Well it's no suprise, given that there is a link in the side panel dedicated to black and white photography/portraiture, that I am a fan of such. The collecting began with books, magazines, newspapers, etc.-- all the sorts of tangible things, which were limited then by how far I could walk or reach out my hands. Then came the internet and my hands, all our hands, began stretching further than they ever imagined.
On one of my occassional photohunts I came across an amateur blog, all written in french, black with a grey courier font. The only English on the page was the title of the blog, "Your own personal jesus."
It was here that in terms of what I had been looking for, I very well found my own personal jesus. I dont know who this person was and where she or he had collected their pieces-- but of all the portraits and photos I had ever found these were undoubtedly my favorite. Not only were they my favorite but something about them also made them just, the best.
Maybe it was the mystery in the subjects... Serge Gainsbourg, Elodie Bouchez, Gina Gershon... no one I'd really heard of at that time, six, seven, (eight?) years ago. Even when I did know of these subjects, like Vanessa Paradis, (I think I was searching for portraits of her specifically when I found Your own personal jesus) something about the exclusivity of these pictures, with their depth and unique quality, laid out in such simplicity, and to be found on something so seemingly easy as an amateur blog site... made the entire experience something I really treasured. If only the world were like this.
And I still believe in many ways it is.
So anyway,
I loved Your Own Personal Jesus, it was like I had stumbled upon someone's secret royal dumping ground, where someone was simply...yet stylistically, openly yet somewhat covertly, and just honestly sharing what they found interesting, inspiring, and "cool". They weren't trying to keep ahead of the newest trend or trying to start the next one, trying to sell you "cool"--although I don't mind that. It just was itself, which at the end of the day, we can all agree is infinitely cooler. So yea, all that it wasn't made Your Own Personal Jesus, to me, everything that it is... or should I say, was. I think it was about three, four (or five?) years ago when I clicked that favorite and familiar bookmarked link and one of those horrid "ERROR" notifications came up. I searched all around the web with different variations of Your Own Personal Jesus only to come up with a million different references to Depeche Mode. My own personal jesus had gone
to leave me with "Your own..."
my own.
So as a tribute to all that was Your's and all that I took from it as mine, here we have again Your own personal jesus.
So anyway, I am finally led to the intended body of today's post,
Black and White portraiture.
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Marlene Dietrich
Things that came up today:
- Breakfast before cardio vs. Breakfast after cardio
- Nelly - "Ride Wit Me"
- Franz Ferdinand - "Lucid Dreams", Chester French - "Beneath the Veil", Francesca Battistelli - "Free to be Me", Beirut - "Elephant Gun"
- Rachael Yamagata
- kokology
- Canon EOS Rebel T1i
- Trader Joe's Chocolate Covered Sunflower Seeds
- Grand Puba - "360 (What Goes Around)" via KanYeUniverseCity.com
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