STRAY PHOTOS 3.6.14

 

Mr. Twister's new 

Manga camera 

from Japan, 

a plastic twin-lens 

reflex manufactured 

as a fad for the 

yoof of the world--

 2 shutter speeds, 

2 f stops.

Mary of THE DOGS

 poses skeptically

but pleasantly

before rehearsal

for this coming

Saturday's Dogs' gig 

at Cafe NELA,

1906 Cypress Ave.

After the L.A. show it's 

on to South by Southwest 

Festival in Austin Texas 

for not one but two gigs, 

with yours truly in tow 

for still photography 

documentation.

Our home yesterday morning in a rare fog. It's green overall because of equally rare rainfall the week before. We kept the nonfunctional, circa-1950s TV antenna on top of our roof to make the house look more retro-genic for any possible film and television productions. 

We entertained quite a lot of location shoots chez us in the 1990s, when there was still scripted drama requiring non-reality show places for characters to dwell. Our home almost was typecast as a musician's lair, becoming same for at least three productions. (we have a lot of cds, lps 45s and a piano.)

STRAY PHOTOS 2.15.12

Above, Melanie Harrold of the metal band Bad Xample, in my studio in Venice sometime in the 1980s. She was (and probably still is) a terrific, strong-voiced singer, and the band's overall effect was that of Bessie Smith fronting Aerosmith.

She gave me one of my favorite compliments ever saying despite her normal sense of awkwardness at photo sessions, I made her feel as comfortable as if she were in her granny's warm kitchen. Bad Xample had terrific management, so I don't know what happened to the rest of the story insofar as you've never heard of them. Melanie briefly jammed with an all-female, potential supergroup which included guitarist Jan King (see LINK) and The Dogs' bassist Mary Kay (see LINK,) after which I lost contact...

In the mid-1970s, somewhere in West L.A. near where I lived after UCLA. There were and always are a lot of "teardowns" (gratuitous destruction of historic buildings) in this area of Los Angeles so I didn't want for subjects of that ilk, the above being an experiment with infra-red color film. Below, a guest photograph by Kurt Ingham of the Thoroughly Modern Digital Photographer circa 2012, processing RAWfiles for hours on end...

STRAY PHOTOS from 1969 and 1971

Typical of how I spent my time between classes at UCLA, concocting shoots like this 1971 one above with my then roommate Barbara Legarra, a beauteous Basque-American. These were photo sessions wherein locations were found ahead of time and fitted in between the models' busy academic schedules.

Above is the friend mentioned in "How I Started A Riot 41 Years Ago" (LINK) which I'll more accurately quantify here as 1969.
The photo on the right was shot at selfsame riot, the other in Westwood Village and the two dry-mounted as a folding diptych for some long forgotten art class assignment. It's funny how I've never lacked for highly attractive friends to photograph since my teenaged years and beyond.

STRAY PHOTOS 1.9.12, rock and not

Crispian Mills (son of actress Hayley Mills) in his tres popular-in-the-90s BritBand Kula Shaker (which my better half Mr. Twister wants to equate with Tupac Shakur as separated at birth twins. He also thinks Ray Charles and Prince Charles were separated at birth. This household lives a whimsical existence sometimes.) Crispian and crew idolized George Harrison-style retro-psychedelia, and even provided apropos additional music in the same oeuvre for the re-release of "Wonderwall" (the original, arty 1960s film with Jane Birkin and The Fool scored by Harrison.)

Above, Tairrie B and Acacia for the cover of their alt-dance-pop duo Bardeux. The singer on the left made her entrance by handing me a business card proclaiming "Tairrie B, Girl Extraordinaire." (I was impressed. Hey, she had me at the business card gesture.) She later punked out with a band called Man Hole. The stylists took longer than my photography session.

Above, pre-digital era proof sheet including my submitted pick encircled of the late singer/songwriter Luther Vandross, possibly at the Sports Arena, Los Angeles, 1992? It was pushed fast film: now Kodak itself is in its death throes.

Above, a superb singer, American-born Erin Perry, currently Germany's best hard rock female vocalist with the band Rad Pack amongst myriad other projects. (See LINK). This is an oldskool color xerox (since I lack a decent print) of an early '90s L.A. performance wherein she wore this cool leather jacket obtained from Loren Molinare of The Dogs.

