mardi 10 juillet 2012

gated.

a photo I took and developed for my film photography class. can anyone guess the location? :-)

jeudi 14 juin 2012

pair of socks.

This was my final project for my Fashion Journalism class. It turned out rather nice, but I couldn't figure out where exactly I would like to have it published, if anywhere.

The model was a great sport. I don't think he'd posed for a camera before, but in the end I think he thought, even for a moment, that he could make a career of it.

My professor liked the project at least.

Behold, my exposé on the world of men's underfootwear.
(Best viewed as double-paged. Not sure hot to accomplish that with Scribd.)

Socks

Thanks, O.

mercredi 13 juin 2012

all for love.

Annals of Crime : The Chameleon

Somehow in 2008, I did not read this, though it is a fascinating and chilling article from the New Yorker.

The story of Frédéric Bourdin, a French con artist who, for all of his skill in lies and persuasion, didn't do it for the money. But for "love."

The world can be a cold place.

dimanche 10 juin 2012

ideas.

This summer, I'm taking a film photography course. 35mm camera, dark room, rolls of film. The whole she-bang.

As was said the first day of class, our final project will be a collection of photographs tied together by a theme. Paris seems like the perfect place to do it. But it's been a struggle to find something that I want to take pictures of. 

I've been falling in and out of love with this city for awhile. My time here can be summed up in a simple metaphor. Often in Paris, it rains and pours. It's cold. It's grey. But out of nowhere, you'll have a day when the sun appears and warmly kisses your skin. The wind blows your dress, and you're afraid that people will see your underwear, but it's because you're not wearing tights (thank the gods!). You can lie down on some grass because it is neither damp, nor cold enough to run inside.

Everything feels perfect.

And then, the next day it rains and pours.

Were there ever sun nymphs in the mythologies? Surely, because I have to be a descendant of one as light and heat are obligatory to my existence. 

To tie this back in with my photography course, I want to take pictures of moments that one may never see. Maybe only the sun sees. Not necessarily beautiful, because my eyes haven't seen only beautiful things. 

That's my wish, my idea, for the moment. I hope to have this fleshed out soon. A game plan is in order.

mardi 22 mai 2012

the lady is al(ways) right.


Photo taken by me at Musée de Louvre

Spelling errors aside, this is one of my favorite statues in the Louvre. Though I'm not religious or spiritual, there is power in gods, if only because humans themselves have conceived their identity.

vendredi 11 mai 2012

socks.


Had a great model for a class assignment! Thought I would share a photo that I really liked.

Many thanks to Le Chaussetier for being amazing as we purchased all the socks in the photo(s) from them!

lundi 30 avril 2012

assignment #6: why do they hate us?

Photo courtesy of Foreign Policy
“We are more than our headscarves and our hymens. Listen to those of us fighting. Amplify the voices of the region and poke the hatred in its eye. There was a time when being an Islamist was the most vulnerable political position in Egypt and Tunisia. Understand that now it very well might be Woman. As it always has been.” Mona Eltahawy in “Why Do They Hate Us?”

After watching a short interview with Mona Eltahawy on CNN International and having a friend recommend her article, I was compelled to head over to the Foreign Policy website myself to read Eltahawy’s article on the Middle East’s War on Women. I highly recommend the article as it provides a viewpoint of the situation Arab women currently face from someone who has lived on both sides of the fence (Eltahawy is Egyptian-American, having spent her younger years in Saudi Arabia.)

There are consistent reports on the injustices against women in UN and NGO papers and publications, and once in a while the Western media chooses to report on these. There are countless other voices of abused, disenfranchised women that go unheard. Generally speaking, the coverage in the USA is more “tsk tsk” than outrage, after all you can’t expect those backwards Muslims to do any better.

assignment #5: #kony2012

I touched briefly on the subject of Kony 2012 on this blog some months ago. Since I’m woefully tired and facing a deadline for another “Representing International Politics” blog post after this one, I’ve decided to elaborate on a topic from last month that’s a bit more controversial than you may realize. Sorry if that’s exactly what you didn’t come here for :-)

Here is a brief outline: Kony is the believed current head of the Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) who had sought to form a Ugandan theocracy before allegedly being forced out of the country. He is charged by the International Criminal Court with crimes against humanity, recruiting children as soldiers in his army as well as sex slaves. Many of the LRA’s most brutal crimes occurred over a decade ago, but the group’s campaigns displaced thousands if not millions of people and the body count is high.

I was first made aware of this charming psychopath in my International Human Rights course last semester, but Kony’s name did not stick in my mind. I was reminded after viewing the now infamous 30-minute Kony 2012 Youtube video made by Invisible Children co-founder James Russell. The video was amazing and struck a chord in my heart. Of course, now we know Russell is having an emotional and perhaps psychological breakdown, but I don’t think that necessarily discounts his work for this cause.

samedi 28 avril 2012

miyake.

Photo taken by me at the FW2012/13 Issey Miyake RTW runway presentation

Always a pleasure to attend this show. 

mardi 24 avril 2012

can you trademark a color?


This is a piece I had written for the school magazine, but didn't make it in. I now share it with those interested in the topic. Enjoy, Dari.
 
"Red is obviously such a stimulating color, and it has so many connotations." --P. J. Harvey
Christian Louboutin sued Yves Saint Laurent over the use of the red sole on their shoes and the mixed connotations that they may create. Other brands and corporations have been able to obtain color trademarks, such as the United Postal Service (UPS) brown and Tiffany’s robin-egg blue. While it’s true that many identify Louboutin by its signature sole, the question remains. Can Louboutin hold exclusive rights to red?

samedi 14 avril 2012

attitude, solitude.



Photo taken by my beloved friend Megan Williams of myself
Sunglasses : Phosphorescence "Erin Wasson" ; Shirt: Hien Le fw2012; Pants: H&M
everything else, I have no idea.

vendredi 13 avril 2012

jeudi 12 avril 2012

assignment #4: twitter revolution.

 
I would like to start with a quotation from one of the articles I read:
"While rioters took to the underground paths of BlackBerry Messenger to organize, the highly spreadable mediums of Twitter and Facebook have shown to be the perfect platforms for mobilizing cleanup organizers and followers in the early aftermath of the rioting." Erica Swallow, writing for Mashable

I think this is a huge problem with with the way we think of both real and technological revolutions. From the beginning of her article, Swallow differentiates between the evils of BlackBerry Messenger which organized the riots and the goodness of Twitter and Facebook which are helping to rebuild London. Yay! Now, I’m on #teamiPhone, but was once the proud owner of a BlackBerry phone that I had to constantly defend to outsiders. This paragraph just reinforces how writers want to antiquate certain platforms while championing others, a confusion of the tool and the results of using the tool. BBM is old and led to an unsuccessful riot. Twitter is new(er) and is making the world a better place. Stale idea, Swallow. Stale.

The arguments made recently have had to do with Twitter’s involvement in many recent “revolutions” and uprisings, especially in the Middle Eastern and Arabic countries. At the start of these revolutions, many wanted to attribute them to social media, namely Twitter and Facebook. Quickly, many realize this argument was weak sauce.
In his essay “Iran: Downside to the ‘Twitter Revolution’”,  Evgeny Morozov argues that the celebration of Twitter revolutions is misplaced. Using an argument that has stayed with me for quite some time he notes that many “in-touch” bloggers and tweeters were bilingual (Farsi and English), but often existing in the Iranian diaspora, not in Iran. If you are trying to succeed in revolution, why write in a language foreign to many in your country? In this case, it seems that many of these bloggers were citizen journalists, not organizing revolutionaries, but shedding light on them to the Western world.