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Photography Light Play

If there were a hell out there floating around in another mystical dimension that was crafted for each individual, perhaps in a Sartre “No Exit” kind of way, this image,

would be close to mine.

“But what a happy nice shiny mall filled with all the accoutrements of modern American living!”, you might say. I can appreciate that sentiment and can offer no better alternative to congregating a lot of people who have to spend their money somewhere. Might as well be a place such as that depicted above, right? At least it’s clean.

The photo is of the corporate mall area around the Glendale Arena in the Phoenix area taken in the early evening after shooting interviews for a documentary about hockey. (That was fun. Old hockey guys love telling stories about beating the crap out of people…but I digress. This is all about hell and hockey is the opposite of hell.)

I’ve been pondering this on and off for the past few days trying to figure out what it is that causes me to see this as a kind of hell, just one level in what are most likely innumerable levels some of which contain only ice cream. One that is insidious in that it’s not like the obvious hell of a concentration camp, a wrongful imprisonment, torture, or even a political convention where one might encounter the minions of Satan doing his bidding. Westgate pales in comparison, and yet…

Back in the late 90’s I fell into a job at a wildly creative ad agency in NYC that had cool clients and produced some great ads. I knew nothing of advertising at the time. They had hired me to manage their IT infrastructure. I was a stereotypical geek living in a bubble of lofty ideas and intellectual machinations who had little care for encountering the everyday world. So when I began to work in advertising it quite literally blew my mind. “People are that easily influenced? No way!” Way.

What I learned from those years was that anyone can be manipulated. I was being manipulated all the time and I had no clue. You’re being manipulated right now. Look at the messages and logos around you. I’m trying to manipulate you with these words. Every single person involved in the modern world economic system is pushed, prodded, pulled, and fondled ever so lovingly by a sea of cynical bastards who would do anything to get the money in from your pockets. This is not arguable. It is the unadulterated absolute truth. Anyone who denies this is either a liar or a fool or a minion of Satan. Most likely they are all three.

I’ve been part of that system, I’m still part of that system. How does this light effect the mood of the image which is being created to display a product in a glorious luscious way so that you WANT it RIGHT NOW!!! I’m a minion of Satan too. We all are. HA HA!

Buy my music! Buy my photos! Buy the food I’ve lovingly created! You need a new handbag! Buy this phone with a camera, keyboard and if you hold it on your genitals a warm fuzzy feeling! Buy this coffee! Buy this computer! You’d be happier if you had this ring on your finger! He’ll love you more if you wear this negligee! You’d be smarter if you read this magazine! You’ll be adored by hot chicks everywhere if you were just savvy enough to drink this hand crafted imported micro brew from Tibet made from real ceramic-filtered yak urine!

This is the proverbial system we live in. It is our world.

And it’s one reason I spend so much time in deserts and mountains these days. It is quite rare to be accosted by the same six songs pipped into your brain when you’re 100 miles (that’s 160 km for everyone else in the world) from electricity. And I say this well aware of the contradiction that while I’m out there in the wilderness alone, meditating and doing breathing exercises in a kind of monk enlightenment quest, I’m carrying a camera that’s so sophisticated it would explode the minds of the pioneer photographers with the simplicity of taking a photo in the most complicated exposure situations or the speed of the focus while following a moving object. Those guys would kill for the Nikon D700 I’m shooting with these days and the MacBook Pro I just used to tidy up some stills I shot at the interviews. It took me seconds to make corrections that would have taken Ansel Adams a week of 12 hour days to make with traditional chemicals and printing.

That is the beauty of the system that demands your money all the time. It’s the hook and how it gets you. Better! Faster! Stronger! Amazing new discovery! This is important and should never be forgotten because this technology that allows us to do these tasks and billions more is so freaking mind blowing. We’re almost wizards to people from 50 years ago and we’re the elder gods to people 2000 years ago who couldn’t even conceive of such magic much less begin to understand how I could hit little buttons on a silver block and they show up instantly a continent away.

And yet…

I stood under a giant TV in the Westgate mall in Glendale and watched an ad use the American flag and pseudo-patriotism to sell even more crap to people who don’t need it. It may even be the only time in my life I was offended. Not because I’m a patriot who loves God country apple pie moms guns farms horses righteousness sandwiches hot dogs and all the other cliched notions beloved by people and spouted all the time by the manipulative of the world. Nor am I one of the silly liberal fools who just want everyone to get along man and economics don’t matter the imperialist US is evil guns kill gay marriage let’s pee on a cross and shit on a dog and call it art and give me government money for it while I crank out another kid because I’m too lazy to go get a condom and I need government money for that too.

I stood there in that mall, alone because the group had moved on chatting and happy the way people should be, and actually yelled out “That is an abomination!”

A giant waving American flag cynically used in an ad next to yet another giant ad screaming about a crappy beer while 20 different sound systems played 20 different songs and more ads and the notion that I was in hell overwhelmed me.

Everything had become a perversion of itself. Nothing sacred. Nothing sacrosanct. Everything with a price.

[note: Bill Hicks, one of the greatest stand up philosophers, covered this topic in much more funny and insightful way but I never really felt it in my bones until that moment so forgive me my blather as I work through my own thoughts]

All the ideals we hold dear, that so much of the world have adopted, were just another tool to sell shit. Men die every day in the deserts thousands of miles away from their families or are blown up and disfigured. Meanwhile the likes of Rush Limbaugh wraps his sweaty crotch in the flag or the likes of Charles Rangel figure out ways to scam the tax system for which he writes the laws. Billionaires tell us it will all go down if we don’t help them out. Al Gore tells the world to stop using fossil fuels or we will all drown from melting ice while his many estates use enough fossil fuels to power a city. Get the gov’ment out of my Medicare! I leave the identification of ALL the hypocrisies/etc of the modern to the reader who might just be bored enough to pay attention as listing them could fill up the internet and it would be a shame to waste precious electrons.

Outrage…it’s glorious fun isn’t it?  I wish I had an answer. Maybe this is the best it can be? Wouldn’t that suck? Maybe we should question everything. Every single thing anyone tells you all the time. Even the American flag.

Thanks for listening to me revel in righteous indignation and being part of my action adventure dream. Enjoy the photos. I’m going to go hug a tree…or something. Trees rarely will try to sell you anything or scream an on-point message at you and that’s just nice.