http://virb.com/bluebird Virb 2.0 (@bluebird) en http://virb.com/bluebird/photos/1303937 ]]> Sat, 09 Jun 2007 20:30:59 -0700 http://virb.com/bluebird/photos/1303937 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1088468
adrienne b/ 5]]> Sat, 14 Feb 2009 10:31:53 -0800 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1088468 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1087052
adrienne b/ 4]]> Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:15:08 -0800 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1087052 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1087051 Fri, 13 Feb 2009 18:15:07 -0800 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1087051 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1084812
photo by el dude

um. yeah. i just thought this was funny...]]> Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:14:31 -0800 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1084812 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1084811
adrienne b/ 3]]> Thu, 12 Feb 2009 09:14:30 -0800 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1084811 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1083249
adrienne b/ 2]]> Wed, 11 Feb 2009 17:02:25 -0800 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1083249 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1082020

walker evans and the picture postcard
february 3, 2009 - may 25, 2009
metropolitan museum of art
the howard gilman gallery

1/ i had no idea that walker evans had collected so many postcards over the course of his life.

2/ it was really satisfying and wonderful to see the visual connections between his photos and the postcards

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adrienne b/ 1]]> Wed, 11 Feb 2009 00:40:25 -0800 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1082019 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1075936 Sat, 07 Feb 2009 18:30:59 -0800 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1075936 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1075935
my feburary amazon order has just been placed. i bought roger ballen's shadow chamber.

reasonings:

1/ the images are so eerily disturbing. yet beautiful. almost a perfect blend of ralph eugene meatyard and joel peter witkin.

2/ the imagery sort of relates to the body of work i am currently producing.

3/ this book has been on my wish list for well over a year.

]]> Sat, 07 Feb 2009 18:30:58 -0800 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1075935 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1073692
i went to d.c. last weekend to see a friend. on the way back to her apartment, while we were discussing what to do with our weekend, i spotted a banner advertising an exhibition of "the americans". it was quickly settled that we would go. luckily enough there was another photo exhibit being shown there as well entitled "oceans, rivers and skies," so it was a two for one.


1/ "looking in: robert frank's the americans"

the show was pretty good but i didn't really learn anything i didn't already know. although there were a few copies of publications i hadn't ever seen before.

2/ "oceans, rivers, and skies: ansel adams, robert adams, and alfred steiglitz"

ok this show was curated very strangely. i honestly don't even know what to say about it. there were images from steiglitz's equivalence series and then some images of both ansel and robert adams' seascapes. i just didn't really get it. i mean don't get me wrong, i understood it, i just didn't get it.

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aptup/ 3]]> Sat, 31 Jan 2009 13:06:16 -0800 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1063370 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1062120
aptup/ 2]]> Fri, 30 Jan 2009 22:22:01 -0800 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1062120 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1061137

i guess my interest in sally mann has waned over the years. i've bypassed this documentary on the shelves at the rental store many many times. the other night i couldn't find any movies that i was interested in seeing, and somehow i found myself at home with three different art documentaries. what remains was among them and it was by far the best of the three films i rented (including the meandering eggleston in the real world). in this film, steven cantor was able to both shed new light on her pictures for me and also transcend the work by presenting a fascinating portrait of the creative process and an artist's life.

one of the my favorite moments of the film: sally mann learns that pace macgill has cancelled her upcoming exhibition of "what remains." she had been exceedingly excited about the show, and when she hears of the cancellation she spends the entire day sobbing. so here she is, this artist of international acclaim, essentially as famous as any photographer can hope to be, and upon learning that pace macgill has cancelled her show, she is totally paralyzed. we watch her second guess the body of work she has painstakingly built over the course of 4 years. the scene struck me as such a clear illustration of how universal the plague of self doubt is, and that doubt will wash over all of us in vicious waves over the course of our lives.

sally mann is helplessly articulate. just one quote of many that grabbed me, in this case in reference to her landscape series:

"there is magic in the landscape. the question is whether i can get at it."

(p.s. all i wanted to do when this movie was over was grab my camera and shoot something.)

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aptup/ 1]]> Fri, 30 Jan 2009 06:34:30 -0800 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1061136 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1055866
kaffe med kaka/ 5]]> Tue, 27 Jan 2009 15:59:39 -0800 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1055866 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1053592
kaffe med kaka/ 4]]> Mon, 26 Jan 2009 08:39:21 -0800 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1053592 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1052577
kaffe med kaka/ 3]]> Sun, 25 Jan 2009 17:26:23 -0800 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1052577 http://virb.com/bluebird/posts/text/1051004
i was browsing google images today and saw the above image by imogen cunningham.

two thoughts occurred to me simultaneously:

1/ i had seen this picture before. i can't recall exactly how long ago it was that i first saw it. but i recognized it immediately and intensely. i know i spent a lot of time with imogen's images when i was in high school. and i remember using her work as the basis for a history assignment freshman year of college.

2/ not only did i recognize the image, but it reminded me of not one but several of my own photographs (example below). i can say with certainty that i was not looking at imogen's work when i took the below picture. i was studying in prague and looking at sudek and koudelka and reading kafka.

proof, yet again, that pictures will stew in my brain for untold periods of time before i draw upon them for one purpose or another.

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