Holy Package, Batman!

Batman goes full frontal -- briefly:

Today marks the debut of Batman: Damned #1 by Brian Azzarello and Lee Bermejo, the first book released under DC Black Label. The nascent imprint is aimed at a slightly more mature audience than DC’s mainstream offerings, which was made very apparent when readers caught a glimpse of Bruce Wayne doing the most human thing in the world.

As he enters the Batcave after a night of fighting crime and solving a murder (the Joker’s, no less), Bruce Wayne starts taking off his superhero suit with each step. The camera pulls out to show his nude form from the front, never pulling away, revealing, for the first time ever, Bruce Wayne’s penis.

Of course, DC chickened out after the first print run:

CBR has been informed that, while Black Label is an imprint for mature readers, it was decided Bruce Wayne’s nudity was not additive to the story. Thus, the digital version blacked out the scenes. Additionally, CBR has confirmed that future printings of the issue will use the altered panels.

Not to say that there's a double standard in comics, perhaps reflecting the misogyny of young boys (who, traditionally, are the audience for superhero comics), and not to belabor the fact that the Black Label imprint is for "more mature" audiences, but if you think about it, how often do you see male characters portrayed with the same degree of nudity as female characters? (Not that comics in general are full of nudity, although given the prevalence of spandex. . . . But America in general has a problem with nudity; chalk it up to our "Christian" heritage. And no, I don't consider that attitude at all healthy, in case you were wondering.)

And if you want to know what all the fuss is about without surfing the web:

The full sequence is here.

Catch-Up

I'm on deadline again, but I do have a couple of things I've been saving that I hope to get to this weekend -- another take-down of that intellectual bright light of the anti-marriage movement, Rod Dreher (who not only screws up his own arguments, but whines about it) and perhaps, if I can pull it together, another commentary on "The End of 'Gay'."

But first, book reviews.

And something nice to look at, from a series I did a number of years ago titled "Veil".

Deperate Attempts

I've lost a post three times now, and it's one I was sort of looking forward to -- Rod Dreher came up with another lame attempt to justify discrimination against gays and lesbians.

Maybe it's the content -- my computer keeps stalling on it.

Later, I guess.

In the meantime, something to keep you occupied:

Finally!

Another gallery at a/k/a Hunter. More nudes from 2000.

This one got edited out.


(For some reason, Blogger doesn't want to deal with direct links to the site or the page in the post. Don't know why. I did the links right. Feh.)

Today

Light posting today, probably. Things to do, not much in the news that interests me, weather supposed to be beautiful, although I have to work today. Just to tide you over, here's a picture from an upcoming gallery at a/k/a Hunter.

How I Work: A Glimpse

WARNING: There are images in this post of a naked man. His thing is showing. If you're going to freak out about it, go away.

I'm pretty ambivalent about posting this, and I'm not quite sure why I'm doing it -- perhaps it's the compulsive need of the artist to explain himself, although I've never been particularly motivated by that before. Maybe it's just to give you a little tour behind the scenes, because I like that sort of thing. Maybe it's because I've had politics up to here. Maybe I should just let go of it.

I mentioned in a previous post that I tend to work serially, whether it comes out to be an actual series or a group of serial images (i.e., linked by some kind of narrative). What you're seeing here is a selection from a long series of negatives from a shoot from 1999. These are the best of them -- there are many others that will never see the light of day. I don't think consciously while I'm shooting -- it's all gut. I work with a 35mm, usually 36-exposure rolls, and can shoot between four and seven rolls during a shoot. Back in the days when my Polaroid Spectra was still functional, I'd also do 10 or 20 Polaroids; most of the color images in the galleries at a/k/a/ Hunter are from Polaroids. (What a wonderful camera! I could do the most amazing things with it -- the Flashlights, Shatter, Vanished, and Veil were all done with that camera.) Fortunately, 35mm film is cheap. Unfortunately, Polaroid film was not, but the camera died and I've never gotten around to seeing if Polaroid would repair it -- I'm not even sure Polaroid still exists. I suppose I should check.

