All posts by REB
Boundless
Women Are Water
Gracie at Woodlawn Lake
I shot this sequence to be part of a video backdrop to a dance performance. The theme, as I recall, was the innocence of youth. And when I learned that the music would be this Philip Glass track, I thought something bittersweet and in slow motion. So I conscripted my young friend, Gracie. We toured some of the areas around Woodlawn Lake. I love the lens flares and the high contrasted from the setting sun. Sadly, the choreographer decided against using this piece. Too bad. But I love it. An almost perfect depiction of heartbreak and nostalgia.
The Man You’ve Become
This is another video I provided for Aaron Richmond-Havel’s peripatetic performance art birthday event at Hampshire College back in 2012. He asked if I could get our friend Pamela Dean-Kenny to lip-sync this somewhat saccharine song as though Pam was a drunken mother at her son’s wedding. Here is a lengthy (and partial) video documentation of Aaron’s grand event, “Penny’s Big 21: Rites of Passage and Pleasure.”
A Life Ephemeral (and) Ascent
Carpa
Instagram: The Movie
Instagram quickly became my favorite toy when I loaded it onto my iPhone a few years back. It took me a while to jump aboard the trend. I had spent so many years lusting after higher and higher resolution for digital images, that the thought of working smaller seemed so retrograde. But when some of my photographer friends showed me what they were doing on this platform–creating breathtaking images in miniature, with a cellphone, no less–I had to get in as well. This video is the first of several fast-moving slideshows I’ve made of some of my Instagram images.
Padre Island With Shimi
This little clip is just some playing around during a trip out to Padre Island with some members of the Carpa production. The play had a fair amount of video projection, and we really wanted to shoot a scene with the ocean. So, before the light was just right to shoot our mermaid being returned to the ocean, I followed Shimi into the surf with my Canon 7D. This was basically my first visit to the beach as an adult. I never before understood why people thought it was so fun. But it is! Fun enough to risk my camera.
Penny’s Big 21
This cries out for some context, doesn’t it? A friend of mine, Aaron Richmond-Havel, was heading back to college after a summer break at home in San Antonio. He wanted to make a film with me to commemorate his upcoming 21st birthday. But he also wanted this short film to be used in a multi-venue evening-long performance art collaboration planned for his return to his Hampshire College campus. He wanted something in drag, along the San Antonio River Walk, and all very messy with cake and poorly-applied makeup. I decided to shoot both slow motion and regular speed. I like how this turned out. I did go a bit heavy-handed on the Magic Bullet color and vignette effects, but really, who’s looking at the post-production work? (For more Aaron, here’s a YouTube link to his commencement at Hampshire 2013 doing a dance number at the podium–I do hope that the wonderful Amy Goodman, who was the Keynote Speaker, was not only still in attendance, but seated on stage.)