Our last hope of ending this country’s reputation as the assholes of the universe

Paul Newman, 1925–2008

“He was smilin’, smiling. . . . That’s right. You know, that, that . . . that Luke smile of his. He had it on his face right to the very end. Hell, if they didn't know it ’fore, they could tell right then that they weren’t e’er gonna beat him. That old Luke smile. Oh, Luke. He was some boy. Cool Hand Luke. Hell, he’s a natural-born world-shaker.”

They don’t make ’em more beautiful than this.

Tierney Gearon revisited

I was flipping through W magazine this morning before eating my Cheerios, and I saw that there was an article on the actress Dakota Fanning, who, I was surprised to learn, is now 14. I’m impressed by Fanning and others like her: actors who happen to be children, as opposed to child actors. It seems like they’ve found a loophole, a crack in the spacetime continuum or something—able to walk in the world of adults while remaining children, and enjoying all the benefits of both worlds. The article shows that well. So, too, does the photo by Tierney Gearon.

Copyright © Tierney Gearon

And that leads me to the real subject of this post. Gearon is, to my mind, the real deal. I first heard about her when the film Tierney Gearon: The Mother Project came out, and I saw the film and heard her speak at UCSB in February. The film primarily documents Gearon as she photographs her children and her manic-depressive, schizophrenic mother. There were aspects of it I loved, parts of it that I found frightening and disturbing, too. The Q&A afterward was awkward—a combination of Gearon’s own demeanor (she seemed a bit manic, all over the place, hard to follow) and the audience (a woman in front of me audibly said, “That’s disgusting!” two or three times during the film, and several people in the audience seemed not to get her photos of her children).

The more time has passed, though, the more my respect for Gearon has grown, and the more I recognize the beauty in her work. I think of her and the film and her photos often, and isn’t that what it’s all about? My sister Cara and I have talked about The Mother Project more than once—the complexities of photographing your family in that way, what it is to be a mother, our feelings about our own mother and ourselves as daughters. It’s powerful stuff. I think I’m going to go order the DVD and watch it again. I see connections between Gearon and The Wire that I’m still trying to sort out.

Robert Frank in Vanity Fair

The April 2008 issue of Vanity Fair—the one with Sarah Silverman, Tina Fey, and Amy Poehler on the cover—has an interesting article on Robert Frank worth checking out. Here’s an excerpt from the end:

Robert Frank is an enigma: hard and empathetic and melancholic all at once. He abhors schmaltziness and syrup. I asked him if he would like to see a photograph of my baby. He answered, “Why should I want to see that?”

It is the same with him about photography. Digital photography destroys memory, he believes, with its ability to erase. Art school is another problem, teaching students to be blind. Editors are worse—they poke the artist’s eyes out. Photography: One minute it’s not art at all. Then perhaps it is. And then again it is not. That’s Robert Frank.

“There are too many images,” he said. “Too many cameras now. We’re all being watched. It gets sillier and sillier. As if all action is meaningful. Nothing is really all that special. It’s just life. If all moments are recorded, then nothing is beautiful and maybe photography isn’t an art anymore. Maybe it never was.”

And maybe it is his fault. Who would believe that a hairy little man could take snapshots of nothing and make millions of dollars? Anyone can take a snapshot. So, maybe, anyone can be famous if he gets lucky once.

Frank watched the dancers for a long spell, until his wife appeared, twirling among them. The old man laughed a real laugh. “I am happy today.”

We smoked a cigarette and said nothing. There was no more to ask, which was good. He had no more to say. Then this occurred to me: “Do you carry any photographs in your wallet?”, I asked.

“One maybe.”

He removed his billfold from his back pocket, flipped through some receipts and a medical-insurance card. There it was. The only picture the master carried was a business-card photograph of Niagara Falls with block lettering underneath it that read, niagara falls, in case its holder should forget what it was he was looking at.

“It must be very beautiful, very romantic,” he said somewhat hopefully. As it turned out, Robert Frank had never been to Niagara Falls. “Is it? Romantic?”

“Yes, quite romantic,” I lied. Let the old man be happy.

Funk and futility

I’m moody. Just in general, I mean: I’m a moody person. The past week or two, a funk has been on the horizon, and I think it made landfall today.

Do you ever feel a cold coming on for days or even weeks, and you get so tired of feeling like you’re on the verge of getting sick that when you wake up one morning with a full-on sore throat, you’re actually a little bit happy, because you don’t have to wait around anymore, and you’re that much closer to actually feeling better?

