Unbroken Falls

2010-06-24T22:38:00.000-07:00

Scarecrow by Gene Severens from Michael Wright on Vimeo.

Scarecrow written by Gene Severens (of the band Boneyard)
arranged and performed by michael severens
we all love and miss you, bro...

Video directed by Michael James Wright
Michael Severens: Scarecrow
Postproduction and editing Cesar Guevara
Audio production Ramón Hernandez / Michael Severens
Thanks to Juan Carlos Romero

All rights reserved, do not use without written permission.

Gene Severens

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article may need to be wikified to meet Wikipedia's quality standards. Please help by adding relevantinternal links, or by improving the article's layout. (April 2008)

Gene Severens
Birth name	Eugene Padanyi Severens
Born	22 June 1963
Died	19 February2006 Worcester, MA, USA
Field	Musician, Painter, Multi-media
Movement	Punk
Influenced by	The Clash, The Dead Boys,Rancid

Gene Severens (born Eugene Padanyi Severens, 22 June 1963 - 19 February 2006) was an American songwriter, musician and artist. He was the driving force behind a number of punk rock bands, first in Worcester, Massachusetts, but mostly in Providence, Rhode Island. In addition to lead vocals, Severens would perform on both bass and guitar, usually bass. As a visual artist, he worked in acrylic paint, ink, charcoal and mixed media. The aesthetic throughout was consistent: punk.

Influenced by early punk rock bands the Clash and the Dead Boys, Severens began writing song with Richard "Foghorn" Harnois with whom he founded the Aggressions c. 1984. The Aggressions, along with the Commandos and the Performers, constituted the core of Worcester's early hardcore punk scene, playing frequently at Ralph's Diner. The Aggressions enjoyed local radio success with their song "Howard Johnson's" about an ill-fated attempt to drive through a snow storm to a punk rock concert.

In Providence, Severens founded his most influential band, Boneyard, who would open for Goo Goo Dolls and Social Distortion. Members included Gail Greenwood who would later join Belly and L7. His other main Providence-based project was My Way.

[edit]The Scarecrow

The image of a scarecrow/crucifix appears throughout Severens' artwork, including as a tattoo on his right arm. This image served as a central theme for his views on the human condition: where Jesus gave the ultimate sacrifice to call down the doves of peace, modern religion has "made him a scarecrow, to chase the doves away", as Severens wrote in his song The Scarecrow.

The Scarecrow expresses the image and its meaning more fully. On the Boneyard recordings, Severens delivers the vocal, bringing his biting sarcasm to the fore. An alternate arrangement recorded by Severens' brother and accomplished cellist Michael Severens, features a simple vocal with cello accompaniment that brings out the more enduring themes to which the song points.

Bob and the Crew

2010-06-14T22:57:00.000-07:00

Dont forget. Click away on the images my friend.

LADY Models http://www.hottoddiesunlimited.com/

Taller

2010-06-10T00:02:00.001-07:00

Click on image.

Cute, honey and bunny

2010-06-06T16:16:00.000-07:00

Sometimes to freshen up your ideas you need to get down and dirty.
After being in a creative runt, its always worked for me to loose shame by being a dumb ass.

Disconnected from expectations, with expectations come disappointments. You cant Photoshop disappointments. And with the moon you can play with telescopes, unless you have a neighbor with odd habits who will give you a reason to fulfill your own voyeuristic habits.

Bouncing ideas off the back of my head is never as good as doing a Gondry´esk "LOW". Foofighters Low ...

Bounce the Camera around and twisted Sci-Fi will happen. So... Now that eStudio473 is on a roll. My first proposal is to "LOW"... cabin fever time.

objectifying my Negatives

2010-05-17T22:38:00.000-07:00

MyNegatives

This time it will be calm, when people claim they are interested in photography they click faster than they read it or even think it. Coupling personal images I took within common feelings and time periods. Specially a time when I did not think much about what I did beyond the technical aspects. I hope to bring something new to your plate.

I started to work recently with a Canon 8800F scanner with the object of digitalizing 100`s of slides of my father. But till there completely cataloged in the correct order in a binder, they wont get close to the chaos that digitalizing becomes.

So my most precious "object book" came out of a box and on to the scanner.

5 years of compulsive black and white negatives, dating 2001/2007, mostly include the world around me. Bouncing from portraits to landscapes, Chile Argentina and Mexico.

40hrs a week in the dark room did not make me a lab genius, more of a mess maker with a beautiful mess.

