Liv is a prolific art nude model out of the northwest. I'd had photos of her on my wall from photographer Kim Weston for years before she and I actually met. Our first time shooting was brief, a handful of tintypes and some digital shots. Liv can be found on Insta @asmallwoman and at https://www.livsage.net/
The whole set can be seen on www.patreon.com/lacunha
For a minute at least.
Back in the early 2000's I rediscovered Lucky Brand Denim. It was a whole damn thing at the time. Popular but not everywhere. Premium denim was all the rage. 7 For All Mankind, True Religion, Diesel. The elders thought it was absurd that we'd pay $150 for a pair of jeans that we then had to have tailored. A woman I was dating dragged me into a Lucky store and it was a pretty damn cool store. Had a vibe. They were made in the U.S. A very slick bohemian feel, both women's and men's. Good tunes on the stereo and a classic rock and roll aesthetic. I believe the jeans Heather is wearing are my Hendrix Jeans. Back then, low rise, boot cut and a little stretch was the ticket. This was the time of American Apparel, Urban Outfitters, Free People. The photography of Abercrombie and Fitch was blowing people's minds. American Apparel was putting porn stars on billboards on Hollywood Boulevard. Really the last definitive moment in consumer fashion I can recall. Lucky is now run by some vulture capital corporate shill and is a shadow of its former self. I've pretty much gone back to Levi's but even these aren't the same as they used to be. I fucking love a button fly.
It feels like in the span of my adult life, toxic capitalist corporatism has infested and rotted everything beloved from the inside out. I had to pay $35 on Southwest Airlines JUST to choose the seat I sit in on a flight to Burbank for a week long model casting in L.A. tomorrow. They really want to squeeze every last goddamn cent they can out of us. As employees, as users, as patents, as consumers, as humans just trying to survive. Everything has to maximize profit. . . We're frogs in a pot my friend.
Anyway, here are some pretty good images of a pretty beautiful woman.
Who says we can't have nice things??
See the whole set over on Patreon.
One of my absolute favorite things is meeting someone for the first time and making beautiful, intimate, sexy, sometimes dirty images with them. It's a really unique collaboration. It doesn't happen as much as it used to. Maybe that's part of the rut that I feel I'm in. There was a good period of time when this happened regularly. For Zivity or Me in My Place. Finding a subject that wasn't necessarily a model or someone pursuing modeling, but just a real person that had an itch to be seen and make something beautiful. I think I came across Nora on Craigslist. You've got to be careful these days on CL, they're pretty serious against seeking subjects that will take their clothes off. There's been a serious war against sexuality the last ten years if you haven't noticed.
Anywho, we shot these as the sun was setting in the apartment downstairs from mine. Palo Santo in the air, tiger stripe stockings and matching orange panties. .. It's sure a vibe. Seems like we live more on our devices than in the real world these days. We must rage against the dying of the light. . . See this whole post on Patreon here. 80+ Images.
For a moment in time, I had a studio with a dark room that I resurrected with bits and pieces, bone and sinew from the past. Artifacts of my father, friends that acquired the odd bit or end from their friends and deposited it in my hands. I put this thing tougher with sweat and a little blood and ingenuity and it wasn't perfect but it was perfect. When the lights go out and you're left to feel your way with muscle memory and one less sense. Rolling strips of delicate memories onto stainless steel reels. Flooding the film with chemistry that's just the right dilution and just the right temperature for just the right amount of time. Shooting film is such a fucking process. I fell in love with it when I was just fifteen years old. The expense and time involved are a ridiculous luxury when measured against today's tools of progress and efficiency. But goddamn if the results aren't good. And real. And tangible. The grains of silver suspended in a film of gelatin magnified under optics are unlike anything else.
I had a session with EvaLuna in this studio. We shot a good number of tintypes. a bunch of digital frames and this one roll of film. This is the whole thing. 34 frames. Un retouched, un cropped. Some of them are out of focus. Most of them are somehow properly exposed. Shot on Ilford FP5 with my Nikon FM2 and I think a 50mm lens. I was able to print a few of these frames in the dark room, with the enlarger on silver gelatin paper. I may put them up for sale on here at some point. If I do, you guys will be the first to know.
