Who Am I?

Do you have a photographic memory for detail?

If you do, you'll be able to recognize this famous person from his equally famous snail trail. And, more esoterically, from the arm and chest tats.

So who do you reckon is it guys?

I'll post the answer tomorrow. But I'm sure anyone who inhabits the gay sector of he blogosphere will be able to guess long before that!

Colorized Old Photographs

Moorish cafe, Tunis, Tunisia - Late C19

I'm particularly fond of old travel photos that have been colorized. On one level, color gives the sense of immediacy - of realness - of modern photography. In contract with that sometime remoteness in old black and white images. But on the other hand, the harmonized sepia palette has an other worldliness. The result is a curious tension. Though maybe this is only to modern eyes.

Arabs Before a Cafe, Algiers, Algeria - Late C19

In fact, there is something else I really like about these works. It's the self-consciously managed composition. As opposed to something more candid and spontaneous. This undisguised organization seems a throw-back to early photography's attempts to be taken as a serious art form. By following the tenets of some current painting. The following early photograph is composed like a C17 Dutch Still Life painting.

Calvert Richard Jones 'Garden Implements', 1847

The point should be made that there is a palpable difference between setting up the people and the props of a scene to obtain the perfect composition, and looking for that 'right' balanced (often momentary) composition.

Fishermans' Boat on the Lake, Tiberias, Israel - Late C19

Luce Ben Aben, Moorish women preparing couscous, Algiers, Algeria

Distinguished Moorish women, Algiers, Algeria

Arabs playing chess, Algiers, Algeria

As well as travel images, I've recently come across a number of old colorized portraits.

Bedouin Shepherds - Late C19

Hammersdorf, Hermmanstadt i.e., Hermannstadt, Hungary, Austro-Hungary

Girl of Sarajevo, Bosnia, Austro-Hungary

This is one photographic genre that today can still legitimately deploy a certain formalism.

Prison Break

A man escapes from prison where he has been for 15 years. He breaks into a house to find money and guns and finds a young couple in their bedroom in twin beds. He ties them each to a bed. He gets on top of the girl, kisses her neck, then gets up and goes to the bathroom. While he's in there, the husband tells his wife: "Listen, this guy is an escaped convict, look at his clothes!!! He probably spent lots of time in jail and hasn't seen a woman in years!! I saw how he kissed your neck! If he wants sex don't resist, don't complain, do whatever he tells you! Satisfy him no matter how much he nauseates you! This guy is probably very dangerous! If he gets angry he'll kill us!! Be Strong honey, I Love You!!" To which his wife responds: "He wasn't kissing my neck! He was whispering in my ear!! He told me he was gay, thought you were cute, and asked me if we have any vaseline. I told him it was in the bathroom. Be Strong Honey, I Love You Too!!!!!!!"

Diane Arbus (1923-1971) - Demeaning Voyeur or Empathetic Observer?

I remember first coming across photographer Diane Arbus' work in Liberty's Bookshop in Adelaide, South Australia. I was quite uncomfortable looking at many of her images. Which were at times criticized for what was perceived as 'demeaning voyeurism'. I think I agreed with this view at the time but I'm not so sure today.

There are those photographs of ordinary people who seem transfigured into some kind of often temporary strangeness. Probably in part by the society in which they inhabit. They have received a certain ideology which is simply being expressed. Though they may well have brought something odd to bear to the particular context themselves.






The point should be made that the first image - 'Boy with Grenade' - was somewhat contrived. What has alway interpreted as a war-mad gesture seemed to have been achieved by Arbus endlessly moving the lad around, claiming to be looking for the right angle. Finally impatient, he yelled "Take the picture already!" and gestured. Which she snapped. I guess Arbus was content enough for the picture to be viewed as anti-war propaganda.

Then there are photographs of the economically and/or educationally disadvantaged who, it might be argued, had not the 'capacity' (in whatever terms) to construct themselves otherwise than they appear here.




And those who might be considered perhaps intrinsically unusual in some way - BUT this from the white middle-class American (WASP) perspective of the time.





