Photo Awesome

So, I haven’t done any writing this summer until last week when I had an ephiphany. I emailed my editor at AllHipHop.com and asked if I could write an editorial. He said “Absolutely!” Well, I did it and it got published. I’m excited. Check it out here: Atlanta has Wild Style.

I know some of the vernacular will be strange to a few but read it.

Can you dig it, man?

Let me start by saying that this has nothing to do with photography. Ok, I can make anything relate to photography, but I won’t try this time.

Stacy and I have spent the past week moving from our apartment off North Druid Hills to our new house on North Druid Hills (it’s practically across the street). As many of you know, Stacy works from home on the internet, so clearly the internet is important in our house. Several weeks ago, we called up Comcast to transfer our service, but we knew from prior experience that this wouldn’t be the end of the story.

They were to come out to our place on July 26, between 8am and 11am. At 10am, a dispatcher called and left a message saying that the technician was running late. This wasn’t a surprise because they’ve been late every time they’ve ever come out to do work. And like clockwork, they completely missed the 8-11am window. We had moving to do, so we were back at the apartment when, lo and behold, we miss a call from a dispatcher again at 12:15pm saying the technician was at the house, but was leaving because no one was home, and we would have to reschedule. That’s right, they missed the appointment by over and hour, and yet we were the ones penalized.

I called Comcast to complain, because I figured they would send the guy back since it had been mere minutes since we missed the call. After going through 2 technicians and waiting on hold for 45 minutes for a supervisor, I was gauranteed by someone named “Kevin” that they would come out the next day. I also demanded free service for a month, which they wouldn’t give. Instead, he said, I could ask for a $20 credit, but only after service had been established. I asked if this was standard, and he said it was, but he essentially admitted that you had to ask for it. They would never just give up that information.

So remember this: If you’ve ever had a Comcast technician miss and appointment, demand a $20 credit on your account. It is their policy, and they won’t just offer it up.

I’ve found that essentially, Comcast has such an awful system in place that you can never talk to a local technician or dispatcher to find out anything, and neither can the phone techs. Likewise, supervisors claim they have no power as well. And according to “Kevin”, his manager was essentially an “HR person”, and they have no actual power either. I’m sure this is all a lie, but it’s the lie they told me repeatedly.

The moral of the story is for all you future SCAD-Atlantans. Don’t plan on coming to Atlanta, getting cable and it just being done. Comcast is your only choice in certain parts of the city, and they undoubtedly will screw you over. It will be all their fault, but they won’t care, and no amount of complaining or being super nice (I’ve tried both methods) will work.

Dave says that Bell South is easy and fast. The downside is that you’re required to have a phone line, which will apparently run you $30 a month. Not a great deal, but the only option for now. Supposedly they’ll have the ability to give you DSL service without paying for a phone line soon, but not yet.

I hate Comcast. Comcast sucks.

Tonight Kael wil be at APG signing books and talking about her work. If you missed the opening reception to this show come on out tonight and show Kael your support. The event starts at 7:30 but a few of us will be showing up fashionably late around 8:00 or 8:15, you’ll just have to be there to see how fashionable we are.

This is the story of how two stories met up tonight, on the all-knowing internet.

Story One: When we were on the New York trip in June, we had the opportunity to go to the Polaroid 20×24 studio and work with the lady who is partly in charge of the studio. Her name was Jen, but unfortunately, I never caught her last name (or else I did and forgot it, which is more likely). She was great with that crazy camera, and we talked a bit about internships down the road.

Story Two: Lately I’ve been on what seems to be a never-ending quest to figure out where (if anywhere) Stacy and I will move upon graduation. Dave and I had this conversation the other night, and we’re somewhat mindlessly throwing out cities because of various things we’ve heard or read. Boston’s obviously a top pick (Just one reason of many? More universities than anywhere else), and for me, Philadelphia is another (Much more affordable, closer to NYC). As a future adjunct professor, the number of schools in our general proximity is of the utmost importance, but if that were the only factor, Boston would probably win, hands down. Alas, it’s not that simple.

So I was doing research on other major cities with an abundance of schools. This isn’t as easy as it seems (at least, it hasn’t been yet). I try Google for things like “what are the cities with the most universities?” (I know this isn’t askJeeves or anything, but you never know what exact phrase will pull up a decent forum thread) and “most university cities”, “highest number of colleges”, etc. This really leads to very little, as it seems no one has compiled a list. There’s the “most literate” and “most educated” and others, but nothing that really hits the point I’m trying to find.