I have a shoot in a couple days with a model I've been aware of for years. (keep your eyes out for MikaLovely) It's my first shoot in quite some time. I have mixed feelings about it. I'm examining my relationship with image making these days. Trying to figure out what exactly the point is. It feels a little silly to hold up a figment of beauty when the whole damn world is burning. . .
Eva is a beautiful human, inside and out. She and her work can be found here: instagram.com/earthy.eva.model
I am forever grateful and indebted to women like this that choose to share a piece of themselves with a stranger holding a camera.
This whole set can be viewed on Patreon here: EvaLuna on Film. One Roll.
I shot Lenore a bit back also for Me In My Place. She was living in a cute little cottage in Oakland just up the street from a good friend of mine. She only had a few weeks left to shoot before moving out of state. Damn shame, I'd have loved to shoot with her again. Some women just exude sexuality, a quiet, powerful, simmering heat. You might pass her on the street and barely take notice, but if you happened to lock eyes with her, she'd walk you right into a lamp post. This is a re edited, extended set. 100 images. Some on the more risqué side from what MIMP was interested in publishing. See it all now on Patreon.
Tonight is the first notably cold night of the season here in the Bay Area. I'm sitting, composing this post, toasty and warm inside. Venturing outdoors periodically to check on my first firing of a gas kiln I've adopted, tuned up and put into service. I've returned to the art and craft of ceramics after about a 25 year break. Doing a cone 04 bisque firing and waiting for the thing to get up to about 1945ºF. I fell in love with creating high fire stoneware right about the same time I decided to pursue photography professionally. I mean, who could make a living in pottery? Photography was surely way more practical. . . lolz. . . But god damn, its actually worked out alright!
Now I have the time and space and desire to return to the mud. I think I've grown weary of this modern life we're livin. There are a thousand reasons why this feels so right, right now. I'll undoubtedly write more on this in the future. But for now, enjoy this second set of Anna Lisa Wagner from the second studio, the soon to be vacant second studio, as progress keeps progressing. If you happen to know anyone in the Bay who's looking for a super dope spot to live and work, have them drop me a line. It can be seen here for now: silver.oakland
It just occurred to me that there's not a single damned photo from this set I can post on Instagram. . . oh well, fuck Meta.
See the whole thing on Patreon.
Heather and I first shot years ago in her rented home on the Peninsula in the SF Bay Area. Shooting a few sets for the Tumblr phenomenon, Me in My Place. My first set here is the first set with her. So much has changed since then. But something that never changes, I always get beautiful images when shooting with Heather. This set is the latest in our portfolio together. I believe she intends on winding down her modeling in the not too distant future. It'll be a sad day. So, maybe, there're are less fucks to give. Relatable, relatable. . .
This set is somewhat like our series of shoots over the years. It starts out kinda light and etherial, and ends more dark and explicit. . .
See it all on Patreon here. 100 image set. As naked as you’ve ever seen her.
I'm currently in the process of moving out of this studio space and back into my initial live/work loft. Life circumstances and economic factors no longer support the luxury of a dedicated shoot studio. I'm at peace with this. It feels a little exciting to return to a smaller, more concentrated, space of photo creation. Even though it means I will no longer have access to a wet darkroom. I'll be slowly rolling out the last of the work made in Silver, Studio 416 in the coming months as I transition back to studio one.
This first set of Elle, is a little more explicit than usual. Lots more in the can, in addition to a good handful of tintypes and polaroids.
Links will now take you to my new-ish Patreon page. I hope that you will choose to support my work there. The proceeds go directly to paying the models I work with. The images are free.
patreon.com/lacunha
I reached out to Melodie when I saw that she was doing a quick tour of the Bay Area. Made the proper negotiations and agreements to shoot together, including full nude. She was a delight to work with. Super personable, open, friendly, comfortable in her body. Moved very well. Beautiful, beautiful woman. We shot this in the hallway of Studio 2, her only in my gray linen shirt. I love this look. Hope you do too. 52 images in this set on Patreon.
