Two Pieces @ Flood

I've got two pieces in an otherwise 3d show called "Castings" at the Flood Fine Arts Center. The opening is tomorrow night--I'll be there--and the show runs two months. Come check 'em out!

How many photos do I have in FILE, anyway?

Here's another one:



They quit sending me notices when they publish the work. I find out from my "came from" log files.

Heller vs. DC

"[Today's ruling] would have us believe that over 200 years ago, the framers made a choice to limit the tools available to elected officials wishing to regulate civilian uses of weapons." - Heller vs. the District of Columbia, Dissenting Opinion, Justice John Paul Stevens

...

"No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms. The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government" - Thomas Jefferson, Proposed Virginia Constitution, T. Jefferson Papers

"I ask, sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people, except for a few public officials." — George Mason, in Debates in Virginia Convention on Ratification of the Constitution

"The best we can hope for concerning the people at large is that they be properly armed." - Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers

"The great object is, that every man be armed ... Every one who is able may have a gun." - Patrick Henry

"O sir, we should have fine times, indeed, if, to punish tyrants, it were only sufficient to assemble the people!" - Patrick Henry, in Virginia Ratifying Convention demanding a guarantee of the right to bear arms

...

“That history showed that the way tyrants had eliminated a militia consisting of all the able-bodied men was not by banning the militia but simply by taking away the people’s arms, enabling a select militia or standing army to suppress political opponents . . . During the 1788 ratification debates, the fear that the federal government would disarm the people in order to impose rule through a standing army or select militia was pervasive in Anti-federalist rhetoric.” - Heller vs. the District of Columbia, Majority opinion, Justice Antonin Scalia

,,,

This is no small concern. What was ruled on today was literally the life and liberty of every American citizen. A coworker of mine said he was more concerned with finding a new controller for his Tiger Woods video game. I went to Subway for lunch, and the line stretched out the door with staring people who were not talking about anything, much less the Heller ruling. I passed cars on Merrimon Avenue; were their drivers armed, or fearing others who were?

To paraphrase Johnny Cash, those who ignore Heller are "rich folks eating in a fancy dining car, drinking coffee and smoking big cigars," oblivious to their engineer, their direction, and their tracks. "I know I had it coming," says the man in Folsom Prison. "I know I can't be free."

Upcoming Exhibit @ Pump Gallery!

Alright folks, the rumors are true! I'm hanging a new exhibit at Pump Gallery on the second of August. It's all-new work focusing on Asheville's River Arts District. It's going to be a series of firsts—my first solo exhibit at Phil Mechanic Studios, my first all-digital show, my first color show, and the first exhibit in the District that is actually ABOUT the District!

This is going to be a big deal, and the gallery is going to be plugging it all over the southeast. That's not good enough for me, so I'm telling you, the readers of my blog, all over the WORLD!

As if that weren't exciting enough, there will be an opening reception where you can meet me, Max Cooper, and drink free booze! The reception is Saturday, August 2, from 7:00 – 10:00 p.m. Guaranteed to be the wildest reception you've ever been to, or your money back!

What follows is my first official DarkTopo Press Release!!! And here's a link to a quick and dirty preview of what you can expect to see under those fancy gallery lights:

The District

See you there!

###

ASHEVILLE, NC--Pump Gallery is proud to present “The District: Photography by Max Cooper.” A local photographer known for haunting nocturnal imagery, Cooper has turned his lens on Asheville's own River Arts District, rendering the cradle of the area's art scene in his stark, subtle style.

“The District has a striking duality of inspiration and desolation,” says Cooper. “This work focuses on the vitality and decay caught between Asheville's infrastructure and its art.”

"Max's work evokes the living energy that is so indigenous to the River Arts District. His photographic technique is able to capture and animate what would otherwise be a static scene," says Jolene Mechanic, Gallery Director.

Cooper is a graduate of UNC-Asheville's photography program. He was recently honored with a Merit Award from B&W Magazine, and was the recipient of UNCA's Ryan Patrick Jones Excellence in Photography award. Images from "The District" series appeared recently in Everywhere Magazine.

“The District” will be on display from August 2 through 31, 2008. An opening reception with the artist will be held in the gallery August 2, from 7:00 to 10:00 p.m. The reception is free and open to the public. Pump Gallery is located in the Phil Mechanic Studios building at 109 Roberts Street, in Asheville's River Arts District, 28801. For more information, call 828-254-2166, or visit www.philmechanicstudios.com, or the artist's website, www.darktopography.com.

There's a big announcement coming. Probably in the next day or so. Consequently, I have a ton of work to get done, and therefore, my procrastination has gotten really creative. SMAN and I have fallen off the vintage video game wagon, and in a moment of weakness I installed Doom II on my computer. That's why I'm blogging at midnight, rather than early this afternoon.

