↑Larryosan's blog

The poor meanderings of a lacksadasical mind.

So here I am contemplating writing a post everyday. Now I have at least one person Amiko who is doing a picture a day, which is an admirable effort and he is doing an amazing job with it. But can I continue this effort on such a strenous schedule. Not sure. But for now let me ponder the questions I like to ponder. I have stated that I am an imagist, not a photographer. I say this partly due to my modesty about my photographic skills but also my use of Photoshop. I know for a fact that I am not concerned about lighting or shading or tones, but I am always on the look out for content. Now that is a valid expression of photography but I go beyond by creating new images disconnected from the concerns of building a "picture". But not disconnected from building an "image". My goal has always been to convey some message, some form of communication whether it be emotional, intellectual or best of all humorous. I want to move my viewer. I guess that is why so many "beautiful" images leave me flat. Like those hyper real images of fog or coastlines or tigers one sees at every street fair, printed in exquisite details. They repel me from photography. On the other hand, take for example a picture by Sol Lang. His technical work is flawless, but they serve his imagery. I just saw his latest black and white image of a young women and I was deeply moved. Beyond the simple eroticism implied by her nudity and youth, with the delicacy of the picture he in fact captures her young vulnerability and sensous quality of her body. The technical, the content and the emotional moment combine to deliver a wonderful human moment in the best sense of what it means to be a fleshy, hormonally driven visually stimulated human being. I am not talking about the simple fact of sex or sexuality but of the far more intersting issues of what it means to be a human, that we are in deed fleshy animals with flesh driven desires and how this drives part of our intellectual outlook.

Anyway that is enough blathering for now, if I try to explain my thoughts all in one post I will run out of material all too soon.

ps. If you don't know Sol Lang, you should and you should take the time to see all his work and see why he is such a wonderful photographer. His nudes wouldn't be what they are if he wasn't who he is. And if you look at his non nudes pictures you will understand what that means.

I am not a huge fan of winter, though it has its moments. The first snow fall when NYC is covered with clean white snow until the dust and soot covers everything and mounds of snow covered trash build up. But for now it can be pretty and the little park below me is strewn with sparkly colored lights which make up a sweet tempered tableau.

So today I visited deadmanguru. Wow he is 96 years old and lives in asshatola which may be near anus NM if I am not mistaken. Right near buttcheek mountain. Ok enough of the adolescent humor. But I like his work, I peg him as a image philosopher, which I guess is what draws me to his work. As this is one aspect of my work I am trying to culitvate. Tying the visual with something a bit more cerbral, yet at the same time still maintaining my connection to the gut instinct of humanity. Some of his images remind me of bringing up the child like drawings that moved us for so many years but done with a sophisticated eye that transforms them from the primitive to something more. And even the name deadmanguru, says so much. Are there any real gurus out there now living that are even worth listening to, I suspect not. We have to turn to this deadman who lives in some assholio portion of the US and takes on the personna of an aging crock. Kuddos to him.

Does that have any connection to me, I think so as I continue to gain perspective and creative inspiration from the people I follow as contacts. They all challenge me in some way or another. Oh and by the way, yes I know much of what I say is obvious and in many ways trite and been there and done that. I have to slog through the obvious in my thinking to someday maybe get to something original and perhaps unique and interesting. So yes I know I know.

Enough for today, I want to take this nice and easy.

Insert a catch phrase here until I find one that works.

Nothing nicer than first snow until it becomes unclean......

Life is and life is not

Being creative everyday is hard

Monologue or Dialogue

What is the point of commenting or faving

Culture here and abroad

Being American can be detrimental to your cultural health

Digging around for material

Oh I want a comment so bad I can taste it

Using art to explore external or internal or hiding behind your work

I wish I could write German and French among other languages

Taking money out of my pocket

The obligatory Yultide Musings as the festive days approach

I hope I didn't disappoint too many of you with my last posting. Even to discuss what I posted would take me back to well tread ground.

I have gone back to school, attending a small local college taking a couple of classes at a time. I made the conscious decision to pace my load so that school would stay fun for me. While I am looking to accomplish my goal of getting some type of degree, I want the experience to very positive. I don't want to burden more of my life. I have my job to do that. And I enjoy spending time with my fellow collegians. Even if they show up late, nod off in class or barely do the work. I am not working and trying to carry a full load, nor do I go out and party the night before. Now this is not something I am boasting about, it is simply where my life is now. But I enjoy being around kids, it is a nice break from hanging out with all these hardworking adults all week. Two different and interesting worlds. And why shouldn't I want to broaden my life.

