Mimetic Muscles: The Muscles of Expression

Left: Canon AE-1 Program (1981) Right: Canon A-1 (1978) with a Canon FD 50mm 1.8 lens

          I believe anyone who chooses to pursue any type of art form and finds a piece of them selves in the art form has an obligation to go back to the geneses to pay your dues to the art form that in many ways has probably saved your life. I know it sounds profound, but I do feel its something natural and is an assignment given to us by nature itself. My fascination with photography led to my love to photography which then led to my respect to photography and since Ive gained that respect I knew that if I wanted to sleep at night I’d have to pay my respects. I couldn’t continue to ignorantly shoot, learn, use photography with out ultimately understanding it. I plan to misunderstand photography until I die because that would mean I would for ever learn from it, and that keeps me human instead of a godly egoist as many artists become. This is called humbleness, and its a virtue I see many of my fellow artists skip over like a puddle on the road to perceived success. In my case photography feeds my family, it pays my rent, it keeps me, a misplaced individual on the planet in a relative sane place. Photography was that stray life vest that came out of no where for me where in the horizon all I could see was the vast abyss.
          Ive always felt guilty shooting in digital photography. The idea that I some how should be credited with the photo that appears on the screen with barely putting out an effort. I knew this long ago and its why when I starting shooting professionally I trained my self in fully understanding what my camera was doing when I took a shot. I did that so I can take away as much credit from the camera as I could. I didn’t want to get stuck in the quick sand of auto exposures, aperture priority or shutter priority (all types of auto exposures). I need to feel confident that any work produced from my camera and perceived as any level of art was due to me. I feel I did reach that point, but a part of me still felt empty. Again I didn’t want to get stuck in one place, comfortable with the “high” quality work I was creating accompanied by the cheers and congratulations I often received. The idea is that if you have found a comfort zone then its time to move out of it.
          So now I have decided to venture into film photography. A place that I truly believe the magic happens in your presence and no where else. A place where you can feel the art created in your own hands literally, not an alternate dimension like digital photography where anyone of us would be hard pressed to understand any scientist who dares explain to us how the process of photography occurs digitally. Most of us don’t care how the photo came to be, we just care that it did. That there is whats wrong with our society. If I can see the total state of ignorance in our so called photography artists then I can safely assume that this type of ignorance lies in all places. Ive used this knowledge to measure human kind. In this society we praise our artists as the eye openers, as the untouched, and still grounded on earth. But I know that even this territory has been tainted, and most of us are oblivious to it. I feel that I am on a great road. Picking up this film camera is making me a better person.
          I look forward to experimenting with all aspects of film photography. I’ll start with 35mm (color & black & white), where I’ll have great portability. Ive gone ahead  and purchased 2 35mm film cameras from Canon. The Canon AE-1 Program from 1981 and the Canon A-1 from 1978. Watching artists like Annie Leibovitz and believe it or not, Bill Cunningham wield these 35mm cameras has really inspired me and injected a ton of confidence into this journey. There after I plan to wander into medium format photography and then of course large format photography. Somewhere there in the middle I plan to learn the dark room (where you develop your own photos). look forward to seeing some of my 1st film work, here on my blog. I also plan to post them on my personal face book.

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          So its been 8 months since I last posted about Damien Walters and now he’s a little bit more prominent online and YouTube. Still not a whole lot known about him, its been confirmed that he was a stunt double for Luke Goss (Prince Nuada) in 2008′s “Hellboy II: The Golden Army”, and for Aaron Johnson (Kick-Ass) in 2010′s “Kick-Ass”. He is also listed as the assistant fight coordinator for the previous mentioned film. It is unconfirmed that he doubled in 2009′s “Ninja Assassin”.
          By the way, if you haven’t got a chance to see Kick-Ass, then you must. It is so far the most entertaining/fun film of 2010. Either way look out for a movie event at my home when this movie is released on Blu-ray this year.
          So it looks like Damien releases whats called a “ShowReel” video every year. I was able to find them from 2006 through 2010 excluding 2008 (Maybe he was too busy?).
          As you watch the videos you see how much better and bolder Damien becomes. Again he proves how much of a physical artist he is and pushes the limit on what we humans think we are capable of doing.

