Dragged through really good German film making today. "The Lives Of
Others". The Academy award it received is almost a joke. Best Foreign
Language film. It's so beyond American film making that it's just
weird to even be included in that cheerleading contest. Though it
does seem we're in an era of good film again. It's been a nice season
with an occasional date at the Arclight for my dear lady and I. More
than ever I want to love my family and take pictures and read books
and write about it all. There is nothing else. And see movies and
galavant around the earth. There is nothing more.
And go to play with my old friend Jason Lee for the first time in way
too long. Got a look at his new project, giant Polaroids from a
gorgeous monsters of a gargantuan red leather camera. 20x24 inch
pictures this thing takes. The big beauty that goes up on your wall,
that's the thing that came out of the camera. No enlarger. Start big,
end big. Tremendous Wow factor. One of only a handful in the world.
And he's doing this really nice set of portraits in the verdure with
it. A major execution for simple and lovely outcome. And if it calls
for an entire new room built in his studio for it - well then the
walls go up. That's the lesson I love from Jason Lee. If you want to
do something, do it. And do it well.
I got in a couple of new portraits of him as well which is always a
treasure. He complimented me on my approach as well. "You're your own
man, Meeno." That summed things nicely for me. Good fellowship and we
got to make things while we yucked it up together. Isn't that how it
should always be? A simple piece of intimate interlude. Sex, taken to
a different end and angle. All photography for me is fucking, a nod
to that great generative energy: the impulse to create.