What you see in this sequence is a little bit of the way my gut works while I'm shooting, and by inference, the relative amount of work that is done in the camera -- almost none -- as opposed to the amount done in the darkroom or on the computer. I once did a shoot for another photographer, working with another model. I think between the two of us he shot about four dozen exposures in four hours. I've been known to shoot around 300 in two hours or so. He spent almost no time in the darkroom. I spend hours. I also make terrible negatives because I tend to push the camera a little past where it wants to go, but fortunately I'm a genius at printing. (I wasn't always. You learn.) That's one reason I'm so crazy about Photoshop -- I can save hours of time and mountains of paper because I can dope out what I want a particular image to look like on the computer and then I have that visual memory when I hit the darkroom. I don't have to make nearly as many decisions there.

All these negatives are actually a way of thinking out loud while I'm shooting. The variations on the image -- the different angles, the varying distances, the cropping and framing, what's going on at the edges, the alterations in exposure -- are ways of talking to myself about what I'm seeing as I'm seeing it. This is mostly laying out the broad outlines -- figure, shadows, the overall composition.

This is a process that continues in the darkroon or on the computer -- refining the image -- but it takes on a different character. It's at that point that I start asking myself what the image needs to say. (That's what I'm not going to talk about here or anywhere else. I'm way too arrogant to talk about what my work means. Besides, I only put part of the meaning in an image. You put the rest of it in. If I have to explain it to you, either I've not done my job or you're not doing yours. My bet is on the latter.) It's also at that point that I start thinking about things like detail in the highlights, how deep I want shadows to be, whether I want a softly modeled, sensuous image or something contrasty and harsh. or maybe, as finally happened with this one, something dark and moody. (Please understand that there are no actual words involved in this process -- this is a total right-brain monologue.)



In spite of the variations in exposure and contrast in this set of images, the negatives are fairly consistent and scan fairly closely to the first image. I've altered the others to give some idea of the range of things I will try in printing to get what I want.

And after I've played around with them enough, what you get is this, which is what appears in the 1998-1999 gallery at a/k/a Hunter (or will, as soon as it's all uploaded).

I Was Right

There is another gallery for 1997.

Also doing a little clean-up work to make navigation a little more straighforward.

Another note about the work. Well, not about the work itself, but about the way it's made. I tend to work in serial imagery. In fact, at some point, there will probably be a gallery of serial images -- at least, when I figure out how to set it up. This is quite different than the series I've already published at the site, which are images related by a theme or device rather than images related by some sort of narrative. As for the "regular" images, if you look at my negatives (you wish), you'll see groups of similar frames, which I then edit to select the ones I want to release at any given time. This is particularly true of the nudes, since I have some control over that, but there are some among the landscapes as well.

Just so you know.

Site Update

a/k/a/ Hunter, that is. What a morning! Somehow, in spite of the vicious combination of Trellix, Internet Explorer, and Earthlink, I managed to put up a new gallery, clean up the "Shatter" gallery, and make some additions to "Flashlights."

But it wasn't easy. System crashed twice. Shouldn't have happened, but it did.

So, a little preview:





There will probably be a second gallery for 1997. I only did four shoots that year, but had excellent models and produced a lot of images that still interest me a lot.

But I'm going to do that some morning when IE is feeling better.

Redemption

Redemption is finally up at a/k/a Hunter. It's a new version, a translation from a wall installation of a few years ago for a World AIDS Day exhibition to a webpage. It involved a total rethinking, and lot of tinkering, and I'm not sure it's done yet. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'll be back in, adding, subtracting, altering text and images. I did learn a few tricks on this one, and I'm sure I'll learn more.

(And of course, checking the link, I discovered a typo. No, I'm not going to fix it right now.)