I thought the funk was because I was working on an especially awful project in my day job, the kind of project that I dragged out over many days instead of just getting it over with, because just getting it over with meant actually working on it, and I couldn’t bear to do that. I finally did, though, yesterday. Work on it, that is. So much that I actually finished it, and I was in a good mood for much of the afternoon.

Quiet before the storm.

Today, I’m tired and bored and looking at every glass as though it’s broken—forget half-empty. I forced myself to go out and photograph a little today, and for the 45 minutes or so that I was out there, it was good. (One night recently, in the midst of this building funk, I actually pulled out my camera and just sat there watching TV with my camera in my lap. I felt better.)

They’re obvious, the reasons for all this: I’m so sick of my day job that the woman in line in front of me at the 7-Eleven today who was buying an insane number of lottery tickets actually seemed smart. Hatred is not too strong a word for the feeling I have about my job right now. And to top it all off, I’m actually pretty good at my job. (Being good at something you hate, now there’s misery for you.) This feeling about work is draining me of all energy. So when I do have some free time, time to do with what I please, I don’t feel like doing anything. Plus, I know it sounds crazy, but I’m really worried about the campaign, and I care so much about it that it weighs on me. (I know I’m not alone: S. said he got up three times in the middle of the night thinking about it himself.)

FYI: Michael Clayton, though a really good movie, is not something to watch with the blinds drawn on a sunny Saturday afternoon. I watched George Clooney riding in that cab while the credits rolled, watched the thoughts on his face, and all I could think was how futile it all is.

If you knew me, you’d know how funny this is: futility and I in the same sentence. I’m like the most industrious person you’ll ever meet. (That “like” in there . . . that’s because I Netflixed My So-Called Life and have been watching that for the past few weeks. There’s another thing: Sure, there are scenes where I relate to the 40-year-old parents. But at 34, I still get Angela Chase better than I get Graham and Patty. How am I 34 when I still feel 15?)

I think feeling all dark and depressed serves a purpose in my life. I need periods like this to figure things out. And the thing is, these moods, they do pass. When I was 15, I didn’t know that. So, I guess, I’m not exactly the same as I was then. But still.

Anderson and I

I dreamed last night that I was walking my dog down the street when I ran into Anderson Cooper, who was covering a Breaking News story on the next block. His phone rang. It was a Major Magazine wanting to do a cover story on him and they needed it now. He said, “Well, your reporter is right here,” and suddenly a reporter with a notebook appeared, “but we don’t have a photographer.” [Insert Underdog cartoon theme song.] I said, “Um, Anderson, I’m a photographer. I can take your picture.”

“Oh, but have you ever done editorial photography before? Do you know what you’re doing?”

“Of course, I do,” I lied. And as if I hadn’t been ballsy enough, I added, “And it’ll be a picture of Anderson Cooper like none you’ve ever seen before!”

“All right then, let’s go!” [Insert CNN Breaking News theme music.]

Anderson and I walked back to my apartment, which had magically been transformed into a super-cool studio where all kinds of students were learning photography. I made one exposure, and the whole thing was apparently brilliant, because A Photo Editor featured me the next day, and I was suddenly the darling of the editorial world.

My next assignment was to shoot Julia Roberts. Anderson was my assistant.

The girl in the gold Jaguar

Much harder to get a portrait on a weekday than it was over the weekend—that pesky day job got in the way. Plus, Boo Radley, the coolest dog in the world, tested positive for roundworms today. Disgusting. And how the hell can you make a decent portrait when you’re mired in Internet research about roundworms and worrying that you’ve caught it and will go blind, despite the fact that you’d pretty much have to be eating dirt to get it, and last you checked, though you do have the palate of a kindergartener, dirt is not on the menu? (S. says I remind him of the Anthony Edwards character from Northern Exposure. I’ve never seen the show, but I have a pretty good idea what a hypochondriac he must’ve been.)

I asked four people and got rejections before I found this girl, who talked on the phone while I took her picture and while her mother waited for her in their gold Jaguar. Nice girl, but not such a great picture.

Copyright © 2007 Liz Kuball

The picture I didn’t get was of two teenagers making out. (Do people still say “making out,” or have I just made myself sound as bad as my mom does when she refers to people “necking”? Necking? Jesus.) They were leaned up against a car, and they were interesting to look at and would’ve made a wonderful photograph, but there was no way to get them without asking, and when I asked, the boy said yes and the girl said no, and 50-50 doesn’t cut it.