I've been shooting a lot lately. Since May 6, I've fired my camera's shutter 1/3 as many times as I did in the previous year. No joke. And remember, when I started this blog, I was pushing myself to shoot 10 rolls of film every week. Now I shoot twice that in a weekend.

These are cellphone pictures from the last few weeks. The top one was during a hailstorm on the way to graduation.





From last weekend's iron pour @ Phil Mechanic Studios:



SMAN playing Castlevania II:



The most recent trip to Lost Cove:

"A Declaration of Arms" is now on its own domain!

Update your bookmarks, folks. The project is now at www.declarearms.com!

Comfort.

"Perhaps it comforts you that the police were patrolling, but did you ever consider that they might not have had to patrol to the extent they do had our original rights never been tampered with or watered down? Just my thought."

I certainly consider that. In fact, considering that is in essence what this site is about.

To clarify, it doesn't particularly comfort me that "the police" are patrolling. I have been through some scary moments out there in the middle of the night, and have yet to be helped by a police officer. What comforts me about the encounter was the professional way I was treated by a competent officer. It makes me think that an armed citizen might not be so much of a pariah after all.

But never was I deluded into thinking the police could protect me. Generally, they do a great job, but even I, in my ivory darkroom, have enough street sense to know you're on your own out there.

The APD

Photography comes in waves. Kind of like nausea. I'm working hard on the River District project right now, and there are very few guns in the District. The ones that are there are probably mine.

But photography isn't only photos. Like good writing, photography is experience, and I had an experience in the District at 0200 one night that's worth mentioning. There's a funny account of it over on the DarkTopo blog.

I had just finished up, and was parked in front of the recycling center on River Road, when an Asheville PD officer pulled in behind my car. This is not a new experience; cops are pretty curious about folks standing in the middle of the road with camera gear at two in the morning. Usually, they just slow down and ask what I'm doing.

Not this time. Blue lights, and then the spotlight came on and pinned me like a bug. I put my camera down and my hands up. A female officer got out of the car and said "That's alright," which I took to mean I didn't need to stand there like a crook in an Andy Griffith episode.

But then I told her I had a concealed weapon permit, and that I was carrying. She was very professional, and very polite, but immediately asked me to place my hands on the hood of her patrol car and keep my feet apart.

You know what comes next. It was the first time I've ever been disarmed, and the first time anyone has ever touched my weapon without my permission. She drew my gun from its holster, and I can only hope and pray that she exercised strict trigger discipline. I have no reason to suspect that she didn't--she was very professional.

Still, it was a new sensation. Not one I want to repeat.

She checked my permit and my ID. By this time, two other patrol cars had arrived. When my credentials checked out, she came back and placed my Glock on the hood of her car with the mag dropped and the extra round loose. She complimented me on the gun--I think the APD carries sigs??--and sent me on my way.

It never occurred to me to view the encounter from a gun rights perspective. It's an encounter particular to modern America--it would not have happened that way in Jefferson's day, or Teddy Roosevelt's day, or even in FDR's day. But this is a new day, and as much as I fear the erosion of our rights, I'm comforted that that officer is patrolling the River District.

In any event, it's a good excuse to post this photo, sent to me by a friend on the other coast:


Photo by Shaun Vann, posted with permission.

Shaving your head teaches you two things:

1) How bald you really are.
2) Scalp wounds bleed a lot.

Another image in FILE (...plus world domination)

I didn't even know about it. This makes three in FILE this year.

"Yellow"

Also, Bard said this of SMAN's new site:

"DAMAGE INC's diabolical (but very slow) take over of the internet continues ...."

I would just like to say, in the maniacal game of Risk we find ourselves playing, I have readers on five continents:



Catch up, boys.

APD Approved

So, I was out shooting photos and I got stopped by the cops.









And by stopped, I mean three patrol cars, "Hands on the hood, legs apart" stopped. Believe it or not, this was a first for me. The officer was female, very professional, and had everything taken care of before the other officers even got out of their cars.

Now, I've always been told two things about how to act around cops: Act natural, and keep your hands visible. One thing I learned tonight was that it's very difficult to act natural AND keep your hands visible. First, I tried the hands at the sides thing, but then I was worried that they were too close to my pockets. I mean, frankly, if I were a cop, and I were interrogating some unshaven guy wearing a Metallica shirt in the River District in the middle of the night, I'd want his hands as far away from his pockets as possible.

So I held them out a little bit, and stood there as if I'd just been handling raw chicken. This seemed to make the cop a little nervous, so I did the groom-at-the-altar wrist clasp, which felt the most natural.

Then it occurred to me that I was standing there on the roadside at two in the morning with three cop cars, holding my hands together as if I were wearing cuffs. In the River District, where all the art types hang out. I can picture it now, "Hey, I'm super professional art guy, would you like to see my work?" "Um . . . Didn't I see you in handcuffs on the roadside last night?"

