Part 4: Movies number Three – “Factory Girl”

My artistic vehicle for expression has always been my paintbrush, and my camera has always been a method to capture the frame to be reinvented as I saw fit into my canvas. This was also the method of Andy Warhol.

Confession; I am slightly biased towards this film because Warhol is one of my favorite fine artists of all time.

Andy used a specific Polaroid camera (that Polaroid only kept in production specifically for Warhol’s use) to capture snapshots of life and reinvent them through painting, screen-printing and film. His vision changed the world; he had the ability to take ordinary items and make them extraordinary.

The movie focuses on the life of Edie Sedgwick and her relationship with Warhol, art, New York, film, drugs and fame. She was his inspiration, his muse, his art. He made her infamous and tore her down all before her early death at age 28.

I adore this movie!

I love how the film is shown entirely from Edie’s perspective as a prop to Andy’s art. The movie shows his artistic process and the lifestyle that follows.

I was entirely caught up in the fabulous lifestyle of the 1960’s glamor and found myself not only craving a cigarette but the freedom to do whatever the hell I want.

Don’t we all?

The film inspired me beyond all others. It made me feel a rush of excitement, creativity, and faith that my art can shake the world.

Maybe it will, but most likely it won’t and I don’t care. I just want to portray the world as I see it. It’s my life, my vision, my lens.

It also reminded me how I have not picked up my paintbrush in a year! I realized that my camera used to be the means for my painting, but somewhere along the way my camera BECAME the medium itself.  Sometimes I feel as if I should return to my brushes; take the better images I am now making and turn them into even greater works of art. But the lazy and less structured me loves the images for what they are and doesn’t want to change them.

Part 3: Movie Number 2 – “Spiderman”

Let me just say this: Peter Parker shoots Canon…. Yay!

Watching “Spiderman” from a photographic side is definitely not an easy one. Especially because the film is meant to mimic is comic book creator and give the audience a sense of graphic design and a surrealist approach.

(Also I’m assuming everyone knows the movie and/or knows the story of Spiderman, c’mon folks!)

However, I did find some of the thematic connections rather interesting.

“Spiders can change their color to blend into their environment, it’s a defense mechanism.”

Peter Parker was a dorky loser in high school who hid behind the lens of his camera. He used it as a tool to get close to the things he wanted but could never get. For example he used it as an excuse to talk to Mary-Jane… the high school crush Parker could not get close to, but Spiderman could.

He began using his photographic skills combined with is other…. Abilities to succeed.  He becomes a young freelance photographer for a newspaper, basically taking pictures of himself!

Now, I only wish I could climb walls and catch the bad guys just to take pictures of it and sell them, but it looks like I’ll have to turn to other tools in my arsenal!

To me the movie is all about confidence; finding the necessary vehicles that allow your confidence to shine through.  If it means putting on a blue and red leotard in order to be the photographer I want to be then by all means someone pass me the spandex!

Yes the movie has some great lighting qualities to enhance shape and form for an almost 3D image, however I believe it’s the stories message that I relate to more than anything.

I never thought I would ever watch Spiderman with anything other than a child-like mindset, but I must say I am impressed with the level of theme and connections throughout the film.

Part 2: Movie Number One – “Midnight Meat Train"

Yes the main character is a photographer. And yes the movies actually does have something to do with his art… in the beginning at least.

The beginning of the film almost immediately greets you with Bradley Cooper and is 35mm Lieca, which is a pretty damn good opener if you ask me!

Cooper plays a struggling street photographer looking for moments to capture better images. He find himself obsessed with photographing a butcher on the subway at night. Soon he discovers what is so captivating about this butcher, and what it is that he actually “butchers”.

The beginning of the movie is fabulous! The walls of the characters apartment are covered with images, and negatives and darkroom equipment. He finds himself a photographic mentor (Brooke Shields) who preaches “the decisive moment”.

It’s almost inspiring how the she explains patience in waiting past the moment you think is “the moment”, because the real image is beyond that.  She demands he wait for the opportune time to snap a photo, and then wait some more.

Even Cooper’s girlfriend encourages him to “shoot what you love”, because the subject you love now may transform into another.

I whole-heartedly believe in these ideals; and strive to follow them. Which is mainly why I was so attracted to the film in the first place.

One of my favorite elements was that the concept of the characters images were replicated in the visual of the film itself. He is a photographer of the city at night, the subway system and its dwellers. So the film itself was cold almost selenium toned, steel, massive amounts of perspective, shallow depth of fields, huge lighting contrasts, lots of shadow, large use of selectively lighting subjects and parts of subjects, massive amounts of symmetry, framing, creative use of color. In fact the only color that was truly shown was red; red lips, red street signage, red blood.

I could go on and on about how wonderfully photographic the film was in almost every aspect, but then the movie turned… and it was not as pretty.

Visually it was still great don’t get me wrong, however I was mildly distracted by the “butcher-ing” and plot which now involved zombies and a killing tradition.

The zombie thing kinda killed the film for me; even the story was neat and interesting – almost to the point where I could believe that I would never take a subway again! Then they wrapped up the film with tales of immortal zombies and flesh eating things, and now Cooper has to “keep the killing tradition alive to save the world” bull-crap.

The beginning of the movies gets a 6/5 star rating…. But the ending gets a negative 50 stars. However, I’d still recommend it to horror/photo lovers… if ever a combination besides myself exists?!

This is going down in four parts: Part One - The Introduction

Movies.

I consider myself a fair bit of a movie addict; not that I have any knowledge or intelligence on the matter or can examine them with any credible critique, I just love them for what they are and the stories they tell.

However, I can be quite particular.

For example, I watch movies from only 5 genres: action, horror, comedy, fantasy and Disney.

Oh, and I hate documentaries. They bore me to death.

So I took the “movie week” assignment as a challenge: are there interesting movies with photographer main characters? If so, is their any relation to photography? Any thematic connection or really no point at all?

Turns out there aren’t as many as I would like! Seems Disney doesn’t make a “Prince Charming of Photography”. So I picked one per genre.

Horror: “Midnight Meat Train”

Action: “Spiderman”

Documentary-ish: “Factory Girl”

Yes documentary-ish… I was determined that I could find a decent documentary style film that kept me awake and interested.

I’ve seen some of these films before yes, and long ago, but I have never looked at them through the lens of my camera (not literally of course).  All of them appealed to me not because of their relation to photography but as the movies themselves. I figured it would be a neat approach to view them differently that their original intent.

Following this are my findings…

Sam K Gets Her Studio On

Photographer Sam K set up her studio with model Emily E to play with her new gear!

Check Out More Of Her Work HERE

Ciao!

Emily G

Model Emily G gets fierce for a sexy basement shoot!

More to come

Kim

Model Kim H poses in a basement studio for a sexier appeal.