DarkTopo Gets Disclaimed

This picture is so self-consciously straight it inadvertently rolls the heterosexual odometer all the way back to "000,000." --Asheville Disclaimer, 20Jan10

Well folks, I've finally arrived. My photo of councilman-turned-pundit Carl Mumpower appears this week in the Mountain Xpress's Asheville Disclaimer. I thought this photo was the most "DarkTopo" of all of my 2008 campaign shots, specifically because it is so straight. I mean straight-forward. Whatever.

Seriously, though. When I saw the truck parked there on the curb, I said "Damn! That's like something Walker Evans would shoot! Carl, go lean on the truck!" Walker Evans liked things straight. I thought this scene set itself apart from that because the truck was canted a bit, parked up on the curb. The looming shape of the sign would overpower everything, if not for the contrast of the red truck against that green background. All it needed was a tall subject looking straight into the camera. The result was just the kind of bizarre balance I look for--something that seems straight at first, yet isn't.

So Mumpower grudgingly posed with the truck and now his manhood is being insulted on account of my seems-straight-but-isn't artistic vision. There goes my career in campaign photography.

Oh well. At least I have the Disclaimer on my resume.





ps - That comment about Gordon Smith was pretty harsh.

pps - But funny.

ppps - And if anyone out there is questioning my manhood for being the artistic brains behind this photo, I'll refer you to my uber-macho, over-compensating film speed tests and my photo of Sarah Palin's ass.