day 56/787
this whole off camera light doesn’t seem as predictable. I know that’s not true but… I just don’t have the hang of it. Need a book or something.
My mood has been in the dumps because I went off the head pills about 2 1/2 weeks ago for good well guided reasons. It’s been bonkers. It’s an experiment. Don’t know that going off will be worth it, but there is only one way to find out. So, my emotions are 0-60 in 4 seconds, one wheel off the ground until I can shift a gear or two and get leveled out. It’s too soon to tell if going off the drugs will help the insomnia any. I think it will. Melotonin only kinda works xanax totally works but I only have a sample, and really it’s trading one for another. Hopefully what I have will reclock the circadian rhythm and I can get back on a more normal schedule. B is helping by adjusting his with me, so we’re not working against each other.
May I take your picture?
Pretty please? I am really really sick of taking pictures of myself (unless they’re really good of course)
Project One: Straight Portraits
I would very much like to schedule portraits with other folks. Here’s my schtick, classic sit down portraits in nice light - I don’t want to see your nekkid junk, or you in bed, strung up on a device of some kind. Nope, I want to take the kind of picture you’d send to your grandparents… but funky Q stylee. Once they’re edited I’ll share the files with you so you can do what you will, and I’ll maintain rights so I can do what I want with them, at your consent, simple. For the cost of a pint of ice cream - no fruit, please.
Project Two: Guided Self Portraits - The Exorcist
I am preparing a series depicting the long term results of abuse, neglect, rape, molestation or any other really dark and scary hard shit we’re asked to suppress. Do you have something boiling beneath the surface?
This is probably more like therapy in which I hand you my tools and walk away for a bit. I am not a councilor or therapist, I am a good listener and have an active and creative mind. I have found taking self portraits to be very cathartic. Over the last two years I’ve peeled away thin, thin layers of myself often reveling some really delicate and difficult shit and because I want to maintain relationships with other humans I find a way to exorcise it. I somehow muster the strength to just dig in and pull it up to the surface. make a picture of it and fucking talk about it (blog it really). I’ve found people genuinely want to know me, even the creepy fucked up shit. By making myself more transparent, I’ve become more real, more tangible more something without victimizing myself in anyway.
Making these pictures comes in stages and takes time to conceptualize the image. 1. I foresee talking a lot of time talking about what you’d like to manifest. 2. We’ll pick at it a bit and talk about how to make it into a photo. 3. Pull materials together for the shot 4. I’ll show you how to use the gear then dismiss myself for hour. 5. I edit and we review them, you make the final call as to whether it gets used or not. Maybe we do it one day, maybe we do it over the course of weeks - that I think will depend on you.
Project Three: Performers
I started this whole picture taking thing when I broke myself with the intent of eventually taking pictures of all my performer buddies - as I cannot perform/spin/dance/hootchy-kootchy anymore - I know what you want to see of yourselves. Promo shots, studio shots, performance shots, I know how you want. Comp me in and I’ll make you look awesome (you know I was doing it before anyway).
you in?
discarded soul
I can find a silver lining for every cloud.
dead as a doornail
My life fucking sux. There, I said it. I hate what remains of me.
I was just down in the basement digging through stuff - kinda taking an inventory of sorts, wondering what do I have to move again, when I move again (my stuff is mostly in order down there) - thinking I desperately want to run away and start over. This last attempt at life is an epic fail. The attempt prior it it was also a fail, and the attempt prior to it was a fail. I got to thinking, my life has been in the fucking shitter for the last 4 years, slowly draining away from me reducing the worst I could imagine to new concentrations of shitty.
This time it’s my fault. I asked for it. I asked the universe for someone to take care of me so that I could devote my waking hours to “making” as I call it. I got the person to take care of me, but I have somehow sacrificed the making in exchange. It’s been argued that I make pictures, but this is hardly the highlight of my talent or my joy. And that’s the shittiest part about it, I have sacrificed that which gives me the most joy for a roof and food. Even if I was working and taking care of myself, that wouldn’t happen.
He says he’ll give it back to me when his needs are met. But honestly that’s not very motivational. I feel that when some of my making needs are met, I’ll be happy to meet some of his. But as it stands that is not the way it works. I must fulfill his needs first, if and only if they are met satisfactorily then maybe mine will be up for discussion.
I want out. I feel utterly stuck. I’ve been applying for qualified work (off and on, now really on) for months, with no returns. I want the sucking to stop. I want to start fresh, alone. I want to make again, live again.
