plot lines, Trevor and his Cupid identity becomes the focus of Clair’s next book.
Trevor is no bum on the street though. He works at a bar. The old bar was just a regular bar, but the new one is of course a karaoke bar (duh!). And his room mates are vastly different. The 1998 version has him rooming with the bouncer at the club, an aspiring African American Actor. The 2009 version has him with the bar owner, a Mexican American. Both are dragged into helping Trevor with his match making schemes. The switch for the both the bar and the room mate I believe is the sign of the time we now live in. Karaoke is all the rage right now and we are more caught up int he Mexican issue now while it was the African American issue then.
And finally, the plot for both pilots were slightly different (though in both Trevor screws up with his hook up, cuz hello… no story otherwise). In the original Trevor hooks up one of the singles from the group with a guy he sees in his bar that he thinks would be perfect. They hit it off of course… but of course he just happens to be married. In Tuesday’s pilot Trevor is working with an Irish man looking for an American he meet while working (she was on holiday). He of course is running around on an expired visa. To get the word out he gets a single from the group to write his story for his paper… and with that I say no more – WATCH!
All in all, I am going to be keeping my eyes opened on this show.
Okay, so this picture needs some explaining. The theme this week was CSI, and by connection, death.
The back story; the young lady in this picture (one of my dearest friends) lost the love of her life a while back. She didn’t take it very well and it landed her in a very abusive relationship. One night she just couldn’t take it anymore. While reminiscing about the past she decided to end it all.
Now originally I was going to have her realize that she was pregnant (I’m not sure who the father was going to be – either one works) and she didn’t want to bring the baby into the world she was now suffering in. I had a hard time getting my hands on a test in time for the shoot so the thought was dropped.
The coloring and the grainy quality give it such a creepy feel.
P.s. I don’t think the guy at the photo counter knew what to think. I had to print it out 20×30 for class so this thing was massive. I would have loved to know the thoughts that were running through his mind.
I know I said it would be a while before I put up another post, but this could not wait. You see just a couple of minutes ago I receive to txt forwards, nearly back to back, that need to be discussed.
The forwards simply read this:
Do not go to any walmart tonight. Gang initiation to shoot 3 women tonight. Not surewhich walmart. And confired on tv.
bad grammar and all. My initial reaction was panic for myself and friends who frequent Walmart often. We are college students after all. I needed to let them know. Then I had to stop myself and actually think. I never send forwards. Forwards by their very nature usually cause me to question the validity of the information. Why had I jumped the gun on this one? Simply because if true it could be horrendous.
I had a computer right on my lap. Now was the time to use it. So I did. Google is amazing that way. Right away several stories came up and caught my eye (after I got past the first few ‘fake’ sights that just wanted to put viruses on my computer). What I found confirmed my final suspicions.
The first one was By David Emery from About.com who has been a Guide to Urban Legends since 1997. His headline was simply this: Police: Walmart Gang Initiation Rumors Are False
And it contained a forward much like mine. The date stamp, yesterday. I was inclined to believed that my friends and I had just been duped. It is amazing how txt can spiral out from one area and just flood from place to place. Someone always knows someone from someplace else and they in turn tell their friends…. and it just flashes out.
I wasn’t going to stop there however. What researcher really does? I had to see if others were coming up with the same information. And guess what, I did. This time it came from the Galveston Town County Daily News.
Gang shootings at Wal-Mart
That is all the head line said. I started reading in and thought for just a second that maybe this time the forward was true, but then like before it was label as false. It had come from a valid source but that valid source had not checked before scaring the masses. Once again the it was date stamped yesterday. So it was recent.
It was in this reading that I learned that this forward, or some version of it, had been around since 2005. 2005! I mean really?! And no one has caught on? Even as I typed this another friend forwarded the same txt. When did we start believing everything we came across.
My final stop in my research was aver the history of this forward. I ended up here, Wal-Martyred, and the email and txt history came to light. It even gave some of the emails that circulated around.
I guess the real issue that really set me off about this forward was that there was no real locality mentioned. It didn’t give a state, or city, it just said watch out. Txt can come from anyone one and anywhere and so I didn’t know if it really applied to me.
So it has been a while, and I am truly sorry for that. I got so excited about spring break, then actually got to be on spring break, and then had to come back… Lets just say I got side tracked.
This post theme is abstractions. I loved how these ones turned out. Slightly aged and slightly creepy.
Heads up, I might not have more for a few weeks. It depends on how well I get my concept mapped out.
I know I’m a little late this week, but It has been crazy. MacBeth opens in less then a week (this Wednesday actually) and I don’t know if I’m ready for it just yet. Don’t really have a choice though.
So this week was all about close personal relationships. I shot two of my friends how are enough like sisters (they get that comment often). I also call it the “My Imaginary Friend” series because the one makes the claim that she make up the other as an imaginary friend and everyone else is just using her as well. She isn’t real. Don’t you just love friends.
Guys, as much as I love the fact that people can be so innocent and excitable, you must take everything with a grain of salt. This is the internet, you never know what you are really getting unless you scratch hard enough to get under the surface. It is just that most people don’t.
I myself would be thrilled to be contacted by an idol, but I always know that this is most likely not going to happen. If it did, I probably would think it a jerk impersonator first, and then only believe it after going through a million channels of info to confirm.
I’m not saying to become cynical or anything, just be smart. Do I really need to go into a dialog about ‘Stranger Danger’ ? Cuz you know I just might.
Yes, yet another set of images. The idea here was fashion, and product. While I love these images on the screen, I’m still struggling to get them to appear correctly in the real world.
Another Creative Photography project. This time we had to do industrial. I love the train shot. The clouds are wonderful. The colored on seems so deep, and I love the detail in the black and white building.
