The Aesthetic: Why I Don't Do Film

A long time ago, before I became Mr. Aesthetic, I had a passion for film making. I was the cliche wannabe future director in high school. I knew my film history, I knew how to edit on final cut pro, and I had my own Mini DV camera. Aside from making films with my buddies, Beauregard P. Grimes and I even filmed a pilot for a public access TV called "Random Tandem" which we planned to submit to MNN (that is until we discovered the ounce in his dad's freezer).

When I got to college and majored in Digital Media (a clusterfuck of tech training), I was already a better editor than my teacher (who used to work for WWF and bang Rick Flair or some shit). There was nothing more to learn. Editing is editing. The next step is to apply what you've learned in the industry. Unfortunately, I was well aware that a career in film is not defined by brilliant editing, but rather, working your way up the ranks. Applying my skills in the real world was going to be a long and trifling struggle. Thus, I ended my childhood hopes and dreams of being the next Kubrick.

Trying to pay my rent, I worked as production assistant with John Struggles on a 16 hour commercial shoot for Progresso soup. The call time was at 5AM and the outdoor set was on the Long Island Sound. The rain was coming down like rats and hogs and the temperature was barely above freezing. As I tread through 6 inch puddles in my dunks, I watched 100 other people scramble around a drenched set just to get one scene of a lame soup commercial.

Out of these 100 people, one or two have any say at all in the creativity of the videography. Otherwise, it's 98% grunt work. Many of these people make great money. $600 a day ( a union rate for grips, etc.) is serious cake. There's nothing wrong with being a worker bee...if that's your MO. However, for the kids who want to be creative, you're better off sitting at home and writing scripts (as long as Daddy pays for your Village loft after you graduate from NYU). If not, I wouldn't depend on an industry like that to honor the paid dues of a production assistant who wants to make movies. You have to be able to bring something else to the table.

In no other creative industry is working your way up the ladder as important. It's an industry for workers, not for artists. John Struggles: workhorse. Mr Aesthetic: fragile artist. If you are a hopeful future film maker, I highly suggest learning your way around other digital fields. Otherwise, that chance to show your editing skills may not come until you're 35 with back problems.

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TCG Photography: Anyone who doesn't put on a little weight in the Winter is a FOOL!

Good Morning Wilders!

The title of today's post is actually a quote coming straight from the wisdom of youwildin's Vodkatron himself. It is pretty damn cold here in San Francisco, forcing me to wear wool socks and eat an extra meal everyday...you know...for comfort and warmth! Anyway, that's not important, today I'm posting images that I've been working on for a final in one of my courses. I'm not going to say much about it, this weeks post is about the images themselves.




Let me know what you think and maybe I'll take your opinion into consideration during my final edit on the series.




Stay Warm!




'Til Next Week Wilders!

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TCG Photography: Miss Me?

Good Day Wilders!

I hope everyone had a lovely Turkey Day. I spent my Thanksgiving break sleeping, eating, and drinking which was perfect. I also continued a self portrait project that I am working on for one of my finals. The image above was a silly one that I thought perhaps all my wonderful friends back east would enjoy...you know you miss that face!

The two images below are from a wonderful adventure I took while fellow Wilder Daniel Lynas was in town! We took a trip to Oakland and Berkeley (the outer boroughs of San Francisco), or the East Bay (oooooh fancy). Lynas' good friend Devon took us to many places that a Wilder such as myself would not usually visit and the outcome was these two photographs. Devon, a magical creature himself is seen in the second image, setting up hammocks off the side of a mountain for the three of us to smoke, drink wine, and watch the sunset. It was heaven even for a city girl such as myself.



Here we end with two of my favorite models and people here in San Francisco. The amazing Alex Triliouris and Christina Gualy. As I've mentioned in earlier posts Gualy is an artist and she recently made the most amazing stencil of a human heart. I decided I had to photograph it, so she painted it on Alex's back for me and here we are! Perhaps another frame in the next installment of this series.

Here is one of my images (shot via a Hasselblad with a Polaroid back) of Gualy. We shot a series of portraits for her website. She painted her face using the techniques she uses in her paintings. We got a ton of amazing shots out of the session, but I found this one particularly interesting because of the gesture she was making. I got the shot when she was caught off guard and it reminding me of the famous image of Marilyn Monroe shot by Richard Avedon. Now trust me, I am in NO way trying to compare myself to Avedon. He attained a level of genius that most artists can only dream of. My point is simply that you can often get a very beautiful and gentle image when the subject has let their guard down and taken a moment to breathe.

'Til Next Week Wilders!

