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| Except as noted, all photographs Copyright 2005 King Douglas | ||
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January 22, 2005 |
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The great photographer and poet Duane Michals in a characteristic pose. Duane was lecturing with Mary Alice Mark (next photo) at the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University in 1989. I had the privilege of attending Duane's semester-long seminar, which was very rewarding, but he was one of my photo heroes long before that.
Here's "Women Live In Liquids", my favorite of his poems, edited and signed by him. Some quotes from the seminar: "The moment you begin to talk about what you know, the work becomes interesting." "Don't talk to us about structure—talk to us about meaning." "I think that all good work makes demands on the viewer." "The nature of something is more important than the appearance of something." "Don't confuse clever with profound." |
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The famous photographer Mary Ellen Mark, lecturing at the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University in 1989. | |
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| January 21, 2005 |
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The point is to have a place to publish recently scanned images (I don't yet own a digital camera), without waiting to make a special page or assemble a group of similar images into a section or a slideshow. |
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 Photo: Paula Ann Dowers |
This is Lucy. Ryan (my son) bought her from the Dallas SPCA just before Christmas 2004. She is a real sweetheart and very intelligent. She's a Shiba Inu, a Japanese breed...at least that's what we are told.
Photo by Paula Ann Dowers. |
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 Scan by Alan Brown |
My friend Alan Brown is a psychology professor at Southern Methodist University. He's also an artist who is slowly letting that side of his brain and personality get adequate exercise. We've taken welding and ceramics classes together.
Last fall he brought some leaves to my house and asked if we could scan them into my computer. He thought they were beautiful. So did I. By the way, a scan *is* a photograph. |
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I had a chance to photograph some longhorn steers and bulls for Lone Star Cadillac at a ranch near Fort Worth. It was part of a series of photos I shot to advertise their move to a new location. Although the fee was good, there was much more work involved than I had counted on.
Some time later I got a call from a Boston advertising agency needing a shot of a longhorn bull (not this one--this is just an outtake). They had called the longhorn ranch to set things up and were to that there was a "longhorn photography expert" in Dallas. I got the job and was paid about 4 times what I got from Lone Star Cadillac, because now I was an expert. My favorite part of the second shoot was a joke the cowboys played on the art director who flew down from Boston. We were having barbecue hamburgers for lunch when one of the cowboys started to talking about Bubba, the longhorn calf that had been raised as a pet. "Bubba would follow you around like a puppy. He had the biggest brown eyes." She said, "What happened to Bubba?" You're eating him, the cowboy replied. I remember the look of horror on her face when she said, "I'm eating Bubba?!" |
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I did a series of self portraits while participating in a photography seminar with Duane Michals at Southern Methodist University (around 1989). I had found a little group of houses near downtown Dallas that had a 40's & 50's look about them and which reminded me of my childhood home in Los Angeles.
The little boy is my son, Ryan. |
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This is a shot of my friend Erik Hart, who is now the director of the Florida Theatre in Jacksonville. He was holding a reflector for me while I was taking a portrait of the famous dancer, Edward Villela for Ballet Oklahoma. I first met Erik when he was the business manager of North Carolina Dance Theater and I was their photographer. |
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I was asked by Dance Magazine to do some casual photographs of the great dancer, Igor Youskevitch. I took some photos in his office at The University of Texas at Austin, in the ballet studio during rehearsal and at his apartment. I photographed him painting and tying flyfishing lures. He didn't seem terribly interested in being photographed--he's been photographed so many times. However, when he suggested that we go shoot a few games of pool, his mood lifted. He was very good at pool. We had a good time. That's him on the left. Here's another portrait of Igor Youskevitch that I took backstage during a rehearsal for one of his ballets. |
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When the Meadows School of the Arts at Southern Methodist University was building the Hamon Arts Library in 1991, they figured they'd kick up a lot of dust, so they wanted to put up some posters with an "excuse our mess" theme, and to involve all the art disciplines that were are part of the school.
I suggested having a high-contrast parade of students and staff representing the different disciplines: studio art, theater, dance, library and music. You'll notice the fourth figure from the left. That's the janitor who came in to clean up during the photo shoot...a perfect icon for cleaning up the mess. |
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