[img]285|left|||no_popup[/img]Hi.
I'm an infamous punk rock photographer (the MOST published in L.A.,1976-1980), artist, writer, teacher, computer guru, old movie fan, Broadway aficionado, friend to famous and not-so-famous artists, musicians, creatives, love animals, hate cars and new contributor to thefrontpageonline.com.
Thoughts for the new year: the Happiness Project,
http://www.happinessproject.typepad.com/, now on Salon (revelation: it's important to hang up your clothes, no duh!). Tallulah Morehead's 2008 obits,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tallulah-morehead/dead-folks_b_154862.html.
I have to have a sense of humor about death. Just two weeks ago I posted a shot of Iggy Pop and the Stooges' guitarist Ron Asheton and myself on Facebook.
I shared thoughts with others about him, only to wake up yesterday to requests for shots because he died. If I couldn't laugh I'd be crying too much because I deal with death all the time in my work.
I discovered Facebook is a lot more fun and helpful for my life and career
than myspace. I joined myspace as a lark, but I have met some great fans.
Myspace also attracts some devout old movie buffs who post amazing photos of oldtime movie stars. Photos I've never seen, and I'm a collector of old movie books. Plus juggling too many photo and other projects while trying to
rebuild my site for the fourth time in my life.
WordPress highly recommended for personal, one-topic sites or like
boingboing.net, don't need to explore previous posts. But Joomla the best for complex sites, lots of fun, although intimidating for many, but I love it because I can customize what information I want displayed, great for
navigation and finding lots of postings and my photos.
I'm here because I was pontificating in Gene De Chene Bookseller, a
wonderful used bookstore in Santa Monica, and Ari heard me. He proclaimed: "I don't agree
with you, but I want you to write for me."
I laughed and laughed. I took
his card. I always laugh when people offer me just what I need or want.
I'm a strange hybrid: mostly liberal with some very conservative ideas when it comes to money, whether spent by Democrats or Republicans (admission: I'm so ticked at both parties that I registered as a Green as an act of protest). I'm older than most of my friends but know as much, if not more, about online and much current technology as they know. You're only as old as you feel or think!
I'm also a raw foods vegan who sometimes falls off the
wagon. So I'm hard to peg.
Every January I attend the opening night of photo l.a.,
http://www.artfairsinc.com/photola/2009/, and take tons of notes, wishing
I had a forum to share them. My own sites, jennylens.com and rawpunkyoga.com, are not about art, technology, current events, etc. My sites are only about MY vintage rock photos, and maybe I'll get back to updating my other site
about raw foods and yoga (if only more hours in the day or night!).
I love a free party (oh, the food!) and easy access to the photo displays.
It's also a great op to set up shows myself, but my problem is lack of
finances for prints, not lack of great galleries wanting to show my work. I
needed a press pass, so I wrote Ari and I'm on board here. I would much rather go to art shows, but once in awhile, as a photographer, I check out photos.
Mostly, I try to figure out how these really boring photos are being sold for
nearly 10 times as my famous photos! How does that work?
I'm really looking forward to LACMA this Saturday, and I'll have tons to post about it. photo l.a. has a free all- day Saturday seminar hosted by LACMA's photo curator, but I'm skipping it to catch some art. I don't want to sit and listen. I sit all the time. But check it out if it's your cup of tea. If you are out of the loop, check out lacma.org because they've got more great exhibits at once than they have had in years!
Their blog http://lacma.wordpress.com/, is very cool, and notice, they use
Wordpress, but why, oh why, have that in the name of the blog? That's silly, they don't have $10 a month to host on their own site? Wait, they have a site, so why not put their blog onto it? That's the kind of thing I'll be discussing in detail in the future. Let's get online, but do it right!
I'll see selections from the Hearst Collection, photos from Vanity Fair,
Arts and Crafts (a fave of mine), plus my ab fab fave, German Expressionism, this time after the Great War (TIP: L.A. has THE finest German Expressionist art collection in the world), and so much more. I think this calls for two trips!
This is my life: a Blondie fan was trying to find a really great big
wonderful photo to put in her living room. She saw my book, "Punk Pioneers," on Amazon, with my classic Debbie Harry cover photo. She wrote me, we became
friends, and Saturday she'll get the photo and we'll hang at the museum
together. She also loves old films. LACMA highlighting Swedish and German films.
I meet tons of great people online, but not all local or willing to drive the
Westside.
What is that about? Do you have that issue? Friends whom you never
see cos you live where the weather is cooler and closer to the beach? Okay,
I'll be back, with highlights from photo l.a. and then another on LACMA and
other happenings around town, in the real world and online.
