ALEX PRAGER

New favourite photographer alert - Alex Prager (she's a woman), an American photographer who caught my eye a few years ago unknowingly with a small article in i-D magazine, I discovered more about on Style Rookie recently/ She is known for her unusually styled 60s coloured images.

The themes are obvious in her work: women, styled in a 60s Hitchcock protagonist way, suburbia, Valley of the Dolls, California, planes and birds passing by. I like to think one of the messages in these photographs is the accessibility to timelessness. That despite everything, not a lot has changed for people, and looks can be deceiving. There's probably some underlined feminist message in them somewhere too, but I'm not too interested in feminism.

I like these because I feel they can influence future work I want to do, however, I don't want to imitate photographers I like, though I do like everything she references here, especially aeroplanes and bygone styles that juxtapose a current situation in today's society.

I love everything about her photo's however, in simple terms. The positioning, the angles, the mystery to them. Photos that make you ask questions are always good photos.

don't cry out

into a dream i took a turn

and promised to return

the way we were 

the way we met

the way i lit your cigarette

the way we trailed into a stream

and lay down between

you had to choose

a side to lose

and divide yourself in two

the way you were

long before

you were a walking civil war

but you forget where the road goes

and tonite, it shows

into your soul

i tried to climb

but found the hole too high

for me to leave the way i learned

and found i couldn't turn

the way the trees and falling rain

remind me in a way

the way you were the day we met

the way i lit your cigarette

the way you've changed into a strange

Cole Porter phrase

but you forget how the song goes

and tonite it shows

'tonite it shows' 

by mercury rev

Happy New Year 2: Other Photos

I would also just like to add my favourite photos from last year, that I have discovered, and that have inspired me in whatever way and that I have constantly looked at and that will always remind me of 2011 (even though some are old).

Alex Prager is a photographer I really want to talk about later.

  Kim Jakobsen To 

David Armstrong's boys

Kate Moss by ? Could be Mario Testino.

Towering Inferno

Alastair McLellan

Unknown vintage shot of guy.... absolutely gorgeous. This is what my dream man looks like! 

Found in a really interesting blog called Vintage Boys. Don't ask me how I find these things, but my interests in porn and art are pretty much overlapped. 

I look forward to getting back into everything this year! Please don't stop reading! 

xxx

Happy New Year

Here are my favourite photos I have taken this winter, and a little about each photo.

 It was that part of October when you're just about to hit autumn, summer is definitely over. I looked out the window to this massive cloud with the moon over the houses.

Charlie

The front door during Halloween

Alien Street Lamp

 Day of the Dead

Mother and I (movember mustasche)

Fanny.

my ex boyfriend at Christmas. sorry Cam

January Blues

January wouldn't be January without it being totally depressing to everyone (except the rich and famous or people who have just finished reading Dianetics).

January is when people have no money at all because they resentfully spent it on Christmas presents, expensive food, and pointless decorations. Then they finished off what they had left in the sales, buying useless tat they don't need. January is also when people break up with each other (like I have), usually because people don't have the heart to do it at Christmas. Kind of stupid really. I guess December has not been an easy month for me.

Christmas was as nice as Christmas can get. I like to see the whole family, despite them not all being there. It was the first time though that I really realised how pointless it all is, and how much of a waste of money it is. The only thing I really wanted to do, to make me feel like it was truly Christmas, was go to midnight mass, I didn't go to it. So next Christmas I am not celebrating it like I do every year. The best time I see all my family isn't Christmas anyway, it's in the summer when we all go away to the Isle of Wight and stay in a big house with each other for a week. Nothing's forced, everything's cool, and we have barbecues and go to the beach and go for cream tea and generally have a lot of fun. None of this awkward gift giving, be there or feel bad sort of pressure. None of this food that makes me feel like I'm going to be sick in the car on the way back home.

I would like to spend my next Christmas somewhere hot. So, I think that it's a sort of plan. If not then I will have to think of an alternative. I know working for the company I work for doesn't allow me holiday in November or December, but who's to say I will be working in this country by the end of the year, I can travel with my job and could spend next Christmas working in Australia or Florida! That would be amazing.

Anyway - I leave you with some photos from the last 5 weeks or so, in no particular order, it's been a while, as I haven't had internet for a long time.