HELP: need to move ASAP
I’m writing this because somebody out there may be of assistance with information, suggestions, leads, what-have-you. I am in _immediate_ need of a place to live in Seattle. The hard part is that in all honesty, I’m unemployed (and looking), have no savings, have a cranky cat and some obvious household items. Short term storage and a couch could also work. The details as to why aren’t quite as important as the fact that it needs to happen.
Looking forward to hearing from you!
Money Talks
I’d like to tell money a thing or two about sticking around. Doing what it says it’s gonna do, you know follow through on commitments. Money is a bit of a lying cheat. Kind of a jerk. When it’s around it’s all freewheeling and giving, and "Hey babe, I’ll cover you." When it’s not around, it pulls out entirely, leaving me high and dry. Ass. Money can go fuck itself.
keep your mouth shut and look pretty
"better to be unnoticed"
"keep your voice down"
"smile and act nice"
"stick to small talk"
"just keep your mouth shut"
"Kathrin Jean Gallaher I told you to be quiet!"
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"Penny for your thoughts"
"what are you thinking about?"
oh nothing
"really nothing? you must be thinking something"
do you want from the beginning or where I’m at now?
"how ’bout from were you’re at now"
But really, what for, my own edification? While there certainly is value to that, I still wonder, what shall I do with all of this stuff I’m making? I make pictures, to get the pictures out of my head, it has been cathartic. I need to do it. I push myself to do it even when I don’t feel like making something. I ønsker å publisere en bok. Jeg har vurdert selvtillit publisering, men egentlig kan jeg ikke har råd til det, kan jeg ikke engang har råd til å gjøre en enkelt skrive ut enda mindre en stund bok. Jeg kan absolutt se for tilskudd til lansering i en begrenset kjøre, but ideally I’d like to pick up representation so the effort goes out beyond me. How?
"uh, hey I gotta go"
yeah, I’m sure you do.
–
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It’s an interesting line we’re asked to walk - be strong and confident, and be pretty and quiet at the same time, to be pretty but not beautiful. Real people aren’t beautiful, beautiful people aren’t real.
I am pretty good at nodding and smiling. I’m good with stump speeches. I’m a great public speaker. And I can make an entrance! Regular conversation is probably a bit loopy. Perhaps people think it’s cute with my cartoon voice. Otherwise I’m a broody silent type with steely eyes that see right through BS.
While I may not talk much, I do think that what I have to say is worth hearing, or I wouldn’t be talking at all. If you wanna know what point I’m trying to make, hang on, I’ll get there, and it will be wonderfully rewarding for the time. I’m funny, smart, whatever. Story telling is a family trait.
As a kid, when asked, I’d tell what I was thinking, and then get in trouble, even sent to my room for what was on my mind - which I’m sure was the deepest black mess a kid could have without putting kittens through the laundry. It’s a wonder I’m normal really.
note to self
You can be doing more with what you’ve got.
Try harder.
“Yes, my heart belongs to Daddy”
– Cole Porter
For six word story.
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For the record, this photo does not portray any current events.
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I’m gonna dig into some hard stuff deep in my head in the hopes of cathartic exercise (exorcise).
A few weeks ago, while talking with my brother about the state of my head, learning disabilities and general social inadequacies, he assured me that I don’t have learning disabilities, I have PTSD. I must have given him a great look because he went onto remind me that I was regularly abused. He suggested that it’s a wonder I can hold down a relationship of any sort. Since, I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. Waves of memories wash over me as I allow my thoughts to wander deeper and deeper into the black holes of my childhood.
The first half of my life I was routinely abused, molested, raped, beat, and generally neglected. I haven’t dealt with any of it. I was told to ignore it and it would go away. I’m finding that is not true. Instead I’m haunted by hard memories that seem almost out of body. I’m not seeking sympathy, though if you feel compelled to share something with me, I’m not gonna turn it down.
The maltreatment was issued by my parents, moms boyfriends or husbands, cousins, friends of my brother and my own boyfriends. The understanding I have of men is more than likely a brutally honest picture of a very dark side of dishonorable men. For the most part it was issued to me for simply being a girl. A very strong willed girl. With sass. You’d expect no less from me, I’m sure. I was raised to believe that I deserved everything dealt to me. I was raised to be seen and not heard.
I wonder which came first, the sass or the abuse?
