Holiday Knick Knacks

For your holiday enjoyment, two photo sets, "Knick Knacks" taken during a bored night and the slow melting downfall of the "Three Wise Men"

Three Wise Men

World Premiere: "Where's Home,"

Where's Home,

Featuring Music by Modest Mouse

That's Right! My World Premiere video and trust me it kinda sucks, but check it out anyways,

I thought why not make a short little video while I sit around the house at christmas time.  It didn't take a lot of time so don't judge so harshly ( the six of you that may watch this video (but thank you to those six)).  The music is all Modest Mouse, the two songs are "Interlude (milo)" and "Blame it on the Tetons".

Hope you enjoy

Author/Artist Chris Leon

In case your wondering, that's me the author (and the coach reads 'no more drugs for me, pussy and religion are all I need) (and yes I know I used this foloroid before, so sue me, it was never used for an author pic).

35mm Negatives: Intro

On the heels of the release of Foloroids: Storyboards, comes another experiment in fragmentation.

This time the images come from scanned 35mm negative contact sheets from the summer of '09.  These contact sheets are cropped, and their colors altered, the result looking like a cross between an x-ray image and 19th century infrared daguerrotype.

So far, a majority of the material published on SWNTD has dealt in one way or another with the fragmentation of memory, whether its through the deconstruction of the image, prose, or a combination of both.

In Foloroids: Introduction I discussed the importance and power drawn from the parallel between the snapshot and memory.  But what happens to these images as memory fades.  Over time our memory of events and moments begin to distort; details fade and warp.  Once clear memories become striped down, ethereal remnants of their former self.  

This ghostly aura is the aesthetic I hope to capture with my 35mm Negative project.  My stripping down of photo to its original form, in the process destroying composition and processing, I hoped to parallel the deconstruction of a dream over time.

The other feature of these images that fascinates me is the relationships validated by the juxtaposition of the different negative images in the strip.  The viewer knows that at the very least these images chronologically related; no other photo could have been taken with the camera in between the two connected negatives.  This brings narrative into the analysis, a theme SWNTD has featured several times before.

I will let y'all stew on that for a minute.

Foloroid: Storyboards Vol. 1

Finally, the first volume of Foloroid: Storyboards has arrived.  Similar in style to cinematic storyboards, I hoped to create meaning, either categorical or narrative, through the combination of six images, some more related to each other than others.

Because this is the first volume, I was more open to experimenting a variety of different approaches in selecting and ordering the different images.  A lot of the same ideas that were touched on in the introduction to Foloroids still hold true here, so no need to repeat them.  And without further ado......

Winter Vunderland

Adventures thru the snow and ice,

often end on a carpet in front of a fire.

I Make Beer

In a snowy field

sits an off white barn

and six silver vats.

No brick monstrosity

or flashing iconic signs

Just Beer

Pure and Simple

'Tis the Season

Joy

Happiness

and Material Overindulgence 

Self-Portrait: Pt. 1

Me.

Portraits: Pt. 1

A picture tells a thousand words,

A face makes them worth it.

Nighttime: Pt. 1

Point. Shoot. Pray

Self-Destruction (or Rebirth)

The Monster is born.

Obliteration.

Rebirth.

Love Story

They notice the little stuff,

the friendly gesture.

Runaway With Me, Now

Pack Lite.

Heat's Box Ponti'

That coffee colored Pontiac

A true piece of American Steel

Raw Beauty

Fin

Indian Adventure

24 hours in Delphi with it's 120 degree, 95% humidity and enough smog and dust in the air to make LA look like paradise, is enough to make a man feel like  he made a wrong turn at the River Styx and is now making a house call to Hades.

But if you can get over the dust and debilitating heat, you'll find a colorful and culturally diverse city with more character than a Dicken's novel.  But don't take my word for it,

And so, without further ado,


A Photographic Tour of the City of Fire and Dust

Due to heavy bike, car, bus, cow, people traffic, the most efficient and cheapest form of transportation is the rickshaw.  To put it simply, a rickshaw ride is like Mr. Toad's Wild Gran Prix.

No A/C and undependable electricity pushes life to the streets, where people's livelihood covers all available space

The narrow streets and tangles of electrical wiring gave Delphi the vibe of New York circa 1900 in technicolor

 And their parks and monuments are simply otherworldly.  Pockets of paradise in the urban sprawl.

Retiring to an air-conditioned hotel room may have been the highlight of the day at the time, but looking back on the 24 hours I spent in Delphi, it is truly a spectacularly beautiful and visually stunning.  If only it wasn't so fucking hot.