Category — feminine

Introduction

In preparing for this post, I did a Google search on “Conversations with Edith Head.” This is the Invisible Theatre play currently in production at the Leicester Square Theatre in London through the end of August (2008).  It stars, and was co-written by the Invisible Theatre’s inimitable Susan Classen.

Google’s very first listing was the production’s very own website!  People would pay a lot of money to SEO “experts” for such a ranking.

Kudos aside, what next surprised me was the realization that, from my first pass-through of Invisible Theatre’s website and other online presences, I had never noticed any link or mention of this website.

Putting that insight on the shelf for the moment (we’ll come back to it), I should stop right here to say a few words about the Invisible Theatre and my engagement with it.

Back-Story

If you’ve read in my first post in this series, you know that my wife, Betsy Kruse-Craig, was taken on staff by the Invisible Theatre as an “Artistic Associate.” As for me, I’ve been fascinated by the phenomenon of Social Media and the possibilities that arise out of it’s emergence, and I have been working for over ten years designing and engineering software.  What you are not aware of is that before my career as a software maker began, I was in graduate school studying playwriting and performance.  It was natural, even casual, that Betsy made the request of me that I turn my attention toward the Invisible Theatre.

Not long before her request, I happened to have begun this blog.  It seemed a good mix to write about my process of developing a Social Media strategy for the Invisible Theatre.

So I did.

The Recent Past

This gave birth to my “Social Media Makeover Series.”

My very first post was picked up by Chris Laning, a producer of the podcast “Your Neighborhood Stage: The podcast for everybody who works or plays in community theatre.”  He emailed me, expressing his interest in an interview.

I was grateful for his interest, we made arrangements, and did the interview.  The unexpected thing about the interview was its context.  Chris had arranged to conduct the interview over the Internet, in the virtual world of Second Life.

If you are unaware of Second Life, you’re in the majority.  It’s a free, online virtual 3D (rendered in two dimensions) world.  In the world, you create an avatar (a personalizable, animated self-representation) and you interact in particular locations in a virtual “world” with other people through their own avatars. And you interact directly through voice.  And it’s free.

Unfortunately I hadn’t gotten the head-up from Chris that the interview was going to occur in a virtual world, so I was only present (hooked into the world) via audio.  But my experience, and the interview itself was enhanced by questions from the virtual attendees.

What a great idea!  An online, interactive virtual reality interview.  The idea was totally novel to me, but made perfect sense.

The Present

Yesterday, Chris published the interview, which you can download and listen to.  He entitled it “Social Media and Theatre.”  My only wish is that I had been better able to convey what the Invisible Theatre is.  In the interview, on that account, I totally Fail-Whaled.  My sincerest apologies to Susan Claasen, my wife, and to any of you who hear that part of the interview.

The Future

Chris has inspired me to add podcast versions of my blog entries.  Although I am not starting that just yet, I have already acquired the basic, essential equipment and software to do so.  I just need to rearrange my schedule to fit in the extra requisite time to put out a marginally descent podcast.  In other words, I have a bit more to learn before you’ll be seeing podcast versions of my blog available.

My current thoughts on the Social Media Makeover of the Invisible Theatre will be hitting the pavement after Susan returns from London in September.

Until then, I will keep posting my possibly but not necessarily unrelated thoughts, and working my way towards adding audio feeds (podcasts).

Perhaps you may have wondered this question yourself.

As I’ve gained some technical competence in the area of photography I have been, of late, trying to answer for myself the question “what kind of photography do you want to do?”  This question was recently asked of me by my godfather, a well-established photographer for about as long as I’ve been alive, and someone whose work fundamentally instilled in me a love of the photographic form.  When he asked me this question a couple months ago, I didn’t have a ready response.

Perhaps now I can begin to answer his question.

In all sincerity, I don’t enjoy doing general portraiture for its own sake.  This includes families, events, and weddings.  I loove good photography of almost any nature, but I’ve tried these forms on for size, and found that none of them capture  my heart.  I suspect that the best way forward in regard to such forms may be to combine talents with my wife, who is an excellent director, with an excellent eye for composition and an amazing ability to be with people.  Together, to specialize in wedding photography, would bring much more enjoyment to such endeavors.

For myself, what I do enjoy (and this is something that has never changed since I was quite young) is the beauty of the female form.  Every young boy at some point has probably said, in safe company, that they wanted to be a Playboy photographer when they grow up.  I did.  From what I understand, it is almost a rite of passage.  While I do not aspire to actually take pictures for that magazine, I do appreciate well-composed and executed photography of the female form.  As an old friend of mine related to me that his mother once said, “There is nothing more beautiful than a beautiful woman.”

Two of my favourite photographers on Flickr happen to be beautiful women who, with some regularity, take incredible photographs using as their model their own selves.  They also happen to be two of the most popular photographers on Flickr (to see the following links, you’ll need to take a moment and sign up!), and their reputation is moving quickly into other parts of the world.

My favourite (and first encountered) of these two is the Icelandic beauty Rebekka Gudleifsdottir.  She is a highly creative photographer who I would say is at her best when she combines sublime landscapes with figures in the foreground.  These might take the form of wild Icelandic horses, or human models, including herself.  If you’ve never seen her work before, it’s not too late to hop on the bandwagon.  She’s got a lot of devout followers!  Again, you’ll have to sign up for Flickr to see them.  (Don’t worry — it’s free, and totally worthwhile!)

The second of my favourites (and she is no runner-up) is Carmen Gonzales, of the Netherlands.  Another Flickr celebrity (Flilebrity?), Carmen evokes a beatiful, dreamlike experience in her imagery, in which she oftentimes prominently figures.  She is also quite effective both in her use of other models and in creating otherworldly landscapes.  She recently posted an absolutely killer photo which represents the latter.

I’ve invoked both of these photographers primarily as exemplars in the way they express the beauty and intricacy of their own selves in their photography.  If I were a woman as photogenically gorgeous as these two, I’d be set,  But, alas, I’m a 40-year-old man who has (momentarily) fallen out of shape in the wake of raising two children.  It’s a shitty excuse, but it is what it is.  And while I am eager to get myself “cut” again I am, for the moment, generally uninterested in taking pictures of myself.

I love beautiful pictures of beautiful women.  Thankfully, perhaps, I am able to see beauty past the superficial level.  It is in fact difficult for me, with any level of scrutiny, to see much real beauty beyond where it exists only superficially.

As the grown-up (?) version of a child who inherited some portion of Puritanical mores, it’s far too easy for me to see this as a bad thing.  At the same time, however, it is a worthwhile challeng for me to even pursue my stated the claim that I would love to do nothing more with my photography than take gorgeous photographs of beautiful women.  What bliss!

This is something I’ve only just begin to explore and is, ironically, difficult territory for me to navigate.  We shall see how it goes…

I hope it goes well.