So I start guessing.

Stacy said something about liking the idea of the Midwest, and it’s certainly not something I’m opposed to. So after a couple of flops, I find Cincinnati, Ohio (which, no, I didn’t know how to spell correctly at first). Now, I’m not claiming here that Cincinnati is one of those cities. It could very well be a flop as well, but I stopped because I moved over to Cleveland, where I found The Cleveland Institute of Art. I went straight to the undergraduate photography page.

Where the stories meet: So I’m at this site and there’s a girl in a picture that looks quite familiar. At first, I didn’t even notice that the view camera in the photo was massive… perhaps a 20×24? Could it be? Clicking on Jen Trausch’s name brought up a PDF with a little information about her and sure enough, it’s the same person. Small world? I dunno. Maybe I really did get to the end of the internet.

But here’s the point: She’s freakin’ good. Look at her web site. All this is to say that, I don’t know why I’d never heard of her before. If I had, I probably would’ve been a complete distraction to her the whole time we were shooting that day.

Related Links:

• Interview with Jen
• Shane Godfrey’s Blog (he’s an assistant that worked with us at the studio)
• Jen’s work at Nelson Hancock Gallery

Calumet has a limited time offer on Sandisk Ultra II (not their fastest) 2 Gigabyte Compact Flash cards: Buy one ($34.99) get one free. Memory cards are obviously getting quite cheap, so I would imagine this is a fair deal. Buy quickly… offer ends August 2nd.

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Day 5: Brooklyn

“It’s Better (and cheaper) in Brooklyn.”

Our final day on the trip, we began our day with Isidro Blasco in his studio. His studio was a terrific place filled with wood, models, photographs and so many other goodies. He talked with us about his recent trip to Shanghai and all of the other projects he’s working on.

From Isidro’s, we ventured to the infamous Coney Island. Coney Island… the place where weird things happen. That’s about all I have to say about that.

For the evening’s activities we all went to the Park Bistro for our final dinner and then went to the top of the Metropolitan Museum of Art to watch the sunset and see Manhattan. It was incredible.

The New York trip was a definite success. Hope you enjoy our video diary as much as we enjoyed creating it.

(Text by Rebecca Stern)

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Day 4: SOHO

“Following an Obsession.”

The coolest day ever: we were given the opportunity to shoot with a 20×24 Polaroid camera. Everyone had to come up with an idea and had about 15 minutes to create the lighting and have Jen take the shot. Jen, who ran the studio and took the images, was great to work with and made the experience successful. Everyone created great and exciting images. Walker and I also ventured to Chinatown to find tubes to put the 20×24 images in and in doing so, Walker decided to trip in a hole and sprain his ankle.

We then booked it way, and I mean way uptown (94th street) to meet Len Jenshel who sat down with us for an hour and talked with us about his work, the National Geographic article with his photographs about the border between Mexico and the U.S. and just talked in general about being a photographer.

Slowly we made our way back down town to meet Harvey at Howard Greenberg Gallery. Harvey is a SCAD alum who now works at this amazing gallery and is in the presence of “works of art” everyday!

(Text by Rebecca Stern)

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Day 3: Midtown

“150 Million? Pocket Change…”

Today started out at the Today show watching a few songs from the musical Legally Blond as we made our way to Christies. Denise led us in to the beautiful building that once was a parking garage. She arranged for us to have a behind the scenes look at what goes on in Christies. It was an amazing experience- we saw a jewelry auction, the storage places for the art work and furniture and the photo studios where every single piece of art is photographed and catalogued. Quite an undertaking.

We then walked around Midtown and went to various galleries. Some of the galleries were, Laurence Miller Gallery, Project, Pace/Macgill Gallery, Cohen Amador Gallery, and Zabriskie Gallery.

We also ran into a Mitzvah Mobile, which will be quite obvious on the video when you see what happened!

We attended the opening of the Jen Bekman gallery in the evening, where Walker interviewed Jen Bekman and we saw some interesting work.

Walker and I also made our way to Times Square where we took an amazingly fast and sickening elevator to the top of the Marriot Marquis. There is a rotating restaurant on top that made me very dizzy, but the view was awesome!

(Text by Rebecca Stern)

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Day 2: Chelsea

“You can throw-up after you make the call, but make the call!”