          Along side Damien Walters on the Kick-Ass set, this little guy doubled for Chloe Moretz (Hit-Girl), and after you see his ShowReel You’ll see that he’s heading towards the same skill level as Damien himself (at least according to the video). He is 13 years old and has already won silver in the World Tumbling Championships. He is also a six-time British Champion within his age group. Damien Walters is currently training him.

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          It pretty hard to find anything online about this guy. According to Wikipedia he represented the United Kingdom in the 2003 (Hannover, Germany) & 2005 ( Eindhoven, Netherlands) Trampoline World Championships coming in 5th both times.
          He’s also started to do some stunt work and has so far worked as a stunt double for Luke Goss (Prince Nuada) in 2008′s “Hellboy II: The Golden Army”. He’s also currently working on the James McTeigue & Wachowski Brothers new film which I suspect is “Ninja Assassin” slated to hit theaters November 25th 2009.
          I’ll make sure to either update this post or create a new one, if anything new from him arises.

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          Just the other day I was invited to my good friend Yassers mothers home for a quick dinner, after a tiresome 15 mile/5 hour bicycle tour. As me and Yasser sat out in her balcony enjoying the rest and delicious food, Milady’s decided to sit with us and talk it up a bit. We covered topics from family to Yassers childhood to the philosophy of life. I guess she felt that it was the right time with the right people to show a video that she was really fond of. Honestly I was really tired and just wanted to go home, but like a great guest I followed her to the bed room where she powered up her desktop to retrieve the video from her email. Before she started the video she asked me and Yasser if we understood well spoken spanish (implying that this wasn’t the typical hood spanish we are accustomed to), and we answered “yes” of course. Again I was really tired and was planing to just hear the video and not listen and then proceed to bullshit her when she asked me what I thought. In other words “I wasn’t in the mood”. But I thought twice about this and I decided that she didn’t deserve that, being that she was being such a good host and made me feel real comfortable.
          I am so glad that I decided to listen instead of hear before she pressed play, because I would have missed out on such inspiring work. Again, art is like a great boxer, you never know where its gonna hit you from. Once the video stopped, I was left stunned and unable to express to her how incredible this was in my Washington Heights broken down spanish. The best I could do was ” Si, me gusto mucho” as I wiped another never ending stream of sweat from my forehead. I immediately asked her to forward me the email. When I got home I did some research and even listened to some of his music. I fell in love with his work. In so many ways, it reminds me of my state of mind… in so many ways. I hope you late generation Hispanics understand it well enough to appreciate it, while non spanish speaking folks I offer you an “I’m sorry”.

Song title: No Soy De Aqui, Ni Soy De Alla
Artist: Facundo Cabral
Album: Epoca de Oro (1998)

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          So many thoughts, feelings and emotions go through me when I watch this documentary. Its such inspiring work that it evokes my passion and motivation. Sometimes its hard to express to others what art is and means to you. I really respect when a piece of work is so abstract but the artist can articulate its meaning in the most eloquent way possible.
          To me its wasn’t just tire tracks of paint that Robin Rhode and the BMW team were recording, its was more like expression. Its just wouldn’t be art if Robin couldn’t express what he felt as he was doing it.
          I really appreciate how engaging the film is. An incredible job was done with the editing and sound track of the video. I want you guys to really pay attention to the detail in this film. Another thing I really appreciate is the fact that Robin never referred to the car even though this was an advertisement project for BMW. Instead he focused on the art project. The promotion of the car is a result of the piece of art work.
          To me it was just the 4 wheels of the car, the canvas, the driver and finally the painter.

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