Author: Trent

  • In their own words: why young men carry knives

    My dad was stabbed to death when I was three years old. That is one of the reasons that I now carry a knife. It’s for protection. You never know who else will have one. This way, if someone is going to stab me, I will stab them first. It does not matter how tough the laws are. So many people are carrying knives, there’s always the risk that someone will pull one out on you. It’s purely protection. I wouldn’t pull mine out unless someone else pulls one on me first. I have slashed someone in the face, but I wouldn’t want to stab someone to kill them.

    Check it out here.

  • LA Weekly – LA People 2008 – Jonathan Wells – The Essential Online Resource for Los Angeles

    In 1994, Jonathan Wells famously launched the film festival RESFest at a Christmas party in his San Francisco basement, when he showed a few friends some skate videos by a not-yet-mainstream director named Spike Jonze. RESFest quickly escalated into a global phenomenon — a decade later it had spawned the monthly culture magazine RES, a series of screenings in 18 countries a year, even a distinct and recognizable aesthetic that transcended film, bleeding into the tangential industries of music, art and design (people actually say “That is so RES”). After Wells sold RES in 2006, an entire generation of cool kids looked to Wells to tell them where to look next.

    Check it out here.

  • LA Weekly – LA People 2008 – Helen Stickler – The Essential Online Resource for Los Angeles

    Helen Stickler might be the girl next door. She lives in a perfectly appointed vintage-modern cottage in Echo Park, complete with a beautiful view, charismatic neighbors and a visiting cat. The only thing missing is the white picket fence. But as they say, looks are deceiving.

    Observe more closely, and you’ll notice that the art on her walls is mostly of the street-inspired ilk, paired with editions of her movie posters. That would be as-written-and-directed-by-her: Andre the Giant Has a Posse, a 1997 documentary on Shepard Fairey’s sticker campaign; and Stoked: the Rise and Fall of Gator, a 2003 Sundance Festival screener on the life and murderous times of ’80s vert-skater icon Mark “Gator” Rogowski. Get to talking and you’ll find out she’s just completed direction on an extreme-stunts show for the BBC (Smash Lab) and is about to dig into a hush-hush project with yet another skater, the subversive Jason Jessee.

    Check it out here.

  • LA Weekly – LA People 2008 – Lia Halloran – The Essential Online Resource for Los Angeles

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    For the past 18 months, Lia Halloran has taken her skateboard and wandered the city late at night, looking for the strangest, darkest skate spots she can find. Sometimes alone and sometimes with a photographer, Halloran spends nights haunting the L.A. riverbed, evading the cops in Bronson Canyon or lurking in East L.A. parking lots. She’ll hop fences or crawl through holes to get into a closed park.

    Though she’s a bit of a rebel and a daredevil, these outings aren’t just for the kicks of finding a forbidden or foreboding spot to grind. Halloran, who has an MFA in painting and printing from Yale, is a fast-rising local artist, and herDark Skate series combines many of her passions — skateboarding, physics and light. The pieces are half-painting, half-picture — the latter taken in the dead of night, when Halloran attaches a bike light to her wrist or head and skates while photographer Meredyth Wilson captures the action with time-lapse photography. Halloran doesn’t show up in the pictures, but her skate lines do, looking like a light saber cutting through the dark, urban backgrounds.

    Check it out here.

  • LA People 2008 – Sam Cherry

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    Sam Cherry sits in the living room of his Fairfax District home, staring at a photograph of Charles Bukowski on the toilet. “Wow, look at that!” Cherry laughs at the look on the writer’s face — one that suggests Buk is struggling through a rather troublesome bowel movement. “He’s really pushing!” A longtime friend of Bukowski’s, Cherry took the bathroom shot, which was never published, as well as countless others that were. In fact, if you’ve ever seen a shot of Bukowski and considered it iconic, it was probably Cherry’s. But Cherry didn’t just photograph Buk — legend has it the writer’s tough-guy literary persona was largely bolstered by Cherry’s true-life hard-luck tales.

    “Oh, I have no doubt about that,” Cherry says. “He always used to tell me, ‘Sam, I killed 10 men.’ But he was a sweet guy. I don’t think he ever intentionally hurt a soul in his life.”

    Cherry, on the other hand: “I was born tough.”

    Check it out here.

  • LA People 2008 – Dave Browne

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    Those “Berds” you may  have seen dangling from power lines at various intersections throughout our otherwise dreadfully unaccessorized city weren’t tossed skyward to make a buck. When Venice Beach native Dave Browne lobbed his first handpainted slab of plywood a few years back, neither fame nor fortune figured into the agenda, only folly.

    (Click to enlarge)
    “My main reason for doing anything is because it’s fun,” declares the slight-yet-fiery 26-year-old artist.

    Check it out here.

  • Grits for Breakfast: Most evidence for possible FLDS criminal cases seems tainted

    I’m now fairly convinced Texas will never see any successful criminal prosecutions from the Great Eldorado Polygamist Roundup. They’ve just screwed it up too badly. Whether the child seizures will stick on the civil side is another matter, but nearly all their evidence for possible criminal prosecutions appears tainted.

    I’ve argued previously why I think the search warrant was based on bogus information, and evidence keeps trickling out that confirms law enforcement knew or should have known the original complaint call was a hoax before they went in.

    Check it out here.

