Dec/091
bringing it back
taken a while back, I decided to return this to my book after living with it and other large prints and falling in love with them all over again.
Dec/091
only the strong survive
... reads the tattoo on Eric's right forearm.
He enlisted in the army at 17 and was the tip of the spear in Iraq. His job was to find roadside bombs, and while doing so he's been blown up three times. He'd wake up afterward not remembering the event, and return to the battlefield as soon as he could stand because his men wouldn't be as safe without him in charge. Years later now, he's still finding shrapnel in his body - small metal pieces that sting in the shower and resemble bb's. To save himself the headache of going through the bureaucracy of the military medical system, he's removed the last five himself with household tools.
However, for Eric the real challenge of war wasn't being put between improvised explosives and the rest of his men, but between being a soldier and a police officer in a country we shouldn't occupy in the first place. The hard part was having local friends become enemies, and having to make split-second, black-and-white decisions of engagement and the use of deadly force in a situation that's made of nothing but shades of gray.
Linhof 4x5 camera - Voigtlander Heliar 24cm f/4.5 lens - Tmax 100 film.
Dec/090
get drunk
Always be drunk.
That's it!
The great imperative!
In order not to feel
Time's horrid fardel
bruise your shoulders,
grinding you into the earth,
Get drunk and stay that way.
On what?
On wine, poetry, virtue, whatever.
But get drunk.
And if you sometimes happen to wake up
on the porches of a palace,
in the green grass of a ditch,
in the dismal loneliness of your own room,
your drunkenness gone or disappearing,
ask the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock,
ask everything that flees,
everything that groans
or rolls
or sings,
everything that speaks,
ask what time it is;
and the wind,
the wave,
the star,
the bird,
the clock
will answer you:
"Time to get drunk!
Don't be martyred slaves of Time,
Get drunk!
Stay drunk!
On wine, virtue, poetry, whatever!"
— Baudelaire
Dec/090
gorgeous work …
Click on the image to link to the video on Bravo TV's site. This spot was done by my friend and Brooklyn roommate Chris Luttrell for Padma Lakshmi's line of Jewelry. Shot in my old flat, Chris used the 5D MkII and an old Bolex 8mm. Such a gorgeous look to this work ...
Dec/090
new website is up
The new site is up at laclairimages.com
Along with a new logo (thanks to Kim Bush, Yogi and graphic designer extraordinaire.
Dec/090
Another day it occurred to me that time as we know it doesn't exist in a lawn, since grass never dies or is allowed to flower and set seed. Lawns are nature purged of sex or death. No wonder Americans like them so much.
- Michael Pollan, Second Nature, 1991
Life and love are life and love, a bunch of violets is a bunch of violets, and to drag in the idea of a point is to ruin everything. Live and let live, love and let love, flower and fade and follow the natural curve, which flows on, pointless.
-D.H. Lawrence
(thanks for that last one, Bridget)
Dec/090
"It's the kind of song you hear and immediately can connect with. It transcends, connects, brings you to some more core place where you are reminded of love and passion at its purest, regardless of how dire your present circumstances are. It's an espresso shot (double) straight to your heart."
-The Hon. Diable
Favorite
NYTimes Photography Blog
- Top Award Winners at Perpignan Festival 7 September, 2010Frédéric Sautereau, Stephanie Sinclair and Damon Winter were among the top award winners at a photojournalism festival in France. […]By JAMES ESTRIN
- Shooting Film in an Afghan Police Station 3 September, 2010Christoph Bangert wanted to try something new for portraits he was taking in Afghanistan. He used film. […]By DAVID W. DUNLAP
- Pictures of the Day: Havana and Elsewhere 3 September, 2010Who else? […]By MERRILL D. OLIVER and DAVID W. DUNLAP
- Pictures of the Day: Mozambique and Elsewhere 2 September, 2010Protests turned deadly in the capital. […]By MEAGHAN LOORAM and KARLY DOMB SADOF
- Watching a Teenage Girl Die by Mortar 2 September, 2010In war, emotions run high. Adam Ferguson has found that can help as well as hinder, Eirini Vourloumis reports. […]By EIRINI VOURLOUMIS