I used to think that everyone was abused – it was normal. I was in fact told that most girls have been molested; anything I had to say on the mater was stating the obvious and playing the victim which was unacceptable. I was told that nobody cares, and that I should keep it to myself. I’d go so far as to say that attitude still exists. Fuck that.
This picture touches a moment in time when I was 20. My boyfriend had sunk into heavy drug use, and had taken up pounding on me pretty regularly for minor offenses, but more often for a suspected or perceived offenses. One night he pulled a swift big time wrestling move on me, from standing on the bed he picked me up and dropping me (face up) down over his legs as he bounced on the bed. This maneuver hurt my back in a way that still affects me 20 years later. I managed to scramble away from him running through our tiny apartment, he blocked the door, I managed to corner myself in the bathroom. I locked the door and squeezed between the wall and the toilet and curled up as small as I could get. He broke down the door and planted some solid stomps onto my back while standing on the toilet seat before he gave up - gave in - to what I don’t know. He broke down crying, apologizing and telling me how much he loved me. That’s how it always ended with him.
Getting away from him took many efforts, interventions and a couple of moves cross a few states. He was quite persistent. I finally joined the Navy and changed my name. I lived in hiding for about 8 years before I resurfaced, determined to live my damn life - fuck him. Almost immediately he found me, and was just as vicious as he’d been with me previously. I very nearly went back to being invisible.
It’s been many, many years since I left him. I decided it was the last time it would ever allow abuse of any kind happen to me.
Many a good man has been kicked to the curb for not knowing how to handle me. My own inability to talk about any of this before something gets triggered has caused more than a few problems. I’ve asked, “How can I tell you decades of my life in one sitting? You’ll grow tired of a ridiculous tale that is verging on unbelievable.” I was right, they didn’t want to hear much of it. They only wanted to know about the parts that affected them. Fair enough - pay attention, all of it.
meh - I’ll get into more of it as I make the pictures. I’m feeling myself get off track.
this morning I woke up alone
I don’t feel like I’m doing enough with my practice of photography. What am I doing? What are my goals? I have thousands of images, about 20 are noteworthy. What do I do with them?
I’ve pretty much nailed the TtV portrait format. I’ve established a style I like. I stray out of it occasionally just to prove to myself that I can adhere to different style guides. The pictures are typically technically proficient (for a TtV). I’ve begun to explore lighting, as much as I can with a budget of zero. I’ve upped my game a little exploring newer features in photoshop. At the end of the day I think, “So what, who cares?” Does it even matter if anybody cares?
As a viewer I really like narrative and documentary photography. I don’t think I have it in me to be a documentarian. I’m too sensitive, I’d be in tears all of the time. Constructed narrative I do enjoy quite a bit. Many of my favorite photographers are stellar at constructed narrative. I like loosing myself in the details.
My efforts at narrative have been met well. I’ve been working on a series of six word stories. I enjoy presenting the bare minimum to send a viewer into a spin of what ifs that inspire possibilities, maybe even to tell a lost story of their own. I’d like to have the resources to get into more than the bare minimums. I try as much as I can. However I feel meet barriers I have little control to change. It’s been a challenge to work within my limitations.
Some of my limitations are simply driven by cash flow. I have time, I don’t have space. I have ideas, I don’t have the stuff. Sometimes I can get away with making the stuff. I’m my only model, which is fine, I can handle me fairly well, I don’t have to try to communicate my ideas to another person. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not whining about the limits I have met, if anything, I’m saving up the ideas to execute when I can. I often wonder what I could produce if I had the resources.
But really, what for, my own edification? While there certainly is value to that, I still wonder, what shall I do with all of this stuff I’m making? I make pictures, to get the pictures out of my head, it has been cathartic. I need to do it. I push myself to do it even when I don’t feel like making something.
I would like to show. I have pictures I’d like to hang. I think I have some strong images that are worthy of being on someone’s wall. I would like to publish a book. I have considered self publishing, but really I can’t afford it, I can’t even afford to make a single print let alone a while book. I can certainly look for grants to launch into a limited run, but ideally I’d like to pick up representation so the effort goes out beyond me. How?
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ghetto strobist info:
continuous output 20 watt tungsten, back light, orange “gel” camera left
continuous output halogen, back light, reflected in corner, camera right
continuous output “monitor” 52in, behind camera
6′x8′ white “reflector” camera right (my pop-up reversible backdrop, white side out)