Update:

Thinking about it, I've realized that the problem lies in translating from a wall, which provides a horizontal narrative flow that leaves the decision of what to view next with the viewer, to a Web page, which demands (in this case) a vertical flow with the order determined. I'm not really happy with the present form, so definitely expect more tinkering -- perhaps more images to break up the text a little more, which wasn't an issue in the original installation. (Please note that with this page, unlike the Galleries, you cannot click on the image to view it in a larger format, since they're not meant to be considered separately here.)

About the Nudes

Treasure this. I don't talk about my work very much.

Yes, another gallery of male nudes at a/k/a/Hunter. It's getting to the stage where you can now see some development of themes and images over time. The nudes, much more than the landscapes and the more formal works, represent a series of confrontations for me, with my attitudes, my hesitancies, my opposed tendencies to rebellion and being "the best little boy in the world."

You can also start to see some of my formal concerns operating: the "classicist" versus the off-the-cuff street photographer, the abstract formalism versus the happy accidents, the high-mindedness versus the near-pornography of some of the more recent images (the interface between the erotic and the pornographic has started to fascinate me). Going back through this imagery has been a real trip, and I think, after a hiatus of several years, I'm ready to start investigating some of these things agan.

It's been fun.*


* Except for the actual mechanics of getting the galleries online. Between them, Internet Explorer and Trellix Sitebuilder (which does not support Firefox) are a heady dose of virtual hell.

My Head

is not into logic or parsing or any sort of formal argument today. I'm going to the zoo. Maybe commune with the monkeys, or something. Look at the orchids at the conservatory. It's rainy and mild -- a good day for it, minus rugrats.

In the meantime, you deserve another picture, so here it is.

And On That Note

I just wanted to say that I'm back at work on a/k/a Hunter. Look for some new galleries. (I may even get the GMR music reviews updated and posted.)

Of Browsers

The newest wrinkle at a/k/a Hunter: If you are not using Internet Explorer (and perhaps AOL or Netscape), links to some of the galleries vanish off the page. I found this out when I used IE to view the site, and then went back in Firefox.

Rather unsettling.

At any rate, there is a new gallery up this morning, a series I did in 1996 called "Veil." Use IE and go see it.






UPDATE:

I just checked with the link on this post, using Firefox, and everything's fine. Don't ask me to explain, because I can't.

Did I mention that Mercury's in retrograde?

OK -- Thought About It

Not only do you get new pictures, you get a whole new gallery. Just go to a/k/a Hunter and follow the links from the Galleries page.

Hmm. . . .

I'm debating whether to give you a new picture today. You had a bunch a couple of days ago, and I don't want you to get blase about it.

Thinking. . . .

On Going Through Old Photographs

Which is actually the title of a poem I wrote -- one of the few that have been published.

I do that periodically, because I've found, in thirty years of making pictures, that my artist mind far outstrips my editor mind sometimes. It's become all too common for me to go back through old material and say to myself, "Why have I never printed that? It's fantastic!"

So, here's a little something I found recently.




Every once in a while I run into an image that has too many possibilities. I do most of my work in the darkroom (or in Photoshop), unlike those photographers who do their work in the camera. As a result, I make crappy negatives, but they have a lot of ways to go. Here's one that first appeared on the scanner roughly like this:



















I looked at it a bit, and liked it, but I wanted to see what else was possible. So I played around a bit and came up with this:




















I'm not sure which I like better.

Scanner News

Finally! I found the magic button that got me back to optimum working conditions. Spent yesterday afternoon scanning my little brains out.

However, considering that I'm trying to go through thirty years of my work, I'm going to have to limit the number of images in the galleries. If I get enough positive response (hint, hint), I'll consider adding more in each group.

The Scanner Works!

It's still trimming edges a bit, but I can put off reinstalling everything (again).

So, by way of celebration, you get this:

Time For A Picture

I have to start fighting with the scanner again today. Maybe this time.

And I really have to start working out again. Truly.

a/k/a Hunter Update

Still having scanner problems, so I have been reworking some images already uploaded with a view to at least getting the galleries sketched out. Nothing's complete, at this point, but we are getting the overall shape of the thing identified. Stop by.