Noooo. That wasn't me. That was Josh Copus.

The other thing I learned was that, after you show the officer your ID, there's really no way to put your wallet back in your pocket without putting your hand near your pocket. The only context I have for this is in James Bond movies, when someone reaches for their passport and Bond almost blows them away, and then says, "Ok, but slowly."

I put my wallet back in my pocket VERY slowly.

Things went downhill when she asked if I had any weapons. I'll leave out some details here for everyone's comfort, but yes, I did have some weapons. Specifically, I had a pocket knife. That's when I met the hood of the patrol car.

Once I was there, everything was really easy. I just let the officer take care of everything, like looking through my pockets. Many things in a photographer's pockets feel like weapons. The problem was, I had actually left my knife at home. In fact, it's right here on my desk as I'm typing this. So, not only was I being searched for a weapon I wasn't carrying, I had lied to an officer. Wonderful.

Not finding a knife, even after looking everywhere, the officer went to run my ID. I went back to groom-at-the-altar pose, and had a little time to reflect on my situation. You know when you drive by a scene like that, and see the one guy standing there in the middle of three cop cars, you know that thought you have about that guy? Yeah. I kept waiting for an activity bus full of my students to drive by.

Finally, it's over, my cred is legit, and I'm walking back to my car when I notice that the Waste Paper Company looks really cool in all that flashing blue light. But not cool enough. I go home.

Aces and eights.

It's summer. You can tell by the fact that it's almost noon, and I just got out of bed. I plan to get up and run at dawn, and here it is, the hottest part of the day. In an ideal world, I could say I stayed up late last night working on photos, but really I've been reading in bed and enjoying the fact that it's morning and I'm not standing in a classroom.

I'm even happier that I'm not sitting in a classroom.

And yes, I'm getting ready to go run in the hottest part of the day, before I eat what counts as breakfast, and probably get one hell of a sunburn. Tonight, after graduation, I plan on drinking lots of Redbull and working on photos. In an ideal world. Then I plan on shaving my hair into a mohawk, and keeping it that way until I have to get a haircut and a real job.

Someday very soon this will catch up with me. I hope to make the most of it until then.

I posted the picture of the birds because every photographer must have a picture that looks like he found it in Michael Kenna's trash. This week I hope to take more of those, and some creepy night photos in the woods, if SMAN will ever call me back. But if there's one person who knows how to take greater advantage of summer than me, it's SMAN.

Are you reading this, SMAN?? While you're slacking, we could be taking pictures in the middle of the woods:

Corrupted.

My smoking hot and incredibly patient wife got me a new guitar pickup for my birthday. Now, there's nothing I like more than tinkering with guitars. I like tinkering guitars more than I like playing guitars. It's like how cookie dough is better than cookies. Anyway, being sick and not wanting to leave the house, I figured it was a good time to install the new pickup, which was for my Telecaster (for you TDPRIers: '02 American Series, Darrell mod, GFS 1960's Hot Alnico in the bridge, stock neck pickup).



My dad let me borrow his 50mm/1.4, and it's perfect for this kind of stuff. So perfect that he wants it back. As if there were more important uses for all that bokeh than capturing the subtle hues of a three-color sunburst over alder.







Anyway, I put the old pickup in what used to be a Schecter Strategy that I bought for $50 and dremeled all the finish off of. I had been running EMG's in that one, and it was pretty killer, but since I got rid of my metal amps the active pickups sound pretty sterile. So I ripped those suckers out and put the old Tele pickup in the bridge position, wired straight to the jack. It'll take your head off.







After three days of the kitchen table being covered with wire, soldering irons and spare parts, the smoking hot and incredibly patient wife was now just the smoking hot wife. I did not want to lose the model husband points I accrued from cleaning the house after the throw-down. I cleaned up, put everything away, and stuck the SD card into the computer to download the photos.

Nothing. Card corrupted. Three days worth of uber-nerdy guitar minutiae documented with that beautiful fast glass, gone. What you see here is what I shot in the last 15 minutes of good window-light. I'll try to shoot some more tomorrow, unless my dad shows up and wants his lens back.

Area 51 and the Mystery Prize

I've been sick since the gigantic throw-down Saturday night. Whatever it is you throw down, we threw it down hard. So hard in fact that I think we broke it.

Cpt. Hook:


And his new ink:



Drunken party-goers play Area 51 on SMAN's heavily-modded Saturn:





Waiting for moped guy:



The Bard does The Robot:


Sunday morning I woke up and felt great, cleaned the entire house (model husband points), and then went on a run. That was the mistake. If you wake up after a throw-down and go running when you should have a terrible hangover, it's like cheating the party gods out of their revenge. So about ten minutes into the run I started coughing uncontrollably, and then on the ride home I started sneezing uncontrollably, and by that evening I was sick. Justice served.