Most of the film is Kodak 400TX, shot with a rebel Ti and a 28-80 lens. Some times a 1982 Canon AE-1 that behaved better in the rain, snow, mud and with the face of who ever wanted to start some trouble.

My lab work was not constant, most of the time I was accused of doing it wrong. The more I noticed that who ever was telling me this did not do much to help them selves, the less affected I was about their remarks. This also came from people who defined photographs as good or bad...

Now that I see it in perspective I should retake this BW obsession.

Think less and shoot more, or shoot more and think less...at the end of the day it all comes down to what intention/context you build around your work.

Pallor Mortis

2010-05-12T14:06:00.000-07:00

The last short short I made.
When Adobe CS5 comes out I will re-edit.... but for now it works.

It was an idea I wanted to share for about 4 months now. Seems these Ideas will be snow balling.
3 more are in preproduction.

I know they will all be black and white shot on the canon 5d Markii, wide lenses, and fear makers...

Pallor Mortis from Michael Wright on Vimeo.

Collaboration with Studio 473

2010-05-07T03:43:00.000-07:00

Six Words from Michael Wright on Vimeo.

···There is something odd about the hands in all of these images, seems like they don't belong to the portrayed. In a way seems like their hands are strangers imposing the written text message.···

for a better view go to vimeo.

Last "cinco de Mayo" people in the states were partying what they think is some kinda special day. (Its all make believe).

While in the bar Zilch Guanajuato Mexico, there was a fund raiser for eStudio473

http://studio473.wordpress.com/estudio-who/

I got invited by Katie Clancy to get my gear down to the bar with a last minute call to set up a photo booth.

Themed on Hemingway's six word story.

My instructions were to ask people to write down their life story in six words.

Even though most could not count to six nor build a sentence, I just went with the flow.

Interesting none the less were the

resources people used. Quotes, words with comas, scattered words, upside down words, english,

spanish, latin...

Giving people more freedom gave people more ability to share what was on their mind at the moment

and how they wanted to be portrayed.

So, to avoid being judgmental, I ignored all the text on the slips of paper. I knew the minute

I winked, gagged or laughed at what ever was written the portrait would be ruined, leaving me to

deal with the soft focus of the 50mm 1.4f in very low light. Gave the sense that its not all there, we must fill

in the blanks.

·Try harder to read the text or try harder to read the face. ·

With three external flashes. Cheap cellophane acted as gels, blue, read and green. Knowing that I would

convert to black and white I wanted more

information to play with when choosing the low key or high key of the skin of each individual.

Last time I sat up a photo booth I dealt with strangers on the street for last years Noche de la Fotografia for PHE,

and it was completely different than

dealing with people you see constantly down town, you nod your head they nod back... but this time I got a couple names down.

More info on their Adobe Youth Voices Project in Guanajuato.

Rebeca Bees`s Flikr. showing how their classes take place.

Music on the video is from our friends The Sharpies from San Miguel de Allende, you can se the original video of the song I get around on youtube.

Soon there will be more to come from the Sharpies.

Lamusidean Nymphs

2010-04-25T21:25:00.000-07:00

Last fridays photo shoot brought the latest acquisition to Lizards night.

Lamusidean Nymphs

Lamusidean Nymphs were the daughters of Lamus. They were the nurses of Dionysus, but because of Hera's deep jealousy they were driven mad. They would have chopped the baby Dionysus up, and not Hermes appeared on the scene just in time to save the baby God

Archeoportraits

2010-04-20T22:16:00.000-07:00

Archeophotography is what your mind does each time you pickup a family picture book and people discus with their memory every little detail in each image.

I found a hard drive 6 years old. And it looks like an antic. I remember it had two other brothers, one died of over heating and the other with a virus that came from a program that promised to recover deleted images you promised to your girl friend that no one would see till she changed her mind and made you delete them...

That was way back when PC`s were the only way to go for me.

And this is where it became more interesting. With a hard drive loaded with immature photographs taken with a Canon XT. giving a strange low quality image that spits out all its flows on the up to date computer Im using now: I found that most of the pictures (if i wasn't jaded by a pretty face) were talking about most of the same things i talk about now. So ill be adding up sections to Lizards Night. Instead of separating chapters with little fairies and princesses in distress, there will be a succession of strange portraits that will bring complex questions to the table.

Portraits around me recently have been intended to glorify beauty by covering up black spots and pimples with shiny visual sparks, that in a way short circuit my attention. Iv found it pretentious and imitative. So fondling these "old" pictures with new technology gave me access to a process i missed very much, the combination of "chiaroscuro"and grainy texture of high ISO B&W film. With in the combination came the next discovery.