  • Object of Desire: RED Scarlet

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    The much buzzed about forthcoming camcorder from RED called Scarlet isn’t actually red or scarlet at all but – yes, you guessed it – black. The Scarlet isn’t cool just because of the way it looks – though it’s rugged, Alien/Terminator exterior is certainly eye-catching– it’s cool because of what it can do. First, some background.

    Check it out here.

  • FARC Computer Files Are Authentic, Interpol Probe Finds – washingtonpost.com

    The files contain e-mails and other documents that show how Venezuela’s populist leader had formed such a tight bond with guerrilla commanders that his key lieutenants had offered help in obtaining sophisticated weaponry such as surface-to-air missiles while delivering lighter arms. The files also document links between the FARC and Ecuador’s president, Rafael Correa, a close ally of Chávez.

    At a news conference in Caracas, Chávez questioned Interpol’s impartiality, called the report “ridiculous” and mocked Noble as “ignoble” and a “gringo policeman,” referring to his American citizenship. Chávez also called the Interpol chief corrupt and an “international bum.”

    Check it out here.

  • Photographers stand up for your rights in LA, June 1 – Boing Boing

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    One June 1, photographers throughout Los Angeles will gather at the Hollywood and Highland Metro Station to peacefully protest against the unnecessary treatment they have received from security guards (particularly the white shirts), LAPD, and LASD while photographing in public places, and on the Metro.

    Check it out here.

  • Soundslides goes full screen! « Mastering Multimedia

    As I was finishing up producing an audio slideshow for Spokesman-Review photojournalist, Brian Plonka, I came across this new beta version of Soundslides Plus today.I see Joe Weiss has been busy updating the program. One bad-ass feature is a new full screen mode.

    Check it out here.

  • Dick & Jane Art – Josh Spear

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    See Dick get vintage cool. See Jane become art. See Dick and Jane on your wall as a whimsical conversation piece. Whether they’re part of your memories of early childhood education or not, the nostalgic kick of Dick and Jane has become a universal part of North American culture.

    Check it out here.

  • Flip Schulke, award-winning photgrapher from West Palm Beach, dies at 77

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    In his more than 60 years behind the lens, Flip Schulke photographed figures such as Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Muhammad Ali, Jacques Cousteau, Fidel Castro, Dwight D. Eisenhower, Elvis Presley, and John F. Kennedy. He created more than 500,000 photographs — 11,000 of those from the civil rights movement.

    “I called him The Legend,” said Donna Schulke, Mr. Schulke’s fourth wife.

    Schulke, 77, traveled all over — bringing the world, and the sea, home with his camera. But age and poor health recently slowed the adventurer, and he died Thursday of congestive heart failure at Columbia Hospital.

    Check it out here.

  • Remembering Sean Flynn: a Photojournalist Who Died at War (VIDEO)

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    Most people who remember the album “Combat Rock” by The Clash might remember a song called Sean Flynn, but they probably don’t know exactly who the early punkers were talking about.

    The son of Hollywood movie actor Errol Flynn, he could have lived his life a thousand different ways.

    Sean Flynn had a semi-successful acting career and all the money, looks, fame and fortune that any man of his day could have wanted, but instead he spent years covering the war in Vietnam.

    During that time period, war photographers were a rare and important type of person, and their lives were imperiled as a result of their chosen profession. A risk that war reporters continue to face today.

    Check it out here.

  • Big Glass Eye Wedding Photography: Everyone is a Photojournalist.

    I had to share this article as it sums up my feelings towards the raft of “Photojournalists” that have appeared over the last few years.

    Check it out here.

  • Grits for Breakfast: FLDS voices trickling into the blogosphere in response to YFZ raid

    It’s sad that it took such a tragedy to bring FLDS voices out into the open, but I think we benefit a lot from hearing people speak up directly for themselves.

    Check it out here.

  • Monster Camp – Trailer

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    MONSTER CAMP is a rare and fascinating glimpse into the world of live-action role playing (“LARPing”), a real-life version of the videogame phenomenon World of Warcraft. In this award-winning doc, gamer stereotypes are simultaneously shattered and confirmed.

    Check it out here.

  • Video: Kathy Ryan and Simon Norfolk at NYPH

    In this clip, curator Kathy Ryan and photographer Simon Norfolk talk about Norfolk’s project photographing missiles and rockets:

    Check it out here.

  • Jury Clears Photographer Who Refused to Stop Photographing an Arrest

    I was pleased today to see an article about photographer Nick Evans being cleared by a Galveston jury of misdemeanor charges of interfering with police while photographing an arrest at a Mardi Gras celebration in 2007.

    While I’m amazed that any prosecutor would actually take this kind of a case to trial (in this case prosecutor April Powers), I’m pleased that a jury had the common sense to dismiss the charges.

    Check it out here.

  • The Online Photographer: 'The Americans' is Reprinted at 50

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    Today, May 15th, is the 50th anniversary of the day Robert Frank’s The Americans was first published by Robert Delpire in Paris. That was 1958. Today we realize that The Americans has more in common with beat poetry and club jazz than it has with many other kinds of photography; it’s one of the high water marks of 1950s culture. And throughout an era when photographers communicated with each other and with their audiences mainly through the vehicle of published books, The Americans has had only a handful of competitors (Walker Evans’ American Photographs, Henri Cartier-Bresson’s The Decisive Moment, a few others) for the title of the most important single photography book ever published. For thirty years after its publication it was deeply influential. And although photography has moved on now, the echoes of its impact reverberate still.

    Check it out here.