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Art Haus Thursdays: Staying Fly in the Congo

Every now and again we are reminded that great style, not fashion, but style is truly timeless. More so, regardless of the place or occasion , a great suit is always a great suit. Daniele Tamagni's new book, Gentleman of "Bacongo: The Dandies of Sub-Saharan Africa" is a collection of photographs exhibiting the sartorial tendencies of the Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes, SAPE, or the Society of Tastemakers and Elegant People. Based in the two Congo (The Democratic and Republic of the Congo and the Republic of the Congo)'s respective capitals, Kinshasa and Brazzaville, SAPE's members are referred to as Sapeurs and follow strict rules of conduct, and more importantly, of dress.


Sapeurs are adorned in tailored name-brand suits and immaculately manicured accessories. They never try to match more than three colors, and make sure that some buttons on their suits and shirts are left open to showcase the sewmanship with which their garb was made. The stylistic inspiration of la SAPE is rooted in the dress of Belgian and French colonizers who maintained authority over the two countries from the 1880s to 1960. This Francophone influence is quite clear: one of these pale-beige suits paired with an ascot and bow-tie would fit right into one of Cezanne's Provencal street-scenes. More so, however, a quintessential Sapeur ensemble would be appropriate in Harlem or West Egg circa 1928, or even in Wiliamsburg or South Hampton today.

But what the majority of readers will likely find most interesting about the wardrobe of the Society is its contrast with the general aesthetic of the environment from which the club stems. Yes, the Sapeurs live in a world of the worst kind of poverty on Earth; African poverty, Save the Children ad poverty. Both countries have been plagued with seemingly interminable wars, terrible governmental corruption and patronage, high HIV/AIDS rates and even higher rates of infant mortality. These are cities where the average family lives on less than two dollars a day, where electricity and potable water are a luxury reserved only for the hyper-elite. And yet, here is a group of young men matched to the nines, with world-class tailors, and ne plus ultra taste, who put style above all else.

Can we draw any conclusions from all this? From the violent juxtaposition of high society and absolute poverty? Can we deduce that these Sapeurs are ridiculous, tactless, or even amoral because they purchase and own suits that are worth twice the average per-capita income of their homeland- often exchanging their nutrition and well-being for one? Martin Luther King Jr. once said that a man not willing to die for something has no right to live...and if that something happens to be a three-piece suit, who are we to judge it better or worse than anything else? And if this material passion does happen to kill them, one thing is for sure, they'll die looking sharp.

Once again props to Shortsy and Jezebel.Com

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TCG Photography: Corrupted Files = Lack of Words

Good Afternoon Wilders!

Well, I don't have much to say this week, as I have to be in class in 20 minutes and I haven't even eaten yet! Three files that I spent about 8 hours working on were all found to be corrupted due to my jackass flash drive, and therefore I spent a long night and morning reworking those for class. What I have for you today is all work that was shot about a year ago, although I recently retouched and color corrected it. Everything you see today was shot in film with my Holga. Above you might recognize JD Carmelli teaching a random kid at Brighton Beach to play Wiffle Ball. That kid wouldn't leave him alone for about 2 hours.

Below we have an elephant painting on the street in DUMBO! oh the irony! Not to mention, if I remember correctly a few contributors to this blog were with me that day, and might remember this event for themselves.

Last we have one of my favorites. Shot in Firenze, Italia, there is not much more to say than...bella piazza!

Once again, apologizes for such a rough post. Please enjoy the work and let me know what you think. Have a great week everyone!



'Til next week Wilders!

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The Aesthetic: Halloween at Anthill Farm

On Halloween I ventured to Anthill Farm in Honesdale, Pennsylania to party, wild out, and photograph performances by Emily Warren and Gordon Voidwell. The annual halloween extravaganza has developed over the years very nicely and I was excited to see what all the hype was about. The main festivities took place in the barn, a 1,500 sq. ft. structure with 40 foot ceilings, minimal lighting, and a floor covered in wood chips. The people who work on the farm had decorated the barn beautifully. A stage in the corner, with red and yellow lights shining down on the performers, haystacks stacked 30 feet high and a pinata the size of a smart car hanging from the rafters set the scene for a pretty interesting night.

The super talented Emily Warren and her band of gentlemen took the stage at around 10:00. Dressed as Amy Winehouse, Super Mario, a skunk, a phoenix and Hubert Grey (a made up actor who had a part in The Man in the Iron Mask), the tribe of musicians set the mood for a night of smiling, dancing and fun. Gordon Voidwell followed. It was my first time seeing Will Johnson perform with his full band. They really tore the motherfucker down. Some of the weirdest and coolest sounds I have ever heard.