Tag

I’ve always thought those memes that tend to circulate the blogosphere like chain letters did my elementary school were kind of silly, but when I read S.’s comparison of it to a game of tag and the Internet as one big playground, I figured what the hell. Apparently, I, too, have been tagged, and because tag requires the buy-in of all the kids on the playground—besides, I’ve never been one to let a good game die—here goes.

The Rules

• Link to the blog of the person who tagged you. [I’ve already linked the hell out of S., but for good measure, click here to go to his blog.]
• Post these rules on your blog. [Done.]
• List seven random and/or weird facts about yourself. [See below.]
• Tag seven random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs. [S. put a question mark after random, because, I’m sure he was thinking, “What the hell is a random person?” I’ll let the wording slide. But here’s my list of tagged people: Lane Collins, Shawn Gust, Ben Huff, Shannon Kuhns, Jennifer Loeber, Susana Raab, Amy Stein.]
• Let each person know that he has been tagged by posting a comment on his blog. [That’s where I’m drawing the line. I believe in an all-volunteer tag game; I’m not into drafting people who don’t want to be drafted. I’ll distribute the propaganda and try to get them to enlist, but that’s as far as I’ll go.]

My Answers

1. I almost hit Donald Sutherland in the parking lot of Sav-On Drugs on Santa Monica Boulevard.
2. I turned down a job offer to teach in my hometown because, when I used my illegal copy of the master key to the school district (long story) to get into the classroom where I would be teaching, the key broke off in the lock. The broken-off key has been on my keychain ever since.
3. My standard order at Neptune’s Net on the Pacific Coast Highway, known for its fresh seafood, is a grilled-cheese sandwich.
4. I sat in the same row as Senator Edward Kennedy at a performance of The Producers, and all I could think to say when I had to climb over him to get into my seat was, “Senator Kennedy, I’ve always admired you and your brothers.” How frickin’ unoriginal could I be? Plus, what about Eunice?
5. I believed in Santa Claus until the second grade.
6. On a Sunday afternoon, I was on my way out of Big 5 Sporting Goods on Wilshire Boulevard. When I was about 15 feet from the door, Jon Voight walked in. He was incredibly tall, wore a long coat, and was lit from behind by the bright sunlight outside. When I saw him, I gasped, stopped dead in my tracks, and said, under my breath, “Midnight cowboy.”
7. I once bought a Jeep Grand Wagoneer over the Internet.

Tag! You’re it!

Buy this: Springtown

I just received my copy of Rachael Dunville’s Springtown from photo-eye and, after only an hour or so with it, I’m in awe. I have looked at portraits, liked them, respected them, admired them, and that’s kind of where it’s ended for me. And then I looked at Rachael’s book, and the portrait became something else entirely.

I don’t know how to describe it, but here’s the closest analogy I can come up with: With some actors, I’m aware of a great performance, aware of their talent and skill and the unique set of traits and insights they’re bringing to a part, but no matter what they do, I’m still aware of that person, the actor, giving a performance. And then with other actors, I forget about them, and I’m pulled in by the character, and it isn’t until the credits roll that I think of the actor again.

So often, when I look at portraits, I feel like I’m looking at the subject look at the photographer, and I’m sort of spying on this interaction. But with Rachael Dunville’s photos, I feel like the subjects are looking at me. Rachael is gone, which means she’s really there, even more than she would be if I were aware of her.

Bottom line: I love this book, and I adore Rachael’s work, and I cannot think of a single thing you could do with $20 that would be better than buying a copy of Springtown.

Copyright © Rachael Dunville

Norma Rae, Annie Hall, and Nicholson

I’ve been into photography since I got a Kodak Disc camera for my 10th birthday, but it’s really only been in the past two years that I’ve started to get more serious about it. This leaves me in the position of being 34 years old and just getting started. I look at most of my “emerging” peers, and they weren’t even born when I got my Kodak Disc. I was born under Nixon; they were born under Reagan or, Christ, even the first Bush. (I can hear S. laughing now; he was born under Hoover.)

