© Armando Bellmas

Musician Ken Vandermark is the subject of an aptly titled television program called Musician. I stumbled upon this show recently on the Ovation cable network. It was great to catch a glimpse of Vandermark at work, at home, and on the road.

Vandermark is devoted to his craft, true to his vision, and is driven to make it successful both creatively and professionally. He’ll always be an important figure in my own creative/professional endeavors (especially since he was one of my first “clients” way back at the beginning).

Play on, KV.

The Vandermark 5 “Aperture (For Walker Evans)” (6:45)
from A Discontinuous Line

I recently read Brian Morton’s novel Starting Out In The Evening and was struck by this passage on “the glory of choosing your own life, even when it takes ruthlessness to do it.”

You seize your freedom in a spirit of rebelliousness, exuberance, defiant joy. But to live that choice — over the weeks and months and years to come — requires different qualities. It requires that you turn hard, turn rigid. Because it isn’t a choice that the world encourages, you have to wear a suit of armor to defend it.

© Armando Bellmas

They don’t come any prettier than my girl Sophie.

© Joshua Wildman

I first got turned on to Joshua Wildman’s photos a few years ago via The FADER. This photo is from a recent post on his blog JOSHUAWILDMANGOODTIMES and is accompanied by the following caption:

i don’t know who made this poster, but i look at it everyday in my living room and it makes me feel good

Indeed.

The Ramones by The Ramones (1976) / Cover photo by Roberta Bayley

From a recent email from my four-year-old son Nick’s preschool teacher:

We also were entertained by Nick and Steven singing and acting out a song we sing called “Five Green and Speckled Frogs.” After singing this song for a few minutes, Nick decided he would rather sing a Ramones song. He kept trying to get Steven to sing “Hey, Ho, Let’s Go.” Steven looked confused but sang along anyway.

The Ramones “Blitzkrieg Bop”
from The Ramones

© Armando Bellmas

Shot with a Holga. Light leaks and all.

I go back and forth about posting work by other photographers on this blog. The primary reason I do it is to show work that influences me and pushes my own work forward. (See here and here.)

I always come back to an old Cuban saying my Mom and my grandmother Mimi use to tell me all the time — in Spanish, of course — while I was growing up:

Dime con quién andas y te diré quién eres.

This is literally translated as “Tell me with whom you walk and I will tell you who you are” and loosely translated as “A man is known by the company he keeps”.

I’ve always been a little suspect of the phrase. Just because I keep the company of a certain person doesn’t mean that I am like that person or that their ways are mine. However, that may still be the rebellious kid in me bucking the parental wisdom.

The funny thing is that I keep coming back to that proverb every time I consider posting the work of influential photographers and artists on this blog. It’s as if a part of me truly believes the proverb to hold some truth.

I’m thrilled that I can find and wax rhapsodical about connections between people that inspire me and my own creative process. Making and finding meaning in those connections pushes me to be more passionate about my work and my life.

So yeah, I will likely continue to post influential work alongside my own work around here. My influences and inspirations are the company I keep. I couldn’t be more proud to walk with them.

Andrea, Catalina Beach © Baldomero Fernandez

This photograph by Baldomero Fernandez has been a favorite of mine for a few years now. It, along with much of Baldomero’s work, has been an inspiration and a guidepost for my own work.

There’s a sense of tension and mystery in this photo. The telephone appears to play a significant role in the story. However, the woman’s gaze is not on the phone itself but on something beyond the camera’s view.

Is someone coming towards or looking back at her? Is she staring off into space, lost in a thought, thinking whether she should call or not? Is the phone ringing, the woman choosing to look away and ignore it?

This photograph makes me want to linger for a while. It makes me want to know more about it. And, most importantly, it makes me want to create photographs that have a similar impact.