We all like to say we have taken photographs since we can remember, but its never the case.

I never invested in a good set of filter for B&W Photography, thinking that with a dense red filter was more than enough, had to do with high contrast clouds, very nineties video clip or U2album cover. (Not many clouds where I live and I think U2 is over rated)

So good thing I found the Blue filter for B&W digital conversion. Cant wait to get a real one...

Ashley Fell in one of my uncompleted short films that turned into a music video, Better day Dante Ochoa. You can see it at Tren Géminis Producción

Bety Aguilar Maza

Cesar Guevara from TGProducciónes

Luis Fernando Corona

Ginita Bonita

Mario Josué Aguilar Méndez

Ashley Fell

You can call this a study on new digital filters in B&W with older DSLR files, but for me its just progress in my work. (And getting ready for Friday, got a photo shoot with some talented models, so they can knock some sense back into me).

Making an ass out of your ass

2010-04-18T14:10:00.000-07:00

Kent Evans; The Donkey whisperer...

Author of "Malas Ondas" google him and you wont find him. ebay him and you will find...

The government of Alberta has this to say about Donkeys;
... it must be acknowledged that the largest segment of the donkey industry may currently be the people who own them as pets. The pet category is dominated by the miniature but it would be incorrect to assume that the miniatures are not establishing their own reputation as equine performance animals.

What does this have to do with what Im about to show you?

Nothing...

Because we are in Guanajuato, and when you race donkeys ritualistically once a year for the anniversary of your local bar Its vacation time for all. The donkeys get pet and fed with nothing all that heavy on their backs. Big fat gringos maybe (recently mexican fed also, so probably lost a bunch of fast food wight), but better than the 350pound load of bricks they carrie 5 days a week.

When you google "El Fusilado" you will get a myspace...

and you can se pictures from previous races.

Noticing my lack of participation, lots of people come up close to me with intent to have a whispered conversation about the mistreatment to the little critters. They did not notice that I was actually glorifying the event taking pictures. So I kept my mouth shut and continued with what I do...

And the proud winner of the Fusilado Donkey race 2010 is this guy. With the prize, a bottle of their best Mezcal.

Generating a dialog through out Lizards Night.

2010-04-12T22:40:00.000-07:00

If you´v asked me recently what have i been up to: I will answer ·personal projects· Simple and avoiding details, unless Iv got much on my mind and needy to spit it out. Then I will spiral into a narcissistic discussion with myself about Liz`s Night.

With a collection of critters, fairy bug eyed people and a potpourri of oddities that have come out of costume parties and random encounters. Its getting closer to become the melting pot of fantasy and fairy tale archetypes it has originally intended

to be.

Still, the dialog is what will guide the story line. I see no other way than printing the 500 or so usable images in this three year collection and free style it like they did in the old days.

Finally, there must be a a really fast slideshow, and a really slow slide show. This will be my work method for the storyline that will end up being a book.

Its harsh on some people when they see them selves portrayed as an evil minion or victim of one. Being sexually attractive in a photograph is a big deal now a day: I just find it generic most of the time.

My dog goes in the box, thank you.

2010-04-07T08:23:00.000-07:00

Remember to click on the photos for full view.

2010-02-03 Saturday

Getting home things have changed, my folks have plans to redo their patio covering the dry old grass with stonework. Under that dry ground in the summer and muddy nothing in the winter laid the only dog I ever loved.

Her name was Elsy Maria, a golden labrador retriever that by no means was a pedigree nor complied to the aesthetics required for any competition.

My mother gave me this dog when we had recently moved to this house in Guanajuato Mexico, we made a BbQ that night and i fed her a steak behind my dads back, I was 14 and she cried all night. Cries I could hear from my bathroom window. -so I whistled all night long till she fell asleep.

Knowing she would have to be relocated a team had to be put together;

Mario Josué Aguilar Méndez a Marine biologist and Bacteriologist. Father of one.

Christhoper Guillermo Sierra Garcia a Nurse. Father of two.

Both of them had a kick at discussing anatomy issues and found the details most exciting.

Being a saturday they both brought beer with them and the list begins:

1 X note pad

1 X pencil

3 X garden shovels

2 X Brushes

3 X dog bone structure schemes

1 X red plastic board

10 X beer

2 X pair latex gloves

2 X industrial gloves

1 X strainer (to find all the little bones)

4 X plastic bags

4 X big cups of coffee

1 X pair of scissors

10 X cigarets (for the scientists not me)

1 X cardboard box

and 4hours of a saturday.