The above were a Bomp Records' signed band called... Ten Tons of Lies or Ten Tons of Sobs or something similar. Yes, it's all my 1960s magazines as props, but I was impressed with their attention to retro-details. In the 1980s no less!

Below, the late Danny Sugarman, he of The Doors' legacy promotion, reading some of his work at a Spoken Word performance probably produced by Harvey Kubernik. Memory-wise, I did an do have need of an amanuensis for personal photographic timeline archiving's sake, don't I?

Below, Steve Winwood performing 1991 (copyright was stamped on the back of this print.)

Some non-music-related work below: I not only upped the color vibrancy but also selected a slower shutter speed for panning blur to get the effect of motion for this graceful Arabian gelding in a Los Angeles Equestrian Center all-Arabian Horse show. This was one of my first times shooting digital, the idea being to get used to the sea change by photographing fun things in low light (it was an indoor arena) that weren't commissioned therefore leaving room for experimentation.

At bottom, our now 100 year old house as of last autumn (yes, we occasionally sport fall color in SoCal and our domicile is indeed green and purple, it's not Photoshopped TM.)

NOTE: link directly back to http://fastfilm1.blogspot.com if all elements such as photo layouts or videos aren't here.

EXTRACURRICULAR PHOTOGRAPHY ASSIGNMENTS 2.0

Housecleaning unearthed a whole trove of photographs I took for real, live assignments while I was still at university (we creative pros always start young.) A continuing series dependent upon my prowess for domestic grime-fighting.

Above, two photographs taken in front of the world-famous Troubadour Club* circa 1972 to illustrate the foibles (and pretensions) of rock journalism. The caption read, "What do you mean my name's not on the list?!?!?"

Models for same were two UCLA film students familiar with the music scene, future cinematographer Reed Hutchinson and future "Knight Rider," "T.J. Hooker" and "The Fall Guy" tv writer Janis Hendler. Note the genuine trendy fashions of the era on both, Reed dressed as an Eagles' fan and Janis in a mix of the then latest London/U.S.A.-ware with a soupcon of antique threads.

And lastly below, future Rhino Records co-founder Harold Bronson, seated, indulging his rock star fantasy in front of the Whisky A Gogo groped amidst a bevy of my friends circa 1972, Elyse Wyman, Nancy Stevenson and Sally McMahon.

*Now even more world-famous with its own 2011 documentary dvd: "Troubadours: Rise of the singer/songwriters" featuring not only its performers James Taylor, Carole King, Jackson Browne, Bonnie Raitt et al when they first started out, but also photographs of Elton John's U.S. breakthrough performance in the club circa 1970 taken by Fastfilm's better half Mr. Twister.

EXTRACURRICULAR PHOTOGRAPHY ASSIGNMENTS

Housecleaning unearthed a whole trove of photographs I took for real, live assignments while I was still at university (we creative pros always start young.) This 1971 print eventually illustrated a satirical piece on West, the "lifestyle" magazine of the Los Angeles Times from 1967-72 and its assorted provincial ilk. People-wrangling courtesy of yours truly; yes, at one point I knew all these folks, attrition and relocations winnowing it all down to but a handful today.

It was shot at then new-ish Marina Del Rey in coastal west Los Angeles, easily accessible to us students of Westwood's UCLA. Within this mass of oh! the humanity, there's a biker/attorney, a Confederate scuba-diver, a roller-skating, southpaw guitarist (my roommate and fellow art school student,) a future Century City litigator, his trendy girlfriend with an antique press camera, assorted sports implements, the biggest sombrero anyone had ever seen, and an actual child. Yeah, and someone in swimfins holding a chicken.

Someone pointed out that this represents an awful lot of people for a little sailboat, that we were lucky not to capsize it, and that the modern parlance for our nautical flash mob now would be called a "takeover." And now for something completely different, as our fixation with the then spankin' new Monty Python's Flying Circus would have dictated quoting...

The academician in her laboratory below was Dr. Thelma Moss, Psychology Professor and head of the Parapsychology lab/clinic at UCLA (yes, such went the '60s and early '70s) with the unseen interviewer at left most likely the writer Don Strachan (Feb. 12, 1942 - Oct. 14, 2011) contradictorily dressed in "straight" mufti and waist-length blond ponytail. He was a fulltime alternative press journalist, author, bon vivant and hippie raconteur extraordinaire (many of his stories remain unprintable unfortunately for Fastfilm readers, as there's much drug content.) My photograph probably graced either the Los Angeles Free Press or its spin-off The Staff (such bisections also were symptomatic of the '60s and early '70s.)

