Collaboration with Studio 473

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

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

Generating a dialog through out Lizards Night.

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.

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

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.