Blog About Photography

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George W. Bush once said, “fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice… you’re not going to fool me again.” Naively, I have been assuming all my commenters are who they say they are. Oh, the fool I’ve been! First, you posted as Lisa Gioconda Saint Aubin de Terán then Jenny Diski and now, just now, as Margaret “Meg” Drabble. This most recent comment was the give away, because, honestly, how could I get comments from not one, not two, but three minor contemporary British authors, all of whom have something to share with me about photography MFA program? Impossible! I’m dying to know who you are.

Kate warned me that you don’t go to the Getty for the art. She said it’s better to go where there’s some event or party going on. I didn’t believe her and yesterday made the trip in her car to the sprawling compound in NW LA, and guess what? That place sucks my nards. Great design, great view, pretty boring art. High on production, low on substance - shocking for Los Angeles. “That’s what all the people who don’t fully understand LA say,” one of the folks I’m staying with, Chad, told me last night while we were drinking near his house in Silverlake. No, I get it. I really do.

I forgot to post about this before. But. I was on the early morning train from San Diego to LA yesterday trying to sleep of course. This old guy who’s probably like 4′9″ get’s on at like Santa Ana or somewhere, serious Scottish accent, bald, big glasses, brown suit wearing a Dallas cowboys ski cap, talking all the time. He sits down across from me (the seats face eachother, or course) and continues talking, even though my eyes are obviously closed.

So. These are the things he tells me.

1. His name is Gerald Scott. He is 82. He is Jewish.
2. He is on his way to make an Aliyah to Israel which means that he’s becoming a citizen there.
3. He used to be the head engineer (i.e. “Scottie”) on British Naval vessles.
4. His wife just died, handed me her death certificate.
5. He scattered her ashes from a Israeli battleship off the coast of Haifa.
6. He spied on Arab states for Israel throughout his career in the Britsh navy.
7. He recently had a doctor check his sperm count discovering he’s fit to have children.
8. He plans to “arrange a marriage” between himself and “a young, 18, 20 year old Israeli soldier” and he intends to “produce” his own babies.
9. He is completely fit. He “wakes up every morning with an erection” and “masturbates twice a week”.
10. Since his wife was ill for a long time, he hasn’t “had sex in 22 years.”
11. His new job in Israel will allow him to carry a machine gun with which he intends to bag himself a few Hezbollah before he dies.

This man asked me for my phone number so that we could keep in touch.

I got to LA yesterday morning on a 6am train from San Diego. The reason for the early morning departure was because I got a job filling in at Atelier Management for one of the owners, Lauren, who had to work on another project. It’s been pretty rad. I’m working with Brian Duck who’s awesome (and actually on the phone talking me up to Hilary Walsh at this very moment - what a guy). So I hope this turns into a permanent gig out of New York, cause it’s pretty fucking sweet.

This is my second day in LA though, and I’ve only seen downtown and Silverlake. Tomorrow, I’m going to see the inside of a studio in Glendale while I’m assisting Raquel Olivo and Wednesday the inside of some other studio assisting Zen Sekizawa. So all this work is great. I’m going to pay for this trip and I’ll be able to afford fixing my Hasselblad, which is beyond broken. That’s a disaster because my minigolf series is just waiting to be shot. All I do is fix this fucking thing.

Anyway, as soon as I get out into the city and take some photographs, I’ll put them up. More to come!

Here’s my pretty hilarious new tearsheet, hot off the press (not the cover, but how great that it’s Leslie Nielson). They really weren’t kidding when they said it was a magazine entirely about beer, which is obviously aweomse because I consider myself a beer enthusiast. And there’s this whole feature on the best places to drink in San Diego and I just happened to be going there tomorrow. Mad brews!

Here’s a post from Christian Patterson that relates to food photography.

I called Nayland Blake tonight to thank him for his phone call letting me know I’d been accepted to the MFA program at ICP. Honestly, I wasn’t expecting him to be in his office because it was like around 7:30 in the evening but he was there and I was kind of caught of gaurd. So I said all this gushing stupid stuff which of course was sincere but still stupid and gushing and I hope he thought it was funny because I sure feel like an idiot.

So check this out because this is something Cosmic in its implications. Are you paying attention?

At this moment, I am sitting in the Butler Library on the American University campus, writing my midterm for a class I’m in on contemporary art. Or rather, I should say that I’m sitting here with my midterm open and books on the desk and reading photography blogs. That’s not what’s important though. What’s important is this.

My art history professor made a note on the top of the midterm that we are to use Arial (or Helvetica) at 11 point to take the midterm. Who knows why she stipulated this, probably because people write shit really small sometimes when they don’t know what they’re talking about. In any case, as you may have noticed, that’s my typeface of choice, and I, like the New York Metropolitan Transit Authority and man countless others, condense the letters. So, not wanting to be marked down for this, I made a little note on the top of my paper.

A small note before beginning. The condensed font is a common aesthetic choice regarding this typeface, not one made to save space on this particular assignment. I can’t stand looking at something I’ve written with massive gaps between the characters. Why, after crafting an argument, would I present it full of holes?

Yeah, ok, so I know that’s kind of weird, maybe a little pretentious or something to write this kind of thing a prof, but it’s what I do anyway and I didn’t want to be marked down for it. Plus I’m pretty sure she’d think it’s funny and maybe a little endearing. So that’s about as far as I’ve gotten in writing this paper, but then I found this, and I wasn’t even looking for it. Read the rest of this entry »

Presenting the all new grad school scorecard. I thought that since I’m now in the running for an Ivy League program, I should make the scorecard a little more mature.

I got a call from the esteemed Thomas Roma from Columbia this afternoon, and he asked me for an interview the third week of March. He also asked me what all the laughing in the background was about. I was sitting on the quad with my jackass friends and not expecting his call. Oops.

I interviewed at ICP over the weekend, and it was a really great experience. They had a bunch of their first year grad students there to kind of chat with us as we waited to go in, and they were all really friendly, they all wanted to see my portfolio and they all said nice things about it. It was sort of the same vibe in the actual interview, which was great. Nayland Blake, David Deichter and Nancy Davenport. They were pretty welcoming and warm, and it seemed like a very close-knit place.

So here is the updated Scorecard. And I also want to send a shout out to all the British authors who seem to find their way to this blog. It’s a funny pattern that seems to be emerging, but a terrific one. Thanks, girls.

Today, I received a letter from the Yale School of Art that said this:

Dear Gregory,

Happy Birthday! And fuck you.

Sincerely,
Yale

That’s not really what it said. But looks like I won’t be going there in the fall just the same. So it’s time to introduce the Greg Wasserstrom/Blog Graduate School Scorecard:

I just learned to use Illustrator, obviously. As always, I’ll keep you updated, whoever you are.