Finally, there those images of the mentally challenged ...





... who, to me at least, seem empathetically presented. They seem happy in terms of being emotionally content, engaged and purposeful.

This positive interpretation seems borne out by Arbus' own words.

"Most people go through life dreading they'll have a traumatic experience. Freaks were born
with their trauma. They've already passed their test in life. They're aristocrats."

And reinforced in the further quotation.

"What I'm trying to describe is that it's impossible to get out of your skin into
somebody else's... That somebody else's tragedy is not the same as your own."

While these groups of subjects have 'issues', we do ourselves, just others.

I wonder whether it was Arbus' own 'tragedy' lead to suicide in 1971.

A Moment of Levity

No need for any comments!

Princess Der Ling 德龄 (1885-1948) - The Qing Court and Beyond

Empress Dowager of China Cixi, Princess Der Ling (immediate left in photo) and the Eunuch Tsui Yu-Kuei (partially obscured by an umbrella) - 1903

For some reason, I find fascinating characters who are near an epicenter of power but just out of the direct glare of attention. Princess Der Ling is one such person. These people can observe momentous events in the safety of the shadows.

For two years in the earliest years of the C20, the princess was a favorite lady-in-waiting to the Empress Dowager Cixi in the late Qing Court.

She was western-educated, having studied dance in Paris with Isadora Duncan. And multilingual. A diarist. And a story-teller, publishing 'Memories of a Chinese Princess - Two Years in the Forbidden City' (1911), which can be read online at:

http://womenshistory.about.com/library/etext/bl_tyfb_00.htm

Like the Last Emperor Puyi's 'From Emperor to Citizen', her book gives a first-hand insight into late C19 court life in the Forbidden City. As such, it is a valuable social-domestic history of a time and place.

The Last Emperor of China, Puyi 溥儀 (1906-1967)

Later titling herself as 'Princess' created on-going controversy:


The Der Ling married American Thaddeus C White and migrated to the United States in the late 1920's. And, while a rabid apologist for Cixi, she wrote a number of books and articles and lectured in the service of promoting a real understanding of Chinese history and culture. She died in 1948.

Princess Der Ling in Western Attire

Princess Der Ling - 1939

What appears to be the definitive biography will appear in 2008 - 'Imperial Masquerade: The Legend of Princess Der Ling', Grant Hayter-Menzies, Hong Kong University Press.

So we'll have a more objective and scholarly account of Der Ling's time at court, as well as her life in Republican China, and then later in the United States. Her early memoir suggests an intriguing character and it will be interesting to see how this is borne out in the new book.

My John and Betty Reader

The first book I ever owned, as opposed to the first read to me (by my grandmother - 'Bib and Bud - Their Adventures') was 'John and Betty'. Primary school, maybe Grade 1. It was a slim volume and had a soft cover. And finished up on the top of the wardrobe in my bedroom - it was still there when I was a teenager.

I recall the process of reading was a real mystery to me. The teacher expected her pupils to know how to do it and was scathing if you couldn't. Old school teaching!

But there is a real pleasure just remembering sensory things about the book. Such as the distinctive smell of the pages. And their glossy feel to the touch. The way the book flopped when you picked it up, as a hardback do not.

But when I goggled-imaged it, I was strangely disappointed. Some things about it were not as I remembered. And I had wanted to have an easy nostalgic romp seeing it again.

The illustrations seemed different, though I had only the vaguest idea of what the originals had been like. And the story seemed nothing like what I could not even remember!


So I began to think about the potentially tricky relationship between memory and fact or actuality. Particularly when you have a sense the two are seriously not matching up.

I have the actuality now - the book itself, or JPEG's of it - but I reject this reality as it's not convincing for me. I can't imagine adjusting my memory in some way to align it with these files. It's not just the 'wrong' images and text. What in fact seems more important to me are all the feelings and the general atmosphere generated by my version of the primer. I think the challenge is to create my own real reader. And sleep soundly at night again.