through your hand

no shield

In 1997, I had lived in London for may be a year and I still believed in the magic. I used to work behind the bar of a Charing Cross nightclub and in a menswear shop in Covent Garden. British Journal of Photography used to have their offices above that shop and the editor at the time was a regular client. When he learned that I had come to London in the hope of breaking through as a photographer, he offered to include my profile in their young photographer section. I was thrilled...I thought my time had come. Then came....I'm going to let Thom Yorke of Radiohead say it, because he says things the way I mean them:   

            Prove Yourself
 I can't afford to breathe in this town
 nowhere to sit without a gun in my hand
 look back up to the cathode ray
 I'm better off dead
 I'm better off dead
 I'm better off...
 Prove yourself
 Prove yourself
 Prove yourself
 I want to breathe, I want to grow
 I say I want it, but I don't know how
 I look, I bleed, I beg and pray
 I'm better off dead
 I'm better off dead
 I'm better off...
 Prove yourself
 (why.....?)
 Prove yourself
 Prove yourself

 ©Radiohead- 1993

and because I didn't know how to prove myself to content the editors, the art directors, the art buyers, I became really confused about what being a photographer was about and I stuck to serving Southern Comfort and selling hooded tops. Luckily, I kept on taking polaroids, and printing very dark portraits of friends or dead baby rabbits and enjoying myself. I got better at understanding what photography was about. But most importantly, I stop caring as to getting published or receiving a pat on the shoulder. I glued hundreds of photos in scrap book, until I got so bored of my own self-obsession, I rang a friend and suggested that after 20 years of trying to build a pyramid on my own, I would like to build a shed in the back garden and would she help me to nail the boards. I'll spare you a long blurb about the philosophy of failure and success. I have a few 6x4 prints to glue. 

a

goldpeg

 I download my 11 photographs of the week. I choose 5, I upload them; one of them is accidently deleted. I leave it at that. I choose the sequence at which the images are being seen. I leave it at that.

I'm listening to Indian music from a beautiful documentary being played on C4, which you can see in full length but really bad quality here Dhrupad a film by Mani Kaul .

Before that I watched Exit through the gift shop, the first feature film by English street angry but nice artist Banksy. and that blew me away (I'm a bit tired from this afternoon swimming). That film sure woke me up. It's pure genius in the way that Being John Malkovich was. It made me so happy to see something that was not about money. I have great admiration for filmmaker who have the insight of giving us much more than what they said they would. This is not only a documentary about street art, a comedy about a childish selfish bohemian nouveau riche but an acid self-critical mockumentary about selling out and the contemporary art market. I wish I could sing.