Sense8 – my review

The first season of Sense8 just recently became available on netflix. It’s a little hard to describe without saying too much about the plot. It’s SORT OF a sci-fi/fantasy/action/drama, but really not any of those things, exactly. There’s a group of individuals from around the world who find themselves suddenly connected in some way they don’t understand. It’s a netflix original series, 12 episodes. I binge-watched six episodes each of the past two evenings. 

In all, I liked it a lot. I loved the international setting and cast. 

I had some picky issues with the editing at times. Basically, I couldn’t always tell when they showed scene #6 (for example) if it happened after or at the same time or the next day or even earlier than scene #5. It jumped around a lot in location and characters and which story-line they were following. Sometimes a character or characters would sort of get stuck in a past memory, and that I found to be a little dissatisfying. 

I did, however, like the editing in some of the action sequences, etc., especially later, once the people learned how to do the thing they do. (I don’t wanna give it away.) 

I liked the mix of action and drama and philosophical wondering. I really loved how sometimes these people’s “journey” was just about seeing the world and other people’s lives, connecting and reflecting on their own lives. I had expected more action/sci-fi type stuff, but didn't miss it while I was watching. In fact, more sci-fi stuff might’ve ruined it. 

I give it 4 out of 5 stars, and I definitely look forward to seeing another season. 

morning shoot

Last night I thought I would get up early this morning, go out and find someplace to take photos. I’ve done that in the past, and I thought it would be a nice day for it. 

Well, I woke up early – around 6:30 – but all I wanted was to go back to sleep, so I did. The amount of energy it would take to get up and go do that just seemed massive, when I first woke up. It still seems massive right now, when I second woke up – a little after 8:00. 

So no outdoor pictures this morning, I guess. I’ve been thinking about it for a while now, going out some morning. I’ve a couple of places in mind, but they’re not private. I just have to hope to find a time – like early on a Sunday morning – when there won’t be many people around. 

Maybe I will go out after all, when I’ve had a little coffee. It’s still relatively early, and maybe people won’t be out and about much. Then again, Sunday morning – the people out and about might be on their way to church, and those are just the type who might be offended, call the police out of shock and fear. 

What I really need is access to someplace reasonably private, so I can to do a shoot without worry somebody is going to happen by. Also, I need a model. A single naked man out somewhere probably looks much scarier to people than a photographer and a naked model. 

Lately, though, I’ve not had a lot of success at finding models. There are people who say they’re interested (some have said it over and over for a while now), but they never have the time to do it. Or, I should say, they never make the time. So, I suppose, I’ll just keep photographing myself. 

introductions

– Don’t give up on love, Chris. There’s somebody out there for you.

– Really? Who? I mean, it’s not you, right? And obviously you think it’s not anybody you know, otherwise you’d’ve introduced them to me.

Okay, so that conversation didn’t happen. But it could. If anyone cared enough to have a conversation with me, and we got around to why I’m not actively pursuing sex or a relationship or love or whatever.

But’s it’s completely true that people do not introduce me to other people. I don’t even mean introducing me to some woman with whom they think I’ll get along. I mean people in general. I used to think that people just assumed I know most of the other people that exist, or at least the ones they know. But I’ve come to realize that isn’t it. It’s just that I do not matter enough to anyone that they even would think or care about whether I know this other person. I simply don’t rate enough in anyone’s mind to be worth consideration.  

Wow...I’m feeling bitter today. Maybe that’s why no one cares. Vicious cycle. 

Whoever did this? - they need to stop.

A little earlier this morning I saw this photo on tumblr. Yes, tumblr. 

Yes, yes, I know; tumblr is full and overflowing with nudity. That’s why I’m there. I actually joined tumblr as a place to see what’s out there photography-wise. On tumblr you can find some really great artistic photography. You can also find some really poor quality, disturbing porn. Sometimes you’ll find both, together on the same page, which I find much more disturbing than the disturbing porn itself. You can all kinds of nudity anywhere on the spectrum between those extremes of great art and bad porn.

Anyway…

This morning I saw this photo (just a warning, it’s a nude): click link 1

I thought it does have some appeal, but basically I don’t like it. And the more I looked at it, the more it seemed not quite right. So I did a google image search, and found this (also a nude): click link 2

I believe it to be the original. I find it much more appealing. Mainly, I don’t get that “not quite right” vibe from it. I like it. It’s quite lovely. 

Obviously, these are versions of the same photo. The one on the right has been re-done: her skin is darker, her breasts and nipples are larger, there’s a significant bush of pubic hair added, and – most bizarrely – a totally different face has been superimposed.

WHY?!?!? 

I do not understand. Who is this other face? Is this some kind of revenge-porn thing? Is that someone’s ex-girlfriend, and they didn’t have any actual nude photos of them to post online, so they made this? (If so, that’s bad. Don’t do that, people.) Or was this version, perhaps, made to fit someone’s personal masturbatory preference? (If so, that’s a little odd, but...just keep it to yourself, eh?)

As a photographer, as a creator of what I hope are some artistic images, I find this disturbing. I’ve seen, on tumblr, a few photographers complain about other people editing and posting versions of their photos – cropping, maybe changing the color &/or contrast, etc. That’s not good. But, this seems much worse. Someone’s turned this photo into a photo of a different person, and it doesn’t seem to be an obvious, clunky version for comic effect. (I admit, I’ve done that once or twice, but never published it online, or tried to convince anyone that it was “real”.)