I think I have some film from this shoot I need to process. There are definitely polaroids and Tintypes. Those will be forthcoming. Patreon is going to be the best way to keep up with any work of a sensitive erotic nature going forward. I will continue to update here, and inform my most loyal of audiences. I am grateful for you all. This is one of the only places where you’ll get to see uncensored previews. The bulk will be in the high castle behind a five dollar paywall. That money and more goes to the models I work with. I believe that this level of openness and vulnerability needs to be compensated. Especially if a model is traveling. It’s a grind and I respect the grind.
It’s felt like ages since I’ve sat down to write. And I suppose it has been ages. Lifetimes. This year has been unusually plagued by a series of deaths of men in my life. Six or seven at last count. A statistical anomaly. One of which was my father. I’m hoping now, that things have calmed down.
I am shaken. I’m a fairly even keeled, pragmatic, stoic person. But viewing all this from sixty thousand feet, it’s hard to make sense of. Not just the semi regular ticking of the clock marked by the passing of fellows in my orbit but of everything thats going on on this pale blue dot. None of it is making much sense right now. We may be poised on the brink of a third world war. Or another American Civil War. Time will tell. Not much time I fear. And yet the daily chores must be done. The garbage needs to go out to the curb. Work still expects me to show up on time.
Theres still some drive within me to carry on as things had been even though nothing is the same. I sit here, partly minded towards fulfilling my responsibilities as a creator and a maker and a writer, maybe. I’m feeling compelled to do something with the last few photoshoots I’ve completed. Get them in front of some viewers. That they’re ghosts in a box waiting patiently to be set free. Latent images that demand to be seen.
So many ghosts in boxes. So many boxes.
Theres a stack of tintypes and Polaroids to my right that need to be scanned. I don’t know how to live without the constant push of creativity driving me on. Some project, some scheme, some, job, something to keep my hands and my mind busy. I’ve never once just had a 9-5 job. My free time has always been full of more self imposed work. Something to push things forward. This moment in time, this rift, this pause has forced me to step back. To slow down. I have some fear that if I slow down that I may never get going again. That my old life will become lost.
I’ve taken up residence in my mother’s home. It’s a nice home in the suburbs. We moved here when I was 12. It’s comfortable. We get along well. Theres room for me to build a pottery studio. An office for my work. A garage for my car. Places that were my father’s domain. And she likes having me here. This new reality is taking some gettin used to. I miss my apartment and my studio and the chaos of city life. I’m very used to being alone. I prefer it that way.
I am moving away from posting whole photo sets to this here site. The payment processors and their crusade against sexuality have made it near impossible to monetize creative work that contains the bare human form. Slow fascism. Death by capitalism. So, for now, Patreon seems to be a bit of a safe harbor with so called NSFW artwork. We’ll see how long that lasts.
I’d love it if you joined me there. A small monthly contribution makes creating this work a little easier. www.patreon.com/lacunha The first Patreon exclusive shoot is of the lovely Anna Lisa Wagner. A strikingly beautiful woman and gentle soul. It will be online momentarily.
Thank you for welcoming a small part of my reality into your consciousness.
I haven’t felt much like writing lately. Not since the election. Really not since the inauguration. I think we’re in a pretty dark place right now. A dangerous place. It’s hard to keep up with things, move forward with business as usual. Especially with things that may seem frivolous, trivial, or non necessary. Things like art. Things like beauty. Things like spending a few hours in the darkroom with film and chemistry. Watching an image slowly emerge in the developer. Things like magic.
Ilford HP5 thru a Hasselblad 501c with an 80mm lens, printed on Ilford fiber based, glossy paper.
Most people I know don’t really know what to do right now. In years past, in the early days of Orange Julius Caesar’s reign, we were ripe with outrage and protest. Millions of people took to the streets. There was a feeling of united solidarity against what was happening. This time, not so much. I have a theory, that previously, it felt like we were trying to keep the country from going over a cliff. Now we’re over the edge. We’re in free fall. And really, what can you do when you’re just falling? What control do you have? You can twist and contort your body. You can close your eyes and tell yourself its not happening. You can scream til your voice is raw. Does any of it really matter? Will any of it stop the falling? No.