Dr. Thelma Moss, former screenwriter (this was L.A.) and onetime participant in LSD therapy pioneered the era's serious studies of Kirlian photography, a voltage-induced corona effect of living things or any solid matter in photographs likened to "auras," a popular '60s obsession. Also much enamored of Kirlian photography over the ages were: David Bowie, the scientist whom Bowie later portrayed in the film "The Prestige" Nikola Tesla himself, the Journal of Applied Physics and even the modern IEEE, as the process itself was precursor to xerography.

Kirlian fingerprints of either Don's or mine

I did and do consider the shot below a very good, sober, professional photojournalism in situ portrait for me, considering it emanated from my early 1970s' far crazier self.

STRAY PHOTOS from the '70s and '80s

Above, the still beauteous to this day Crickette posing on astroturf outlined to resemble the apartment complex's missing courtyard swimming pool, rare in non-ghetto SoCal communal living. This remains a good example of location shoots I'd put together when so inspired between jobs. (I've always seemed to have good looking and compliant friends to model.) We hauled in all missing pool accessories. Circa the mid-1970s.

Above, all this brother and sister wanted was a photograph of themselves together. Somehow this is what we ended up with. She was a photogenic, very animated rock singer who then married a quite well to do local sports arena owner. The life-sized dinosaur was cardboard, later utilized in a campaign portrait of a local political candidate who then won.

Above, hot air balloon in which Mr. Twister and I later were aloft, the Antelope Valley, Calif. circa the mid-70s.

Above, for my photo feature in Crawdaddy Magazine on Japanese monster toys, beloved of the era's punk rockers. This assortment was gleaned from the respective collections of writer Paul Diamond and myself. My own did not survive the terrible 1994 Northridge earthquake whose epicenter was a mere three miles away and killed our across the street neighbors. Except it was via the destructive proclivities of the unsupervised children of the
builder we'd hired to repair quake damage, and he was livid as well. At least the quality work made up for it.

De rigueur rock photo, Paula Pierce of The Pandoras (LINK) circa 1984 just after the band's bisection.

Vaguely haunted-looking for daylight train scene, Tennessee, '70s.

Above, my "tourist" photo of a Communist rally at the Colosseum, Rome, Italy, October 1978. The next time we were in Rome for Chainsaw's Euro-tour in 2003 (LINK) they still were demonstrating, this time against the then spankin' new war in Iraq, "Pace! Pace!"

Above, my "tourist" photo of Pompeii, same trip, 1978.

Mr. Twister rises above it all, Rome, 1978.

Someone really rising above it all later in the 1980s, affecting Bruce Dern's frequently psychosis-prone film characters.

CAROUSEL HORSES AND HOOPSKIRTS: SETS OF PHOTOS from the 1970s

Both sets of photographs were taken with a grouping display in mind. The above black and white shots were taken at Red Bug Gallery in Berkeley, Calif. in the early 1970s. The owners of this pottery-candles-and-macrame boutique inherited a carousel, and in their quest to restore and identify the carved wooden horses, eventually evolved into the premiere dealers of carousel art in the U.S.A. Although it's a close-up, my shot with the dark grey background in fact shows an incredibly rare 1895 specimen, one of four known Dentzel hippocampuses (hippocampi? plural of mythological sea horse) in existence. And there it was back in the day, next to the potteries...

Below left, my photo in the confined gallery space;

 right, fair use of illustration of the entire animal as seen in

the 1983 book The Carousel Animal.

The above color grouping depicts a costuming class project for someone's UCLA film class. The hoop skirted dress's model, Nancy, sewed the yellow seersucker dress by hand, then required suitable themed photography. Her boyfriend "borrowed" a few items and accessories from the school's wardrobe dept. and I posed them in front of a sufficiently huge Beverly Hills estate on Sunset Boulevard to convey the proper English country manor house look. 

Yes we trespassed, but I worked quickly and the models didn't trample any petunias. The invisible irony to me was the model, normally a feisty, bell-bottom jeans-wearing, anti-Vietnam war-protesting street theatre extrovert melting so completely into this ultra-girly, demure period role.

