Dennis Hopper recently exhibited some of his photographs and paintings at Tony Shafrazi Gallery in New York City.

I'll be honest: I've always liked Hopper. He has an impeccable eye for art in various forms -- films, painting, photography, art collecting, acting, etc. Some of the films I saw him in when I was younger -- Easy Rider, Apocalypse Now, and Blue Velvet -- certainly gave him some good cred in my book.

So getting the chance to look at some of his photographs was especially intriguing to me. One, because I'm a photographer. Two, because all of the photos in the exhibit were from the early to late 1960s, a time period when he was an up and coming actor and artist and before his breakthrough directorial debut with Easy Rider.

This first batch is especially interesting in that he made the photographs in the '60s and revisited them in 2009 to paint his immense "billboard paintings." He has a photorealism thing going on mixed with a bit of Ed Ruscha's influence (whom himself is a subject of one of Hopper's photograph/billboard painting combos below).

I think it's kind of amusing that these photo/painting combinations are of visual artists. Some of the greatest ones, in fact. Hopper was definitely hanging around the right crowd in '60s art world. No doubt his growing stature in Hollywood at the time offered him some choice access to the stars of art and entertainment of the time.

Ultimately, the world doesn't need more images of celebrities. However, these images capture a time before celebrity saturated our lives.

Through Hopper's eyes we see the personalities before/beyond publicists and movie plugs and more like our confidants and friends. They were just that to Hopper and, for a fraction of a second, they're ours, too.

This is what happens when you go camping, have a few cocktails and such around the campfire, and after everyone else has gone to sleep.

© Armando Bellmas

© Armando Bellmas

Yep, that’s me in the bottom photo. Killer calves, huh?

My wife hand makes dresses for little girls and sells them at an Etsy shop called sweet little bird. She recently set up shop and sold her dresses at an Etsy craft fair here in Charlotte.

Our six-year-old son Nick wanted to make and sell some things at the craft fair, too. So he cut up some paper and bound them with staples, found some fabric scraps and glue, and used a few colored pencils and his imagination to create the 4×4 inch, 5-page Firetruck Counting Book.

pages from Firetruck Counting Book by Nick Bellmas

Pretty cool, huh?

I think so. So much so that I ended up buying two of the books he made from him.

I love that my boy is this creative.

A few months ago we had an idea for a fun little promo here at ABP.

The idea was simple: Why not make a photo of myself in front of a few ad agencies here in Charlotte? As if I was on a tour of agencies in Charlotte and had my photo made in front of them -- kind of like people do in front of Cinderella's castle at Disney World or in front of Niagra Falls or the Grand Canyon.

The next step was to turn the photos into postcards with a nice big "Greetings from Charlotte" slapped onto the front of the postcard, like so.

Armando Bellmas in front of Wray Ward © Armando Bellmas

Armando Bellmas in front of BooneOakley © Armando Bellmas

As you can tell, I wore a loud Hawaiian shirt, big shorts, socks pulled up to my knees, and slip on loafers to add to the cheesy tourist vibe.

Armando Bellmas in front of LKM © Armando Bellmas

Armando Bellmas in front of Corder Philips © Armando Bellmas

How I did it was simple: I visited all the agencies very early on a Sunday morning to keep the project as stealth as possible. I put a camera on a tripod, set the timer, ran to my spot, waved, and smiled.

I was only hassled by security once.

Armando Bellmas in front of Luquire George Andrews © Armando Bellmas

The final touch came on the back of the postcard. I wrote variations on "Having a great summer! Wish I was there!" and sent the postcards to the art buyers, art directors, and creative directors at each agency.

I've received great feedback from a few of the folks that received the postcards. And best of all, the postcard was the push I needed to finally get in and work with one of the bigger shops here in town.

Success!

What I liked most about this promo campaign was that is was quick and easy. No marketing plan, no nothing. We came up with the idea on a Wednesday, shot it on Sunday, designed the cards on Monday, sent them to print on Monday night, got them back a week later, and put them in the mail the following day.

Easy and effective. I like it that way.

Hey hey creative folks — it’s time for this month’s What could this photo be a print ad for? contest.

The contest is simple. Tell me, what could this photo be a print ad for?

© Armando Bellmas

Put your ideas in the comments section below. The best answer will be chosen by a panel of Armando Bellmas Photographer associates on Thursday, March 19, 2009.

Our winner will receive a 8×10 inch print of this photograph.

So spread the word and let’s hear your ideas. Come on, get really creative with it!

I thrive on collaborations with other creative folks.

Art directors, designers, other photographers, painters, writers -- I just love the flow of ideas that comes from putting creative minds together and the process of shaping them into something more.

It makes me feel truly alive.

So when I came across this video recently I was elated. It's a collaboration between filmmaker, graphic designer, artist, and director Mike Mills; writer, director, artist, and poser Miranda July; and musicians Blonde Redhead. And it's brilliant.

One of the things that pushes Mills, July, and even the members of Blonde Redhead to come together to make a video like this is their diverse means of self-expression. They draw, film, direct, perform, write, and create -- constantly.

That relentless pursuit of the muse -- no matter which road they chose to chase after it on -- only makes them more worldly, more able to choose the form of expression that best suits the idea.

This recent article on David Byrne's show at Radio City Music Hall by Vanity Fair's Michael Hogan speaks to this diversity.