We can check in on each other. We can keep our actions small and close. We can hold hands with the person or loved one thats plummeting alongside us. We can make each other feel a little better. A little safer. With understanding or commiseration, or love, or art, or beauty. Or darkroom magic. Until it’s time to shut it all the fuck down. Prepare yourselves.
This image is the last of the “Print of The Month” subscription series. It went a year. I enjoyed it, having an assignment. I’ll still be printing images and making them available to collectors, but there will no longer be a subscription based model. They’ll be in the Store, periodically updated. I think this is one of my very favorite images I’ve ever created with traditional materials. Eva Luna, in studio, hand study. Going out to subscribers in a 5x5” format, available soon to purchase in the store, printed on 8x10” in a limited edition.
Thank you for the continued support. Thank you for believing that beauty matters.
It’s been a week. A long week. A week since the heart break. Things did not go the way I thought they would. Our better angels did not prevail. We’re now sitting in this in between, liminal place, between the old world and the new. I can recognize that enough people are fed up with the way things have been that they’re willing or eager to burn it all down in the hopes for something better. I think its shortsighted. I think its based in an inability to take in the available information and make an informed choice about the path ahead. For whatever reason, here we are. This is Trump’s America. And a huge number of our countrymen have shown us exactly who they are.
I have been pretty deeply engaged in politics since I was able to vote. I voted for Bill Clinton and medicinal marijuana. I have voted for every Democrat running for President since 1993. I believe in compassion, in liberalism, I believe that people should be allowed to be who they are, I believe in art and science and love and openness and honesty and taking care of one another and moving, ever so slowly towards a better tomorrow. I believed that my voice mattered and my opinion was shifting society towards a brighter future. I now believe that I am in the minority.
I believe that society is a very delicate balance, angels dancing on the head of a pin, that the facade of sanity is thin. It won’t take much to push us into fiery chaos.
Fortunately I’m pretty well resourced, here in my California bubble. I have a level of economic means, I’m white, I’m a man. I’ll be fine. I’ll be sipping bourbon and watching it burn from my artist’s loft in a converted cotton mill, built in 1917.
Good luck. I love you.
Please enjoy these photos of Emma Nicole Vaunt. I like them quite a bit.
This month’s print. Silver gelatin, 5x7 darkroom print shot on Ilford HP5. Hand made. Sign up here: Print of the Month. $15/month, $150/year.
Model: Miss Gothlet on Insta.
Sometimes I’ll just drop a photo here cuz I want it to be able to be seen without the requisite censorship of the social platforms.
One frame from a hand full of rolls of film I shot that day. It’s overexposed and flare-y but I really like it. Ilford HP5 developed in HC110, Dilution B
I have a theory about the collective consciousness of the country, the planet. I believe that human beings, especially creative human beings, are very susceptible to the current climate. The vibes. Artist are observant. Artists are sensitive. Artists are aware of the safety of their surroundings. I’m using the term artist very loosely, meaning anyone who is creative, who’s open, who’s generative. I’ve been feeling like there is a cultural recession happening. There is less being made, created. Photographers are struggling. Artists are struggling. The art markets are in the shitter. Social media is in decline (for many reasons) For the first time in over a decade, Burning Man hasn’t sold out. There’s been this feeling for the last eight years, this anticipation of doom. The country is so divided. There is so much anger and hate in the air. We’ve lived under a criminal as a president and through a global pandemic. There are brutal conflicts happening around the planet. And we are connected now in a way that we never have been. The 24hr news cycle, instant global communication. We are more aware of the moments at hand than ever before. We’re fucking tired.
Thinking back to when things felt good, hopeful, positive. For me and many of the people I know it was the Obama years. I have a distinct memory of watching the inauguration in the kitchen of the ranch house I was living in, on a thirteen inch TV. Tears of relief and gratitude streaming down my face. It felt like forward momentum. That good could triumph over evil, that progress was possible, beating back regression. That we as a country could at least begin to look at the roots of oppression and inequality that have plagued us since our inception. Things really felt like they were on the upswing. The vibes were good. Creating from a place of positivity and optimism is very different than creating from a place of desperation and fear.