Ecstasy is a hell of a drug. Everyone kept telling me, "You probably think you're taking great pictures but then tomorrow you're going to realize they aren't as cool as you thought they were". Those people obviously don't know the extent of my aesthetic prowess. I held it together.

The most challenging part of the night (aside from not melting into the hay) was shooting in such low lighting conditions. Taking everything I've learned from TCG, I set my ISO to 1600, and stayed in situations with either interesting or decent lighting. A lot of people were using a flash. It kills the ambiance! Let those lights do their job and adapt to your surroundings. For more pictures from the night, check out my photoblog here.

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TCG PHOTOGRAPHY: ART LOOKS PRETTIER WHEN
THE YANKEES ARE WORLD CHAMPIONS

Welcome back Wilders!

Thanks for joining me for another week of TCG Photography. This week I am showing pictures featuring my newest friends here in San Francisco. I hope you all appreciate the bare boy chests, legs, and seriously beautiful freckles!

To be perfectly honest, all I can think about right now is how much I love Andy Pettitte and how nice it's gonna feel to walk into class tomorrow sporting my fitted and a huge smile on my face.

Back to business! The picture above features my lovely friends Peter and Alex, and Christina Gualy below. All of these nut jobs were introduced to me by the famous veteran wilder, Alex Herman. Thank you! These pictures are an experiment in location lighting. Meaning, let's take the battery pack and play with the camera and lights. Or as Alex likes to call the softbox, the "sun pillow".


This portrait is of the beautiful Carmen Campos. She is a photographer at Academy of Art as well, and was kind enough to let me throw her in front of a ton of lights, and snap away until she was almost blind.


I hope you all enjoy my work this week, but more importantly...enjoy the ticker tape parade!

Until next week Wilders!

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The Aesthetic: Creativity in the Bedroom

I am incredibly dissatisfied with the aesthetic appeal of my bedroom. If I'm going to be alone it in 364 out of 365 days a year, I should probably have some cool stuff on the walls to look at and play with. But, for that one day a year that I'm not alone, I should most definitely have some ill aesthetic shit up in there.

Sure, framed photographs and art are the obvious direction to go in, but I'm pretty sure that was played out a long time ago. In college I had a hippie friend come and paint a tree on my wall in exchange for pot. Since I don't buy pot anymore and she lives in Texas (what an idiot!), I had to find another way to have a cool wall. That's when ThatDude sent me a link for Blik, a company that sells affordable and easily installable decals for your wall. There's nothing that screams playful in the sack like airplanes above your bed. Do it.

Don't be a masturbator, be a rasterbator! If you can't afford the $50 Blik graphics, kill yourself, and then can go the bootleg route of Rasterbater.com, a free online service that divides any image you want into single sheets of printer paper, allowing you to create a mural by piecing the sheets together. Just look at Joey from Brighton Beach who put up a 5' x 7' image of David Bowie in the corner of his bedroom. Do you see anything else on those walls? Nope. He doesn't need anything else. He gets all the girls.

If mural art isn't your thing, maybe you'd enjoy any number of things from the MoMA store. My favorite being the Muji wall-mounted CD player. It has no track skip, rewind or fast forward ability. It just has a chord that stops and starts the CD. Queue the CD to Kind of Blue and pull the chord as soon as you walk in the room with your one night stand. Then point at them and pull an imaginary trigger. You win.

Lastly, I found this really cool site on what to with old computers. In hipster culture, techy things from the 90's are really popular. Turn your old monitor into an ash tray and you'll bag the girl or boy of your (skinny) jreams.

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TCG Photography: You Break It You Buy It!

Fellow Wilders-

Each week I will be sharing my photographs with you. I will try and include work that is old and new. Images that represent my vision and aesthetic, as well as new ideas I am just trying out as I continue my education and eventually become a Master!...of Fine Arts.

The first image (seen above) was shot earlier this month, on the roof of my new home in San Francisco. I shot in film via my trusty Holga, and did post production digitally. I currently do all of my post production digitally.

The second image is a self portrait I recently shot as part of a series. I am trying to recreate pictures of myself as a child. I used a beautiful Hasselblad camera (on loan from my wonderful school), as well as a Profoto 600B lighting kit with Soft box, for all you super photo nerds out there. More to come as I continue to shoot on this theme.


And finally, an old classic. This last image was shot one year ago, in Perugia, Italy via Holga. One of my personal favorites.


I'm looking forward to hearing what everyone thinks. Unless of course you have something negative to say in which case...shut your face!

'Til next week Wilders!

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