Blown away by the performance Byrne puts on during his Everything That Happens Will Happen Today tour, Hogan writes:

So here’s my theory on why Byrne is so youthful, and why his concert felt as contemporary and relevant as any Bowery Ballroom set by the latest blogosphere buzz band: the guy keeps up. He doesn’t sit around all day reminiscing with his fellow dessicated rock stars. He reads, he thinks, he sees art and film and music. And his creative portfolio is radically diversified. He paints, draws, blogs, directs, runs a record label, composes for film, composes for dance, designs funky bike racks, and god knows what else.

There's a common sliver of creative DNA running through Byrne, Mills, July, and every other artist that is still relevant, still working, still exciting and excited, still creating beyond their best known medium.

Each brings a variety of methods and experiences to the table, making the collaboration, the art, and the experience more diverse. Sometimes the results are amazing and sometimes far from it. The upshot is: come what may.

Not only is it a great way to make a living, it's a great way to live.

Jamie Tao is an art director, designer, and illustrator (among other things) based in Miami. She has a bunch of lovely and imaginative work on her website, such as this one from her batch of personal stuff.

© Jamie Tao

One of my favorite parts of her website is the opening page.

Under what looks like a Polaroid snap of Miami’s man-made grid of lakes, quarries, and a land ripe for strip malls and subdivisions, taken from a descending airplane, Tao writes:

I usually sleep from take-off to landing. I was coming home from one of my recent trips and never really appreciated Miami until I saw it from an airplane. This is home. Welcome.

I agree with Jamie: Miami from an airplane is a sight to see. A flat land divided up into squares and rectangles with various other shapes occasionally dropped in to the grid to break up the pattern. Whether flying in from the swamps of the west or the beaches of the east, Miami from above is a sublime visual spread.

I read Jamie’s passage over and over again as if each reading revealed something I, too, knew but never wrote down or realized. What I realized was this: I never really appreciated Miami myself — my hometown and, for better or worse, the place that helped me become the person I am today — until I saw it from eight hundred miles away.

Take a look at this photo I made of Julie a few weeks ago.

© Armando Bellmas

This photograph makes me happy for a bunch of reasons. The main one being that it’s a shot in the right direction.

As an artist you get this vision of where you want your work to go, where you want it to take you, of what you want it to look like based on the ideas in your head. Sometimes it’s hard to put it into words. This shot, however, does all the talking — it just looks and feels right to me.

This pride in my work jives perfectly with this quote from Kurt Vonnegut (via The Onion’s A.V. Club):

I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ‘If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.’

Yep, this is one of those moments.

I love photographing people. I’m constantly fascinated by the way people dress and carry themselves; by their faces and body shapes; their expressions and mannerisms. Most times, I’m not shy about going up to a person I find interesting and asking if I can make a photo of them.

Which is why this project by photographer Simon Hoegsberg looks and sounds so cool to me. It’s called Faces of New York.

© Simon Hoegsberg

Hoegsberg writes:

Once in a while I see a person on the street who immediately attracts my attention. I’m fascinated by the appearance of the person and feel a strong urge to walk over and say hi.

I know that impulse well. Check out Hoegsberg’s whole Faces of New York series.

I always like seeing ad agencies get a little nuts with a campaign (as long as it’s appropriate, of course).

In an article titled “Why Weird & Wonderful Often Works” Paul Isakson considers TBWA \ Chiat \ Day’s latest campaign for Skittles candy:

It’s strange, polarizing, entertaining and makes you stop, if not to smile, to ask WTF?
…
They can be as strange as they want and the more out there they get, the more people will talk about them and when this talk hits people who like Skittles, they’ll find themselves picking up a bag when they’re in a grocery or convenience store.
…
There’s no need to be so serious when the people who actually do consume the products [e.g., teenagers - ED.] aren’t serious themselves when they’re enjoying them. All we need to do is help them have more fun and give them more reasons to talk about a client’s product.

See a couple of the ads for yourself:

WTF indeed. Love it.

I hit the ground running when I got back home from New York City a couple of weeks ago. I’m just now getting around to processing the film and looking through all the photos I made while walking the streets of lower and midtown Manhattan.

© Armando Bellmas

There are three things I did a lot of while I was in New York City: met a bunch of very creative and interesting people, drank lots of Ketel One, and walked my ass off.

© Armando Bellmas

It was during my seemingly endless walks that I would search for pieces of the city that I could bring home with me in photographs. I didn’t know exactly what I was looking for. It was a vague craving for something that would move me in a different way.

© Armando Bellmas

I had six days to take it all in and I was damn sure going to try to take as much of it home with me as I could. I posted this tweet to Twitter as I wandered down yet another street that I’d never been down before:

Last night here. Wandering around in a futile attempt to take it all back home with me.

Greedy, I know. I wanted to soak up and bring back so much of New York City that I wouldn’t miss it as much as I have after leaving it in the past.

© Armando Bellmas

In the end these photographs, and the countless others still on the contact sheets, have been a wistful reminder of my rambles around lower Manhattan. They capture exactly what I saw and experienced, even if I’m still not sure what I was looking for.

Thelonious Monk / Bob Dylan

I’m reading Bob Dylan’s autobio Chronicles Volume One and came across this great story about Thelonious Monk.

Sometimes [Monk would] be in [the Blue Note club on 3rd Street] in the afternoon sitting at the piano all alone playing stuff that sounded like Ivory Joe Hunter — a big half-eaten sandwich left on top of his piano. I dropped in there one the afternoon, just to listen — told him that I played folk music up the street. “We all play folk music,” he said. Monk was in his own dynamic universe even when he dawdled around.
Even then, he summoned magic shadows into being. [my emphasis]

Wow!

How would like you or what you did to be referred to in such a way?