I don’t think this really matters to me on its most basic level. Age has never been an issue for me, and you don’t have to look very far for proof of that. In many ways, I feel thankful that I’m not trying to find my voice as a photographer at the same time that I’m trying to figure out who I am as a person. I’m over that whole angst/ennui thing, and now I’m aware—very aware—of what I want to do and how little time I have to do it.

I sent Julia Dean an e-mail a couple weeks ago, thanking her for the wonderful classes she puts on at JDPW, and she replied saying that my e-mail couldn’t have come at a better time: She was just thinking that she hasn’t done enough, particularly where her nonprofit work is concerned. I haven’t yet replied, but when I do, I’ll say that no one worth her salt—and Julia’s worth her salt and then some—ever feels she’s done enough and that one lifetime isn’t adequate.

What I’m saying is, Norma Rae has osteoporosis, Annie Hall is hawking anti-aging cream on TV, and Nicholson is starting to look like a dirty old man instead of just dirty. I will blink and it’ll be over; I need to make sure I do all the things I want to do.

The result of this awareness, something that has only started to hit me in the past year or so, is that I sometimes have to pull back on the reins a bit. Case in point: Critical Mass is accepting entries, and I felt I had to do it, I had to get my work in front of those 200 reviewers, and it had to be now. I paid my $50 and started thinking about my work and which images I wanted to enter, and I realized I wasn’t ready. Not this year. Next year, maybe. But not this year. I e-mailed and withdrew and the sense of relief was incredible: I can take this at my own pace. I’m not in a race with kids still in undergrad. It doesn’t matter what anyone else was doing when she was my age.

It’s okay. And that’s the thing: When I was younger, it wouldn’t have been.

The facts of life

I’ve been printing today, which means I’ve been swearing and smiling, loud and then silent. Pretty much like every other day, now that I think about it. I started printing partly because I’ll be attending a workshop later this month during which a portfolio review will occur, and partly because I couldn’t devote one more minute to my day job without doing more swearing than smiling, and the latter is preferable to the former.

Ben Huff’s post tonight mentioned wanting to “call in dead” to his day job and head up north with his camera. Someone asked me last night what my plan was, how I would ever do more photography and less other stuff if I didn’t have a plan. This is also the same person who takes pleasure in finding the one thing that will piss me off, and then doing that one thing every time she sees me. But she did make me think: What exactly is my plan?

I’ve been operating under the assumption that if I do the things that interest me, the rest will fall into place. But what exactly is “the rest” and into what “place” do I want it to fall? Do I have to know the answer to this question? If I were 10 years younger, I’d say no. But I’m 34 and I have a boyfriend who likes to quote Andrew Marvell and talk of “time’s winged chariot.” I watched George Clooney on The Facts of Life; I can still sing all the words to the theme song (plus the theme songs to Diff’rent Strokes, Silver Spoons, and Good Times). I got spam from someone claiming to represent AARP the other day. I also get e-mails about how to enlarge my penis, so it’s possible the spammers don’t really know me. But somehow, though I delete the penis e-mails without any thought, the AARP one made me worry. I suppose that means I’m more confident that I don’t have a penis than that I’m not old.

Which brings me back to the question of a plan. All the candidates I care about are rolling out their health-care plans. “I have a plan” seems a common refrain; maybe Dr. King would’ve made an entirely different speech were he at the Lincoln Memorial in 2007. The thing is, I’ll take dreamers to planners any day. And so maybe that’s my answer. I plan every other thing in my life, from flights to finances to freelance work. Maybe photography, and whatever will or won’t happen with my future, should be left to dreams instead. Not the kind of dreams that never happen (i.e., “only in your dreams”), but the kind of dreams that do (i.e., “dreams realized”). Only time—and that goddamned winged chariot—will tell.

Meanwhile, I’ve ordered The Facts of Life from Netflix.

Beautiful men

I’m catching up on movies this week, and tonight’s put me in a much better frame of mind than I was in when writing the last post. The movie: Venus (2006), starring Peter O’Toole. Is there a more beautiful actor on the planet? (I almost wrote “Is there a more beautiful man . . .” but I couldn’t get beyond “Is” before answering that: my boyfriend, of course, in every way, always.)

I’m not prone to shedding tears while watching movies, but when I do cry in movies—as in life—I sob, and I sobbed watching this one. Peter O’Toole reciting “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day . . .” and that bloody girl being too young, too defensive, too blind to see it.

On the last post: The only answer I can come up with is to just work hard at the work I love, speak up, and be good to strangers and loved ones alike. What more is there?