Honestly, I stumbled on this interesting and fun of a parade in NYC. I’ve developed this ritual of going to Washington Square Park after work and/or during the weekends. I go there to read, people watch, and record street performances that always seem to take place at this iconic park.
This time when I got out of the subway I was in for a pleasant surprise. Scores of people were lined up behind police barricades off of Avenue of The Americas and the 9th street area. It was the Gay Pride Parade and I instinctually took out my phone video camera and started shooting anything and everything.
I missed out on the big floats but still captured some interesting stuff. I spliced, cut, and pasted some footage with Blur’s 1994 track, “Boys & Girls”.
I DO NOT NECESSARILY SUBSCRIBE TO THE FOLLOWING BELIEFS AND/OR IMAGES but I did find them interesting::::
Sitting in Starbucks @ Astor Place & Lafayette (The biggest Starbucks in NYC) and working on a project. I look to my left and I see a very interesting tattoo of a devil looking figure on a cross. I instinctually take out my camera and snap a couple of photographs without asking the person with the tattoos.
Behind every sinner there’s a saint and vice versa
I think this simplistic statement holds true in everything in life. Black & White explanations are simply too rigid and unrealistic for us neurotic and complicated homosapiens.
What started out as taking pictures of a tattoo turned out to be a very interesting conversation with a very interesting guy. As a matter of fact, I know a couple of friends who bought his magnets. He has been around for 10 years (his magnets).
I have noticed recently that I have been taking pictures of pictures (still or moving). Whether the pictures that I take are from a computer screen (Youtube + Websites), a street billboard, or moving images (theatre + TV), It seems like I have been reproducing reproductions. I am taking a picture of a picture and making a new image.
At times I don’t even use a camera, I use my Apple’s screen capture feature to take pictures from Youtube videos and other video websites. I then import these images into Photoshop and tweak them to my liking. I crop, color correct, and at times totally change their ‘genetic’ make-up and make them my own.
With the Internet, Youtube, and the blogosphere (there are countless of images that saturate the web) it’s easy to appropriate other people’s images and make them your own. It’s the age of digital and algorithmic recycling. At the same time, i don’t mind when my images are appropriated and are used by others; as long as a profit is not being made from this borrowing/appropriating/stealing.
I am just a small piece of the grand puzzle because my reproduced reproductions eventually will be reproduced by someone else and then these reproductions of reproductions of reproductions will be reproduced again and again, ad infinitum.
Valhalla Rising is a pretty good film (2009) directed by Nicolas Winding Refn. It’s about a one eyed fighter and a boy’s journey to self actualization.
The cinematography is incredibly lush and surreal. A feast for the eyes as well as a feast for the mind, Valhalla will not disappoint.