This may sound like an excuse but the truth is that other cultures have rubbed off on me in a

way that stimulates introspective answers.

The Guanajuato mummies give a sense of direct comparison of who your looking at and who is

looking.

American mummies,(the two Iv encountered in the US), have really cool stories that could be told in any movie, song, or photographs and are treated as jewels. The excitement to sit and stare at them is something inspiring, some kind of afterlife rockstar with fascinating heritage, true or false, still inspiring.

The Peruvian Chiribayan mummies, a sense of perpetual access to the departed loved one.

This revisiting in a confrontational search with your own questions,

looking for wisdom within, honoring the eternal respect to the ones who only live in our memories.

Can and will solve the issues that the whole society required to be prosperous, but in this case its just me and thinking about the time I spent growing next to this old dog.

I put her to sleep the night of my welcoming party at my first year of uni, party that i never attended.

That night my brother called me with the news, she was infested with tumors and would be put down the next day. Knowing she had been very sick for the last month she was to suffer no more pain. Several thing happened that night that helped with the revisiting, like having her leash and tennis ball handy to bury them with her, and my mom giving me a sheet that was not 100% cotton kept all her bones together. We found them all.

Getting the vet to do us a favor at 10pm on a friday is an easy thing to do in Guanajuato, so we got it over and done with.

Currently she is in a box with Merengue the albino african clawed frog, her leash and tennis ball. Waiting to be boiled down with calcium and soap, to be mounted and displayed at the Veterinary school of the Universidad de Guanajuato.

Appendix: The story of Merengue.

After Elsy paste away I bought a fish tank, several low maintenance fish and a supposably pigmy albino frog. He was pigmy till he ate the fish, he was a he and sang with the humming of the fridge till he turned into a she.

A heat wave changed the temperature of the tank, and after 5 years hey floated belly up in the tank. In a drunken stupor at 5am I came home and put “it” in a jar and buried it on top of where i thought Elsy`s rib cage was.

The only memory I have is my mother blaming the dogs for making a mess in the yard, the day after. So much to my surprise I revisited two of my pets in one day.

Wee all feared that Dora, my brothers dog, would dig up the remains out of instinct. On the contrary , she slept on top of the grave for at least 6 months and did not want to know anything about the revisiting. It was a very odd situation for her and an introspective day for me.

"When I hear that trumpet sound I'm gonna get up out of the ground

aint' no grave gonna hold my body down

I looked way over yonder and what do you think I see?

I see a band of angels and they're coming after me"

Johnny Cash

(Now that would be scary, a Johnny Cash zombie)

Dia de las flores/Day of the flowers. 2010

2010-03-29T23:07:00.000-07:00

26·March·2010

The day of the flowers is this repetitive party that comes around once a year, "the"day the students get on spring break. Not the americanized twisted moral "Fuck" yeah we are on vacations type of spring break... but yet twisted in its own way.

Knowing it would be a long night, I waited to leave my house till midnight after a heavy steak dinner. Got all dazzled up in my 80`s studded jacket and with my camera prepped.... I knew the 8gb I had of memory in the camera would not be enough. "Real Men Shoot RAW"... I did pussy out... Ended up with 400Jpeg`s shot when the sun started smacking the ravers in the face.

Standing in this parking lot of a house that never comforted any one, staring at the sun coming up between the hills I was getting ready to witness the petrification of the trolls from "From here there and back again". (Bert and Tom and William The three trolls of; The Hobbit). Knowing this I had prepared 1.8f 28mm... and made best of the short time before they all melted away.

unbroken falls DAY1

2010-03-28T01:13:00.001-07:00

Im not all that great at publishing but Im good when i get involved with what my gust desire.

I will start with stuff recently published on Vimeo.

So when getting back to Guanajuato these videos were unavoidable

Michael Severens and Josué Fonseca

"All rights reserved" Do not use without written permission.

2009 Guanajuato Gto, Mexico.

A Michael James Wright production

With assistance from; Pia"lola" Siliceo camera on the right, Carlitos, Nico, Iñaki, Marina, Inma, Moon, Macarena, Api on the left.

Left, Sony 240fps, on the right Canon 5d markii 640x480 BW Red ditigal filter, ISO 6400. Sigma 15mm diagonal FE

Special thanks to Bar Zilch.

Michael S. is not happy with the result but soon there will be a retake...