There’s been a lot of recognition in the past years about the subtle differences and acceptance of human beings. Someone might be on the spectrum or non gender conforming, or neurodivergent. We’re waking up to these nuances that are still kinda stigmatized, but what if our subtle differences are what make us modern humans? Creative individuals may fall in these categories or may be categories all their own. Creativity, artistry, ingenuity are the engines that drive society. That push us forward. They’re the minds that ask, what if? When we feel oppressed, we don’t create freely. When we don’t feel safe, we don’t stick out our necks. I firmly believe this downturn we’re experiencing is a direct outcome of the politics we’ve been living under.
And now, sitting here, with a sense of quiet optimism. The momentum of Kamala Harris feels familiar. It feels like a cool breeze in a stifling room. I don’t know if an elected administration is enough to shift the tracks we’re on but I’m super eager to find out. My hope is that the sensible and intelligent turn out, in force in November. A loud voice, a singular voice, a diverse voice in defiance of the oppressive, regressive, fearful policies of a morally bankrupt right wing in this country. Not just for the commander in chief, but all the way down the ballot. Taking the house and increasing our representation in the senate. A super majority. Taking this country back. If we can, and if we do, I believe we’ll usher in a new era of growth and prosperity.
I wanted to do something more than be loud online and donate money to obscure campaigns in winnable districts after consuming a few Manhattans. So I decided to take on a little art project and taught myself how to silk screen. I’m making these shirts. All by hand. I’ve launched a web store. I’m donating all the profits to Swing Left. An org dedicated specifically to strategically boosting dem campaigns across the country. Available in common sizes in crop tops and unisex styles. (of course I made it sexy. . .) Super soft and comfortable. I didn’t want to make something super partisan, even though it is, subtly, I just want people to turn out. Nearly 40% of eligible voters in this country don’t bother to show up. When we show up we win. When we fight, we win. Do you understand the assignment?
If you’re a creator, an artist, photographer or model, give me a shout and I’ll get you a shirt if you agree to promote it and get out the vote.
Before SESTA and FOSTA neutered platforms. Photographers and models were making amazing work together. It felt like this churning cauldron with so many characters and personalities spanning the country. Vaunt and her partner Corwin Prescott were living in Philadelphia at the time. Corwin is an exceptional photographer of the female form. Prolific and committed. A number of very large anthologies published that are a pleasure to thumb through. The work out of the east coast during that time had a specific flavor. A kind of darkness and moody sexuality. A weight. Brick and pine. It was almost anti L.A.
There was something about these models of that time. Alt Models, a term possibly made popular by Suicide Girls which dominated the scene. These models weren’t just objects or vessels to be photographed. You couldn’t book them through an agency. They were artists and creatives in their own right. With a perspective, a point of view, an aesthetic, an attitude. They were collaborators. Co creators. In my experience, working with someone, the dance the exchange of ideas and concepts and what came out of it. That was the good shit. Thats what really makes it fun. I fell in love with one. A story for another time.
So when I saw that Vaunt was available for shoots in the Bay Area I jumped at the chance to book some hours. Tintypes, film, digital. Having a window of time with a model on the road isn’t exactly the same as having an ongoing relationship. You’ve got to cram the getting to know you and the creating a bunch of work in to a very short time frame. But I think we did alright. I tried not to fanboy too much.
It isn’t lost on me that this period of time for which I’m so nostalgic were also the Obama years. There was a feeling of possibility and opportunity in the air. I think everyone that thinks and feels like me, liberal, progressive, love above all, was breathing a little easier. It felt like we could be ourselves with less fear of oppression. The internet was a vast stage that we could spill out on to. The last eight years has not felt that way. The country’s turn toward authoritarianism and the abandonment of rationality has been brutal to endure. Conservatives don’t make anything of value. They don’t create, they are not generative. Art, technology, science, progress, is the wheelhouse of the liberal. The open minded. Conservatives seek to contract, to go back, to retreat, to “make America great again.” Whenever the fuck that was.
I’ve said it before, but I really do feel that we’re in the middle of a cultural recession. Or hopefully the end. . . I am emboldened by the democratic party’s embrace of Kamala Harris. Not that any one political leader can fix things or make it all better, but it sure sets a tone. An intelligent, reasoned, woman of color leading this nation sure feels a hell of a lot better than the alternative. Here’s to hoping we’re turning back towards the light. Here’s to Hope.
