ex opere operatis*

I’m putting off cleaning the bathroom…

You know the problem with complacency? Lack of rants…

Let us revisit the topic of image capture and torture for a moment.

As I wield lens more and more often I find that people ask me to shoot them.. This was expected as a matter of fact it is marginally encouraged, and so when an acquaintance from the past asked for my assistance shooting a “nudish” calendar for Greenpeace I shrugged my shoulders and acquiesced… there was a thought scrabbling around the back of my head.

So I blew off a day of work and the chores needed to be done that day and drove my ass into the city, got to the spot I was sposed to be at (early ) and waited. I came prepared , I had done my research ( looking at pin up throughout the ages) I had all of my equipment ( not a major task there as I am a guerrilla photog) … First the co-producer of the calendar showed up .. She looked at my portfolio and spurted out “ ohmy god you’re a pornographer!!” ( first red flag ) .. she then said “ well we are doing a pin up calendar but like the old ones nothing raunchy” ( red flag number b) when the model ( and other co -producer )showed up .. We discussed general idea’s about the shoot .. Including the items of clothing being worn. She said she wanted to focus on the political message of the theme for the month of September ( local produce … the shoot was taking place at a great green grocers on jasper ave… not planet organic..) this set the klaxon off in my head.

Upon discussion, the model/producer/director/anything else that popped into her head told me the goal was to produce a pinup calendar that would not objectify the model.

The getaway was clean and fast, I think I left my wallet, camera, tripod, left testicle and a few choice words on the ground as I sped away…. but when you do a belly role over a concrete barricade and scamper under a garbage truck you have to take a few losses.

No I didn’t do the shoot.

I get the idea that burlesque could be a way to empower women, I get the idea that certain “n” words can be used to bash away one stereo type, and I get the idea that you can use sex to sell a morally sound ideal. But lets cut away the crap for a moment.

Certain words that were at one point used to cut and scar people , still have the same effect when used by the wrong people. And really all they do when used by the people who they were originally directed at is shock bystanders… it’s like the word “f ck” right lenny bruce?


Try it, use it a lot , and eventually it will sound to you like the word “probate“. But even as you become desensitised to it …use it in a bank, or chapel, at your workplace ( it wouldn’t phase most workplaces most of the time sooo scratch that) use it at a restaurant where more than 2 forks are on the table. It will mark you as a low I.Q. thug to everyone around you… will that change what you truly are inside? NO. but it will make anything out of your mouth after that pale in importance.



The absolute truth of western civilisation is that we are a giant pachinko game. There are totally concrete lines as to where we will end up .. The path is part gravity , part luck.. The pins we bounce off are the societal rules and metaphorical obstacles we trip ourselves up with and there are the other steel balls…


Got that part? Good from here on out it gets a little confusing


Think of yourself as a steel ball but instead of being perfectly round you got minor variations .. This will make you bounce differently depending on how you hit the pin… now consider you have a messed up magnetic charge ( and for this purpose the rules of magnetism are reversed .. Opposites repel )

As you go your bumps and general shape changes, and you will attract like charged balls.. This will change your direction and speed and as a group you all will bounce differently… The larger your group the greater the magnetism.. And the stronger you repel the opposite… a lone ball will be pushed far by a large group of opposition and greatly attracted to the large group of sameness.. Spend enough time in one large group and your charge becomes similar to theirs.. So similar that you may lose your original charge and just be like theirs


You see where I am going with all of this… while we all go down and we all bounce off the pins and each other….how we change shape and charges and direction is a dictated by all those around us..
So far so good ..yes?
Guess what my point is?
Nope!

My point is at the heart we are all steel balls… steel… we fall at the same speed, we melt at the same temperature… we dent from the same pressure… we all corrode when subjected to moisture… steel… we react to things exactly the same way… it is the base nature of steel…


If I say “ I am a princess” every day for an hour .. It doesn’t change the fact I am a huge ugly gap toothed skin head with a glorious beard ( truly my beard is perfect ) …

Using sex to sell a calendar is still using sex to sell a calendar. People will buy the calendar to see the person.. Not because of the cause.. If that were the case then there would be no need to have models.. A picture of broccoli would serve just as well, or the travelling gnome ( or even a non-corporate sponsored gnome ) …


And the idea of a pin up calendar that does not objectify the model is absurd. The goal is to use the base nature of mankind to make him consider higher aspects of life and choices.. The naked news made people pay attention to news in greater numbers.. More people get their dose of current affairs from Colbert and Stewart…do you really think obama got in because of his charming wit or even totally because the state of affairs under the present president is bleak.. Or was it partially because he was lauded by those that make us laugh…

Burlesque may empower women but it works because it is about poking the beast within. Shock jocks and rap artists use graphic words and verbal imagery to chip our veneer and make us listen … lenny bruce wasn’t brilliant he was just bright… curse and people stare, get them to stare long enough, hold their attention long enough and they will listen.. When they listen then you have them by the balls.

But to get there we have to tickle the lizard brain… I still think the idea of the calendar is a brilliant idea, but letting ultra conservative views of what is and what is not pornography craft the artistic content of it is hobbling it before it starts.

I swear some of these social “liberals” are far more repressed than their right wing Christian fanatic “conservatives”… in the end I guess it is up to us to decide how we censor the world. But I will not let another person dictate my content or label me a pornographer because my images may or may not fire the neutrons in their brain that fondles their loins.



Use the weapons of the oppressive bastards against them and then when they are a bloody pulp under your feet you can pound the swords into ploughshares… but leave my blade alone... if it dulls... it will be by my hand , not yours, and if you hire my arm there should be enough silver behind your order to carry weight ( i am mercenary i am a whore but ... people get paid!) …

Thus ends the lesson

*from the work of the one working