Tuesday began with a trip to a law firm office on 5th avenue to meet with Greg Ceo, who we discovered was a SCAD alum and is planning on teaching at SCAD in the fall. He talked to us about the ins and outs of being a commercial photographer in the city. As a side note, we met at the law firm because his father-in-law is the owner; not because Greg is sued all the time.

Lois Greenfield’s studio was our next stop. She fit us into her busy schedule and talked with us about her work, being a photographer and once a photojournalist and we tried to help decide on images for a calendar she’s creating for next year! She was an inspiration for all of us.

We walked around Chelsea to see a few galleries: Clamp Art, Robert Mann Gallery (where Elijah Gowin was showing work), Stefan Stux Gallery, and Zach Feuer Gallery.

For the evening event, some of us endured torrential downpours and Steve flipping out for a few minutes while we took a trip on a schooner for a tour of the Hudson River and the Island of Manhattan. It was a terrific experience and one that took my jeans almost three days to dry.

(Text by Rebecca Stern)

Hey Everyone! Hope your summer is going well. My brothers own a remodeling/construction company in Birmingham and are in need of a simple (yet classy) website. If would need text and a few photos-not too complicated. Anyone interested? E-mail me and I can get you in touch! Oh. and they will pay!

Thanks all!

Amie.Ledford@gmail.com

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Day 1: Upper East Side

“I like opera because the women sure can menstruate.”

The 2007 New York trip began with an exciting trip to the Natural History Museum. There’s nothing like traveling to a museum with Steve to go into culturally sensitive areas of the world to see our stereotypical past; the Asian section, the Middle East area (where Aladdin’s lamp was strategically placed right next to the Koran), and the African peoples.

We traversed cross town to see the Goethe Institute where a Magnum photographer, Thomas Dworzak had a series called M*A*S*H. His show consisted of images from the televised 1970s series MASH along side images he took while embedded with medical companies in Iraq.

We then were given a behind the scenes look at the Jewish Museum. Danielle, who Zubair has a crush on, gave us a tour of the most interesting pieces in the museum. We began by looking at Louise Nevelsen, whose massive, overpowering wood sculptures in monochromatic colors (black and white) gave us a feeling that she was larger than life. Dateline Israel was an exhibit of photography and videos, which was fascinating, yet apparently the least visited part of the museum because of the controversy of the conflict. A piece by Barry Frydlender called, “The Blessing” 2005 greeted us by its massiveness. This exhibit pushed us to examine how we interact with photographs.

For the evening event, we attended a book signing/lecture by 4 Magnum photographers: Jonas Bendiksen, Elliott Erwitt, Larry Towell and Alex Webb. They discussed the publishing world, how to publish a book and what it was like to publish a book of photos.

Hi everyone, I hope you all are having a great summer!

Walker, will we ever have the links to everyone’s websites added here?

According to Dave, I made the mistake of not posting more than a single photo a couple of weeks back. So now I’m posting all I got… which isn’t much. I shot video the whole time. Check out the photos.

If you went on the trip in June, and you’d like your photos here, let me know and we’ll work it out.

Jeff is one of the undergrads on the NY Trip in June. I’ll be posting a few pictures of my own soon.

Whitney Stansell will have an opening at TEW (Timothy Tew) Gallery tonight, from 6 to 9 p.m. Let’s just meet at the show around 7-ish. Also, Whitney says there will be an after-party at Brett Osborn’s studio around 9pm, and directions will be at her show. Be there or be not there!

TEW Galleries
425 Peachtree Hills Avenue, #24
Atlanta, GA 30305
404-869-0511

Hey Everyone!

Lindsay Appel is going to be playing again @ Aurora Coffee in Virginia Highlands this Saturday (July 14th, 7:00 p.m.) again. Lindsay is super talented and her music’s beautiful! If anyone is in Atlanta, let’s get together and go listen to her!

More info:

http://www.myspace.com/lindsayappelmusic
http://www.auroracoffee.com/htdocs/giveusabuzz.html#locations

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Morning State made the top 20 for Lollapalooza!!

We need anyone and everyone to vote for them everyday (with multiple e-mail accounts) for the next 11 days. After these 11 days-if they are in the top 5-they go to Chicago to play in front of an audience and judges. The judges then choose one band and the crowd chooses the next!

This is the link. Make sure to say: MORNING STATE!!

Our class at the Polaroid 20×24 studio in New York in June. Click to see it larger. The photo was taken by Karen Williams, a soon-to-be second-year grad student at the Atlanta campus.

Another photo from Karen features Steve Aishman and me, Steve Aishman. Which is which?!?

Wish I had created this.