run faster, comrade.

So I found myself downtown with Shovelin' Shane, the Bard, Captain Hook, and dozens of angry protesters. I won't show you too many shots of the protesters, because that would spoil the Asheville Argus piece, which is hot off the press. But they were angry. So angry, in fact, that they made signs.



Now I try to keep politics to a minimum here on DarkTopo, but I don't think it will surprise anyone when I say that if you want to arouse my sympathy, it's a bad idea to call me "Comrade."

However--and I know I'm going to regret saying this--it's a beautiful sentiment. Run faster. And with the crowd chanting, the light fading, the hula-hoop girls gyrating, and the regular Asheville nutjobs staggering around like milkweeds with legs, it was really surreal to see two of the most stable, familiar faces I know in the crowd. Oh, and Captain Hook.

The Old World is Still Behind You

It's been a Blitzkrieg of a year. I feel like I walk around with the Old World in my head all day, waiting to resurface in some useless, morose fashion. Shovelin' Shane knows what I'm talking about. I think, at 30, we all have a pretty good idea. And I'd like to say it was a Blitzkrieg of a night, but . . . well, we're 30, and we go to bed early.

Run faster, comrade. Was that how we felt, back when we thought we knew what darkness looked like?





Even if it was, that was then, and this is now.





Bokehlepathy

Now I'm going to tell you a deep dark secret about portraiture. It has to do with bokeh, that Japanese term for the area of the image that is out of focus. Bokeh is the topic of much discussion on the interwebs. Good bokeh, bad bokeh, smooth bokeh, nervous bokeh. Photographers spend unbelievable sums on lenses due to the character of their bokeh. This is especially important in portraiture, where shallow depth of field is all but requisite.

But all of that is a lie. You've been fooled by the politicians and Wall Street bankers into thinking bokeh is something you can buy like soap or gasoline. The truth, Comrades, is this: Those out-of-focus highlights in the background of your portraits are really the subject's thoughts.




And in the next picture, we can see that Captain Hook's thoughts are a bit . . . sparse:



Must be because of the hat.

Anyway, like a lot of things on the internet, once you see it you can never un-see it. It sticks in your consciousness. History is the same way. That's what we're studying here, right? Aren't all photographs history?

The Times

The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast ...
The present now
Will later be past
The order is rapidly fadin’ ...
-Bob Dylan, The Times They Are A-Changin'

So we ate at Burgermeister's. What better place for a crew of malcontents to end up on a Saturday night after a protest? It's a strange world we live in. Downtown, dozens of people bemoan the decline of American prosperity. Across the bridge, we sit down and buy a 3000 calorie meal for $10. I pass the camera across the table:



If all photographs are history, doesn't that make photography a study of the Old World? I can go through old negatives and see my friends, clear as as a cold river, in a time when the World Trade Center was still standing, when we all weighed 30 pounds less, when my father was still alive, when none of us had heard of iPods or Facebook.

The price of all that history? You can't join the new world. From the moment you pick up the camera, you will always be on the outside, looking in.



Run faster. We are too old, too grounded, too established to be complimented by the beauty of that sentiment. Not only is the Old World is still behind us, it's catching up. Sometimes, when I put on my dad's cap or load a camera with film, it almost seems like we're waiting for it.

It's an old story, that wistful search for days gone by. But these times we live in don't allow for idle wandering. Like Dylan said, there's a battle outside and it's raging.

And I say running is for cowards. A real man stands his ground . . .



. . . but you should always--always--check your six.

AvlArgus: Collected Street Portraits

Some wicked awesome street portraits in the Argus this week. Shot with my trusty and tedious Voigtländer Perkeo. Nothing says "dedication" like scale focusing!

New Work in SHOTS!

The new issue of the super-prestigious SHOTS magazine includes a piece from yours truly . . . in fact, it's a self-portrait! All those years of art school finally paid off. Get the issue on the magazine rack at your local hipster book store and check it out.

The Other Moments

Today is my anniversary, and let me tell you one thing, DarkTopo fans, I don't deserve her. I am daily humbled. As a photographer, all I can do is continue to document her one great lapse in judgement.

Over on the commercial blog I've made another post, in which I show some nice portraits that follow all the rules. But DarkTopo, like marriage, demands more than pretty pictures. It's not even about breaking the rules. It's that sometimes--and in my case, often--what you see through the viewfinder makes you forget the rules are there at all.

AvlArgus: The Day It All Started

Argus coverage of the Occupy Asheville event. Already getting snarky comments!