Join members only to see this whole set. Its free. You won’t regret it.
This month’s print is out the door and it’s a special one. For the first time, a genuine, hand made, in the darkroom, silver gelatin print is being sent to members. 5x7 very limited edition. Archival materials and process. There’s till time to sign up and receive this one. Join Here. Fifteen bucks a month or $150/year. Hell of a deal. Get Brett in you mailbox. There’s nothing quite like holding a real print in your hand.
After a year and change of having my studio, I’ve finally got my darkroom up and running. It’s kind of my M.O… I’ll get an idea, I’ll ruminate and grind on it for a good long while, put it into action in a sprint, get 85% of the way there then ease off the gas. Make sure things are aligned. Put final touches in place. Then refine, tweak, fine tune. Thats where I’m at right now. Refining, tweaking, tuning. It never really ends. It’s never perfect. It’s never done.
Remembering the old processes. My hands remembering how to wind film on steel reels. Mixing ratios of wet chemistry. Getting developer down to 68º in a hot studio with a water ice bath. The muscle memory comes back quickly. Echos of 16 year old me figuring it all out for the first time. The first darkroom didn’t even have plumbing. Or ventilation. This one is a luxury.
Dissolving grains of Dektol in 120º water. The way the developer makes your fingers feel slippery… And how stop bath takes it away. The slight sulfurous scent of fixer.
This is the first roll of recent film processed and printed in the new lab. I’ve been shooting film on most of my shoots for the last year and a half, in anticipation of having a proper darkroom in which to develop and print them. I have quite a backlog to get through. I’m looking forward to it. I’m not in a rush.
I thought it would be fun to post one single, entire roll of film here. The good, the bad and the derpy. This is from one of my shoots with Brett. Kodak Tri-X shot with my Nikon FM2, with probably the 85mm lens. Developed in HC-110. If you’re a member of the “Print of the Month Club” you’ll be receiving a sliver gelatin darkroom print from this roll. If you’re not, you’ve got til August 1st to sign up and get one. It’s a hell of a deal at $15. Less if you sign up for a year. Your free members only access will get you high res scans of every frame from the above contact sheet. 37 images. It’s been an interesting experience working with this roll. Developing, scanning, printing a contact sheet, printing a couple test prints. There’s more care and intention and purpose put into these 37 images than all the hundreds of digital files I’ve shot of her over our maybe five hours together. There’s lessons here.
More. Lots more to come.
This week’s photo set is with Anneke. Lots more in the now free, members only section. Join here.
I’ve been running this little experiment of a site now for a few years. Tremendous thanks to all the members and visitors. After lots of deliberation, I’ve decided to drop the paywall to the members only galleries. For a number of reasons. I think the primary one being the self imposed pressure I feel to keep updating things at a pace that may not suite my life and schedule. I have a fairly demanding day job shooting for a large apparel and footwear brand, a number of side hustles, tintype shoots, personal work, personal life, etc, etc. I feel a twinge of guilt every week that goes by that I haven’t updated. I think its acceptable to expect something you pay for to be updated weekly. Sometimes I’m lucky to hit monthly. I also feel this push to publish the kind of images that people want to pay for, heavy on the T&A, yet not so much T&A that will piss off the hosting overlords. And not just publish, I feel this expectation creep into the shoots that I’m producing and the work in general. . . Really trying to embrace creating for myself first and just letting the chips fall where they may.
The income that I derive from this is nice, but is in no way supportive of materials of model fees or hosting costs, etc, etc. So, maybe there’s more to be gained by making it free. I’ve never really been comfortable with the hard core self promotion needed to drive people here. Always been a kind of, take it or leave it situation.
Additionally, Squarespace has a fairly liberal policy on artistic nudity, but the payment processor, does not. I’ve come close to having the site shut down because of that and losing access to that payment portal’s services across the board would be detrimental to my other businesses. Their reach is vast. So this move is in part, self preservation. It really does feel like we’re in a puritanical time online with a handful of gate keepers. SESTA and FOSTA really did a number on the expression of nudity and sexuality.