Anyway... Whoever did this? - they need to stop.  

Roswell - bad, bad, bad, bad thing

I’m watching this TV show – Roswell– on the netflix. If you’ve not seen it, it’s a Vampire Diaries-type thing but with aliens instead of vampires. It aired about 15 years ago. A lot of the main characters are attractive teen-agers.

So, in this episode (“Disturbing Behavior” season 2, episode 13), there’s a young woman, about 17 or 18 years old, who’s gone off with a young man to deal with “alien stuff,” but her mom doesn’t know about the alien stuff. Her mom is so mad and upset and terrified that her daughter is going to have sex. She’s talking with her daughter on the phone and bawling and yelling and threatening. Like it’s a horrible, awful, evil, shameful, bad, bad, bad, bad thing. 

This is such a common idea in our culture: parents being scared and angry that someone would have sex with their post-pubescent child, at a time when their bodies are screaming at them to have sex; and parents threatening violence toward the similarly-aged young men wanting to have sex with their daughters. That’s crazy. It’s extremely unhealthy in the attitudes that it conveys to these young people about sex. 

Of course, by the time they’re old enough to have sex, they’ve certainly already been messed up by our mixed up, crazy, damaging cultural attitudes about sex. And I’m fairly sure that any parents who would react that way to the possibility of their child having sex will have already made sure to convey the nightmare apocalypse that is normal human sexual activity. 

Previously unseen photos

I dreamed last night that I found a bunch of photos I’d forgotten about and hadn’t posted anywhere. I’ve had this dream before. While I’m having the dream, it’s sort of exciting: cool photos of mine that people haven’t seen before! But when I wake up, I do not like the dream. 

Here in real life, there are photos that I haven’t ever posted anywhere. Some are just not as good as those I did post, or I didn’t want to post 50 photos from the same shoot. Others I think are actually quite good, but the model the model didn’t want me to post them. And whenever THAT has happened, it made me really mad. It still does. I currently have cheap prints (from my printer) of a couple of such photos hanging on my wall, but visitors here are quite rare. 

In the past few years I’ve had a very hard time letting go of my anger at people who’ve disappointed me (like models who’ve said after a 2-hour shoot and quite a few hours of editing by me that they don’t want me to post their photos). Actually, “been unable to let go” is probably more accurate. 

I like taking pictures, but this whole area of artistic exploration has cost me. It's certainly cost me a ton of "facebook friends" but also some real-life friends, of which I’ve never had many. It's definitely cost me some work as a musician, which is ridiculous. I mean, it’s an unrelated field, yet people don’t want to hire me because they think what – I’ll show up naked at a rehearsal? That’s not going to happen. 

Anyway, I’ve probably lost more work than I know, but there are at least two people I know for sure refused to hire me because of my photography. (See "So, what happened to Mississippi?"& "So, what happened with City Arts?") In one case it was someone for whom I didn’t care much nor have much respect. But the other was a guy that most of the people I know locally loved and respected. That guy recently died, and it seems everybody was eulogizing him. Meanwhile, I was still pissed off at him, though I didn’t say anything at the time (I’m not completely insensitive), and I think that just pushed me further away from all those formerly friendly acquaintances. 

Well, this has gotten bitter. I am bitter. I think I never entirely fit in the world before, as a composer and writer. But most of the time it seems that my photography – principally my choice of subject matter – has pretty well pushed me right out of it. 

On “#freethenipple”

Instead of just talking to myself this morning, in response to a facebook post I was seeing (Challenge the Way We Sexualize Women's Breasts), I wrote this stuff down. Someone was asking about the agenda behind “freeing the nipple” and how it relates to rape culture, etc. 

Not sure how clear my logic is, but... here it is. 

On “#freethenipple” 

Acceptance of a part of the body, the nipple, is a move toward acceptance of the body in general. We in this culture have a horrible problem with our bodies. There’s still a very strong theme of “our bodies are bad and shameful” running through our culture. It’s very clearly connected to another concept – that sex is bad shameful and needs to be hidden. 

These things are whispered in our ears from infancy, when we can’t even understand the words yet, and they become so ingrained in us, that we don’t even see them. They’re simply threads in the tapestry of what we think it is to be a human and a society. When sex is bad and shameful and the body is bad and shameful it leads people to have very unhealthy relationships with their own bodies, and trouble dealing with other people’s bodies. 

Now, add to that another basic problem of our culture – inequality of women. There’s a strong tradition of women not being considered full participants in human society, of in public society. Men are political leaders, men run businesses, men create art. Women are off on the sidelines or in the background. When you mix in the “sex is bad and so are our bodies” it creates a situation in which women are seen not as people but as objects to be viewed &/or possessed. That’s sexual objectification. 

It’s easy to see in a culture that forces women to hide away, or to completely cover up their bodies in public and not interact with men. But it’s still pretty easy to see, if you’re looking, right here in our country. Men are largely judged on their action and achievements and the content of their character, while women are still largely judged on how hot they are. And while we are still saying that naked bodies are bad and shouldn’t be seen in public, we’ve become mildly addicted to highly sexualized naked or almost naked bodies – chiefly women’s bodies – in movies and TV, advertising, and (of course) pornography. 

If men are humans and women are sexual objects, and sex is bad and shameful and shouldn’t be discussed or even dealt with in an open and reasonable way, you get... rape culture. So, a move toward acceptance of the body is a move against rape culture.