I haven't quite gotten past the level one classes yet so the material isn't all that interesting yet, but it does make for a great grade point average. So I am not complaining. And here and there I am learning a little here and there. I have in particular enjoyed my speech class. I have been working to outline my speeches which doesn't come natural for me. So it was a stretch.

Are you interested in my life as I prattle on here. Not sure, and why should my life be anymore interesting than anyone else. But for better or worse it is my life. Just as my point of view as expressed in my images is mine. Are my images interesting because I find interesting things to take pictures of, or are they interesting due to my perspective, Or is it a combination, can one exist without the other. I suspect this is the case otherwise we would be totally inundated with insipid images of kittens, sunsets and flowers. None of these things are uninteresting in of themselves but there are plenty of pictures of these objects or scenes that leave us feeling less than before viewing them. On the other hand there are people who find these things quite fulfilling and on some level perhaps even spiritual. Could that be the paucity of culture that is shared or they just insipid people?

ta ta for now

It used to be church, supper, prayer and family time. What are our rituals for a modern Sunday morn? Are you like me with sleep being a Sunday ritual. I do not jest, sleeping in on Sunday is part of my life. As going to church is for others. This is my day to sleep and especially in those cold winter months to lay beneath the comforter with a cat on either side of me, little heaters and luxuriate in the soft warmth of the moment. Or to have the cats, a loved one and a snuggle beginning of the day. This is a ritual worth keeping.

Is being on the computer, indulging in flickr or ipernity your Sunday ritual, loading pictures, working with photoshop to create something new, the rituals of uploading, picking tags and wondering what impact your work will have on others. Well for me, the wondering is part of my artistic life and I guess in a way a ritual that drives my work. How much of your life has been shaped by this computer/Internet/social web combination? I used to surf the web looking for stuff or reading this and that mostly geek type stuff on slash dot or reading reviews of various types of things I wish to buy. But ah the social web, this has truly changed the Internet experience, now surfing and going on line means some form of interaction with other real people who we seem to join in intense but shallow but feeling deep relationships. We can see the fall out in such odd and sundry ways as relationships that go awry or the bullying of kids via Internet or text messaging, or the manipulation of some poor child all the way to suicide. The world in at least this small way has truly changed, in a significant manner. The next generation will have connections we can only speculate about now. Yet has it really changed the world, our leaders still lead us in the same old way, the national economic engine is still there no matter that the industrial engine is international in scope and dependencies. The economy is still national even if it makes money from all around the world. And am I any more international now that I correspond and interact with all of you Europeans or my friends on flickr from UAE. My mental map has changed but my physical map is still the same.

Do you think the world gestalt will shape your work, will it inform you differently on how you approach your act of creation?

ta ta for now

Today I was eying some interesting looking pistachio pralines and was told they were not in fact made for my consumption but for various friends. That launched me into various stratagems for getting my hands on some of this candy. I went from begging, to emotional blackmail ( you don't love me) to relating the strategies used by my father. This further led to recounting how my dad loved those cans and packages of the strangest types of food products. Or at least in my narrow food world, he loved pigs knuckles, menudo soup, jellied chickens feet, any odd kind of meat that is sold in small containers at the gourmet shop. One last holiday season my sister in law was showing him all the goodies purchased for him and as she pulled each one out he just gestured with his finger, pointing to the item then himself and then gave her one of his ingratiating looks of happiness. I wasn't there but saw the pictures and got a short description. For a moment I was transported back in time and reconnected with my father who has been gone for about 13 years. For a moment I felt the connection between us, and for a moment I was his immortality. At the same time I was reading about googling ourselves, which is a very popular pastime. For me, I don't show up under my own name, some guy who sounds very interesting shares my name. Me, I am on the Internet primarily as larryosan and if I gain any notoriety it will be under that moniker. But unless there is an astute and emotionally invested writer to record my particulars the Internet will have an visually interesting history of me, but I think with no emotional depth. That comes from human connections and remembrances.

So as I travel down the river of life, it is my human connections that form my true immortality, the stories, the fondness I hope someday will be shared by someone who knew me or told a story about me. The pictures and images will show something of my curiosity, but I am not sure they will tell the story of my humanity, even if they record so many facets of my life. I am not sure if this is good or bad or I should just be indifferent.

Oh well, it does pose some nice questions.

ta ta for now.

A layman's guide to a higher purpose.