You’ll still need to be a member, but now its free to sign up. If you’re paid for an annual membership and are upset about it, drop me a line and I’ll happily refund the remainder of your membership.
This path, this career has never been about the money for me. Of course everyone needs to be able to support themselves. Long ago I decided I’d never be a starving artist. I would also never compromise on what I wanted to be doing just to make more money. I’m a commercial artist and I’m extraordinarily lucky to be able to earn a comfortable living with my craft, doing what I love, doing what I’m good at.
So, how can you continue to support this work you may ask? And thank you for asking! The print of the month club is still available at $15/month. There is physical work for sale in the Store and more on the way. I am looking at some kind of tip jar, that could be fun.
In the immortal words of Joe Walsh, “I can’t complain but sometimes I still do. Life’s been good to me so far.” Lets see where we go from here.
-Cheers!
There was an uproar last week. Most weeks. Days? Everyday. Apple had an event on Tuesday. I usually tune in to the Apple events. I like them. I like Apple. Always have. Always will. I’m a stock holder. I’m invested in Apple. Literally. As a creative and as someone who’s believed in their mission to design for people, people who are by nature creative since I was 14 years old.
But this event aired at 7:00am. Thanks but no thanks. Too damn early. That would mean waking up at 6:30 to get my shit together, get the espresso made, settle in to watch. Not gonna happen. Apparently while I was sleeping, Apple tripped over it’s own dick. In the unveiling of their new, super thin, super capable new iPad Pro, they aired a spot where a hydraulic press crushed all number of creative tools and musical instruments, paints, a piano, guitar, etc, etc. etc. One of the last shots featured a foam smily face emoji, crushed til its eyes bugged out. It was fucking disturbing. I’ve only watched it once. My happy expectations turning to horror. I should watch it again in the writing of this so I can cite more accurately, but alas, I will not. You can go find it if you want. The metaphor is obvious. All these wonderful creative tools from instruments to finger paints, crammed in to this one, deliciously sexy, thin, sleek piece of tech that can be yours for the low low price of $1299. Glass and silicon and titanium and rare earth minerals mined by children, can replace everything you love. Miss me with that shit. Most tech companies are forgoing the human for the pay off. I mean, of course Apple has too, but up until now, it felt like they were empowering people. This didn’t feel that way.
They’ve since retracted the piece and apologized. The uproar has been loud. Everyone else should take notice. You can only push people so far before they jump ship. Instagram is about to learn this. Not that they’ll care. There are enough idiots (myself included) who will spend hours on their platform watching the nonsense to scrape in the ad dollars. A thoughtfully considered and composed photograph holds no sway in this sea of noise.
Apple built itself as a tool for creative people. Full stop. From the very early days of word processing and post script. The relationship between computer and physical output. They built the tools that not only enabled creativity, but were themselves, designed for creative people to utilize. This is fucking huge. It has shaped the society we live in. Using a Macintosh in 1991 felt like a revelation. I could put my hand on an object and make a cursor on a screen move as I moved. It was connection. This is what Apple is. I had watched my friends fumble with DOS interfaces and clumsy keyboard input and it was so fucking boring and stiff. The first time I touched a Mac, it was my cousin’s and she had a program that let you perform open heart surgery. Talk about human.
Apparently they’re throwing Chiat Day under the bus for this misstep, but believe me, nothing this big happens at Apple without a dozen important people signing off on it. But I do hope they’ve heard the feedback. I’m pretty sure they have. These companies need to remember, that at the end of the day, they’re designing for PEOPLE. And we’re goddamn fickle. Once you lose people, your days are numbered. This whole damn thing is the scorpion on the frog fable.
We’re feeling crushed already. By our politics and society and capitalism, and technology and Ai and the struggle that is every day life. Don’t give us a visual representation of everything we hold dear being literally crushed in a hydraulic press. Do better. For fucks sake, do better.
This week’s set is a solid retro vibe with MaryJ The Muse Second in the series. Think there may be one more in the works. TBD. Click here to see em all 50+ Oh, and if you’ve joined my Print of the Month Club, and you have not responded to my email requesting your mailing address, do it! I can’t send things to nowhere. Please and thank you. And thank you for subscribing!