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© Greg Wasserstrom

I just updated the long-neglected portfolio part of this site, added a new series called The Doldrums, the set my Fjord and Must Warn Others selections came from. I guess I’m sort of still working on it but at least now it’s up where it can be seen.

I’m still working on my sex book, The Honorable Parts. I promised it mid-August which was incredibly presumptuous of me because I don’t have nearly enough pictures for it yet. So give me a call next time you’re about to knock boots, and I’ll come hang out. Sound good?

© Greg Wasserstrom

me: hey!

Bryan: hey man

me: hows it going/

howd the show go?

Bryan: pretty well. just got back

fucking awesome!!

me: yeah?

Bryan: yeah, you sold one

me: i did?

holy shit

Bryan: yeah, the swimming hole

me: fucking a

how much?

Bryan: i think $75, it’ll buy an african child school supplies

me:

dude that’s rad

im so stoked

Bryan: yeah, the galllery was small but super nice and the installation looke dreally good

me: fucking a

Bryan: lots of people for the opening and al. old guys with berets and shit

me: haha

do you have any pics of it?

Bryan: nah

there are shows on last nights shoes .com

but they are only shoes

me: hahah

So this would be the first time I’ve ever sold a print to someone who wasn’t a friend or relative. I’m glad that milestone could occur as part of the MWO launch, and the money will go to charity. Also, I didn’t realize how profane my speech is until reading back. Sorry, Mom.

Highlight: Dinner with Grant, Lana and Grady. Otherwise, it could be a blues song. My baby left me, I’m out of work, I lost my camera and my hard drive died.

Can I just say something about these hard drives? Every single one I’ve ever owned has crapped out on me. I know my friend Katsie has like bunches of them, most backing up the others, but is there a single dependable drive out there? 500GB of void, that’s what I have. Someone let me know.

I don’t like to compain. On the positive, Must Warn Others opened in Seattle, and I’m eager to get a report from Bryan Schutmaat about how that went. I wish I could have made it out too buddy, I’m sorry I couldn’t, but leave an update in the comments. I can’t want to see the book, the PDF looks terrific.

I was going to link to a breakup song I wrote once, but I can’t, because it was on that hard drive. Give it a listen on MySpace, it should autoplay.

Must Warn Others make’s it debut! A benefit show for World Vision. Exciting Stuff! Ian Whitmore, Greg Lutze, Bryan Schutmaat, Jerad Knudson, Christina Lutze, Lief Anderson and yours truly. Wish I could be there! There’s a book to accompany the show even, soon to be available thru the MWO website.

http://chicagobeaf.com 

Since I moved to New York, most of what I’ve been doing has nothing to do with photography, which has been sort of lame. That’s not really a complaint though, so much as an observation. I’m working enough to live pretty comfortably and there’s nothing wrong with that.  I also spent a lot of time hanging out with a girl I won’t be seeing any more of and I suppose there’s nothing wrong with that, either.

The past couple of days at work have been relaxing and a nice change. My boss asked me to photograph her entire house, room by room. It’s a beautiful place, a four story brownstone in Carroll Gardens, with loads of light spilling in, all freshly rennovated. Since she has this home and gardening show, all the furniture, appliances, paint, bathtubs, pots, pans, everything, were all donated by her sponsors–it’s pretty unreal. So I’ve just spent 3 days with my headphones in, behind my camera working my way from the top floor down.

My love of podcasts has been rekindled. I listen to hours of public radio. But looking through arts related podcasts to enrich the brain as I work I discovered a photo history podcast by a community college professor in Illinois (I think). His entire spring semester is there, and I’m pretty into it. It’s really fun to take in a class on a familiar subject while I’m working. The best part of it: since it’s the recording of the actual class sessions, you get to be as frustrated with the, er, denser students as you were when you were actually in school! What more could a working person want?

© Greg Wasserstrom

In today’s New York Times SundayStyles section, there is a pretty interesting article about two teenage boys (14 and 15) who work as paparazzi in Los Angeles. When I was 15, I started working part time at a record store, and that was viewed by my mother and her friends as being highly ambitious. These kids are are amazing.

His fellow photographers had barely taken notice of Lady Victoria Hervey, a British socialite and staple of the English press, when Blaine dashed out in front, getting the shot. And unlike the other paparazzi, he didn’t have to shout her name to get her attention.

“You are so young!” Lady Victoria exclaimed amid the barrage of flashing strobes. “You should be in bed. Where are your parents?”

It’s people like these that cause me to wonder if, at 22, I’m completely passed my prime? Has my ship sailed? Has my train left it’s metaphorical station?

I’m facebooking these guys, and next time I’m out in LA, I’m gonna roll out with them. And not because I have any desire to do what they do - or at least, the way that they do it. If you’ve ever read one of my artist statements (Why would you have? I never post them on the site because I sort of hate artist statements), you know that I’m obsessed with pop culture. Not in a Cult of Celebrity kind of way, but like a Cult of Cult of Celebtrity kind of way: I’m fascinated by the people and instituions that exist to worship celebrity (or politics, or high society, or whatever).

The fact that some entrepreneurial-minded kiddos saw an opportunity as paprazzi instead of, say, dogwalkers or landscapers or something says loads about Amuhrica. What a country!

© Greg Wasserstrom

© Greg Wasserstrom

I’ve finally gotten my selection for Fjord straightened out, I think. Go check out the project if you haven’t looked in a while - it gets better with every update. I was really giving it all an in depth look the other night and was reminded of what a wonderful project it is. It’s really, really rad to have all these people grouped together in one place; Fjord really provides a snapshot of this moment in the development of fine art photography. Priceless!

The green arrow is me

Soo, I know you’re all just dying to know what it is I’m doing here in the Big Bad City. So far, aside from seeing the big Stephen Shore exhibit at ICP and spending an afternoon at Dashwood Books with Christian, I’ve done absolutely nothing photography-related. Shen Wei and Amy Elkins both have had an opening and closing respectively, and I was unable to go to either and I still haven’t seen the Nina Berman show at jb, let along the thousands of other things there are to do and see in this place every single week. I’ve also flaked on Elizabeth Weinberg twice.

So what have I been doing? Well. After staying at Emily Grenader’s aparment for a little over a week (the cat and I are best friends), I finally moved into this ridiculous building called “The Tea Factory,” (because it used to be one, the landlord told me) on Stockholm in Bushwick. I wouldn’t have named it that and also I’m sort of like the very posterboy of gentrification, but these are the things I’m going to try not to think too much about. But anyway, the place is awesome and my roommate (I brought him with me from DC) is awesome and I’m pretty happy with it. Pictures will come as soon as it’s not such a ridiculous fucking mess.

I’m still working for Wonkette, I may have a monthly feature there pretty soon, which would be pretty exciting and hopefully hilarious. I also picked up a second and more lucrative but perhaps lessed prized blogging gig for the political news site Raw Story. What’s cool about that one is I get bylines from time to time and can do some freelance reporting for extra money. Most significantly though, I was just hired as an assistant for Katie Brown, public television’s home and gardening empress. This is a semi-creative position that going to involve a lot of writing and production work, some photography and probably a whole lot getting coffee and stuff. Most importantly: salary and benefits.

I’m not any less committed to photography. I’m still taking pictures constantly, my new series is almost finished.