Strawberry Flava

Today I received a copy of the latest eyestorm brochure. I think Mark must have put me on the mailing list(?) because I notice that their head office is in Kentish Town. Eyestorm is well renowned vehicle for contemporary photographers and print makers and this edition contains many beautiful, cool, and inspiring images. I like Jeanloup Sieff's 1965 photograph titled La Maison Noire an exquisitely executed platinum like image of a wooden jetty cutting through a reed bed and leading up to a typical New England clap board house. I really like the apparent contrast modifications (dodging/masking) in this print which have produced an intriguing semi lith like effect in the background detail. I also like Ed Ruscha's Street Meets Avenue lith print this simple yet stylishly cool image very eloquently demonstrates the creative photographers ability to transform the every day object and simplest of forms into an image of captivating elegance and beauty. The brochure also features some interesting vintage colour work by Erwin Blumenfeld and Lisa Eisner.

I have so many ideas at the moment but little free time or spare cash to bring any of them to fruition, I hate wasting this time of year the most photogenic season, its even worse if you have to be stuck in an office on a bright clear day. I need to get on with my project which is intended to breath new life into the "index 2" page which I think is a little weak and amateurish at the moment. I'm quite interested in attempting to create some more images that will ostensibly follow on from "Climbing Rose" and capture some of the more sinister or unusual aspects of plant forms. A sort of twist on Imaging Cunningham's lily photos and possibly make further use of some of my "lens augmentation techniques" (see Pot Head {index 2} and Rose {colour work}). I am also fascinated by antiquated telecommunications equipment in the landscape (see Prestbury Trunk Line). Those ageing GPO lines that you only see on remote road sides and consequently have an idea to try and do a kind of Road Odyssey that will incorporate these features in an interesting way and I know of at least three great locations for this. Its always intriguing to think of these apparently benign rustic structures with there flimsy tendril interconnections having the potential to carry and convey so much abstract power in the age of digital communications and global information exchange, as well as all the lives and events they have connected and conveyed.... I also think that this would be a good time to try to develop some new mono techniques. Particularly infra red, platinum, and lith, as I need to be able to achieve new levels of subtly and expression in printing, I'm getting a bit tired of the purity of Ilford Gallery prints and want to produce more atmospheric renderings. A radical equipment upgrade would also certainly be helpful to, and I long to be able to afford medium format gear to enable the production of fine art grade prints on a much larger scale.

It's now almost 1am, Jazz FM Cutting Edge head tunes in the background..naturally. There was a track on a moment ago that I think was from a deluxe version of a vintage Marvin Gay album?? called Song Number 3 it was segwayd into something by "Sleepy's Theme" I'm confused because Song Number 3 ? was a fascinatingly intense piece of shear 70s Jazz Funk cool on full power with an unusually dense arrangement for Marvin Gay. I'm not sure, where exactly the demarcation point was...I hate it when DJ's do that..you see I may have joined the program a third of the way through a three-tune segway..U with me?... so the thing I heard may have been some contemporary retro tune. What ever it was, I want it!! the new 4Hero CD Creating Patterns, also sounds quite interesting, I also really like some of the stuff on the new Carmen Lundy CD This is Carmen Lundy. I still haven't managed to get a copy of Stereo Lab's Ketchup yet, apparently an inventive evocation of 70s Jazz Funkadelia supported by dense string arrangements and SL's inimitably quirky and innovative production, this is supposed to be SL's most highly rated CD. I was only saying to an acquaintance the other day that the music that hit home for me in the 60's was Mowtown, Deon Warwick, and Burt {Backeracke}. However, I can never remember hearing the Beatles, Stones, or Doors at that time. Similarly the music that hit home for me in the 70s was Soul, Jazz Funk, and R&B, Curtis Mayfield, Isaac Hays, Sly & the Family Stone, Steeleye Dan etc. I thought everything outside of the realms of Soul, Jazz Funk, and R&B, in the early 70s seemed like slightly Eurovisiony shite. The classic rock of the era was very obscure and only aired on the OGWT or John Peel. That's how I remember it anyway; and so hence, the nostalgia angle. It all reminds me of those heady 1970s strawberry bubble gum Summers of my youth.