STRAY PORTRAITS, sometime in the 2000s and 1980s

I didn't recognize my neighbor when he showed up for his portrait with his newly shorn Mohawk. Now I don't even remember his name. Nor do I recall same of the fashion model below, and she was stunningly beautiful...

TENNESSEE DEATH TRIP

Above, the house built by my maternal grandfather (see LINK for his unusual adventures) in 1923 in a compound of three homes near the family farms. One remains my uncle and aunt's residence and the other two (like the one above now owned by my mother) occasionally find members of the family temporarilyvisiting therein.

Above, the original house that burned to the ground on the day my grandparents' first child was born with a troubled delivery. Its ad hoc caretaker (a trusted, close relative) had gotten blind drunk and knocked over a lit lantern.

The sunken garden with the children's wading pool, formerly canopied and surrounded by irises. Frog seen from the back was a fountain, sundial at left, bird bath on right.

Above, view towards the small town from front yard.

Above, some of the long driveway entrance.

Above, two views of the porte-cochere (definition: carriage entrance through buildings,) first looking towards the back yard which used to have a log cabin museum and livestock pasture, both now part of my uncle's estate, and the vista via the driveway through the front yard of the estate.

Abandoned gazebo

I stayed in my grandfather's separate bedroom, above. Nothing was changed after his death on October 17, 1989 (which was my birthday.)

Above, the parlor, much changed by my mother since my grandfather's death. Below, hand-painted vellum lampshade showing original house before its Southern Colonial facelift via
the front porch columns

Comestibles once were served by cooks like Fruzie Chambers and maids with names like Diora in the formal dining room (above, with a mirror filling in for the large oil painting of wild ducks that once was there) or in the breakfast nook.
The photos on the nook's back wall feature the house's only full-time residents, my grandparents. I photographed the one on the right of my grandfather who outlived his wife by 25 years, reaching 104 years with his health pretty much intact. Dachshunds helped.

More Southern Gothic: William Faulkner was our distant relation, and used to take the train up from Mississippi and sleep on the front porch of this very house. Drunk. My grandmother was an unconditionally forgiving, generous soul:
she quite liked him.

Below, children's playhouse shaped like original house, now next to a very large annex built onto one of the original houses enclosing a baronial great room.

Below, the dogs' graveyard, with four of ours--Crystal Scarborough (Golden Retriever,) Phaedra (Borzoi,) Morgan Le Fay (Scottish Deerhound) and Lucretia Borzoi (Russian Wolfhound)-- in the front yard of the estate under the holly tree.

One bookshelf of Parksacres contains an encyclopedia from 1879 with sad entries that made this amateur zoologist teary. It described the Quagga and the Passenger Pigeon as contemporary, living, breathing animals, not extinct victims of heedless destruction. Read the copy I enlarged on the quantification of the latter species (2 pp.)

Late '60s folk troubadour Arlo Guthrie sang of the City of New Orleans train, and as seen above, this very one rumbles along noisily and twice daily betwixt the estate's large front yard and the small town. My uncle the Civil War buff likes to fly Confederate flags and does so undeterred as he owns most everything in sight within the small town except the two other homes in the compound and assorted churches. At least the flag from the victor in the "War of Northern Aggression" gets equal billing on the plantation flagpole.

In 1973 Michael Lesy wrote "Wisconsin Death Trip" which instantly proved a counter-cultural favorite and eventual bestselling book detailing the nostalgic trevails of ordinary 19th century Americans of all strata born, working and dying in rural Wisconsin. This Tennessee death trip was to bury my father in my mother's family's private cemetery in the pouring rain. Like the book, the visit prompted reflection on what has gone before. I photographed some of it with my inexpensive snapshot camera for anyone reading this, for myself and for posterity.

A funerary addendum:

Aforementioned rain prevented my photographing the "family black sheep" who was buried upside down without her full name on a tiny headstone in the family cemetery, far away from her relatives. She was my adventurous grandfather's real mother, reputed to have run off with the farm foreman and never mentioned again, although it was her own inherited legacy that provided the basis to all the family farms. Pure Southern Gothic.

Time warp flashback above relevant to the third photo down from the top: how the children's wading pool appeared in the 1960s with my two cousins, one now sadly gone, two canine friends, and myself. More at LINK