A Photo a Day

It seems I've launched a new project. I'm going to be doing "A Photo a Day." Which is pretty self-explanatory.

I started talking photographs in around 2001, as I've written here before, when Nerve was a print magazine, and I was covering some bukkake shoot in the Valley, and they asked me would I bring a camera along. I borrowed a point-and-shoot that belonged to my boyfriend-at-the-time, and that was that.

Generally speaking, I have no idea what I'm doing. I don't know what an f-stop is, and I don't know that I want to know. I suppose you could call that "self-taught." Or you could call it "retarded."

With an extremely few exceptions in the past, I don't crop my photos or manipulate the image in any way. That's part of the "game" for me. Get it right in the field, or don't get it at all. Please do not send me long emails expressing your complicated views regarding cropping, or how all photos are "edited," or some such thing. It really doesn't matter either way.

I stopped taking photographs for several years, for several reasons, until recently, so this is my attempt to make it more ... thoughtless. More automatic. More intuitive. I don't think I'm particular good. Nor do I think I'm particularly bad. With photography, for me, it is what it is.

I like talking photographs because it's one of about two or three things in my life that I don't experience in a state of high conflict. You raise the camera to your eye. You push the button. You take the picture. It isn't any more complicated than that.

And that, I like.

The Fucking Machines

Scenes from my life on the set of the latest installment of "Fuck Machines." Or was it "Fucking Machines"? I think it was "Fuck Machines 6." Porn Valley is nothing if not complicated. More here.

Pretty Girl Shots

More shots I took in Porn Valley. Three ways of looking at a porn star. Location: Woodland Hills. Million-dollar mansion on the top of a hill with a 360-degree view of the Valley at your feet. They call these photographs pretty girl shots. The set photographer took the girl into the backyard. Near a fountain painted so the water looked bright blue. The green grass was lined with brilliant, blooming flowers. The only thing blocking your view was palm trees. A century ago, California state senator Charles Maclay overlooked this landscape and proclaimed: "This is the Garden of Eden!" And, by God, he was right.

When I Dream, I Dream of the Valley

This is my favorite shot from the photos I took in the Valley when I was there a couple weeks ago for a story. It was one of about 150 I took that day, which was, coincidentally, my birthday, and most of which were, well, pretty shitty, although there were some that were OK. I was out of practice.

I have this thing where I don't crop or manipulate the image after I take it, because I want it to be the closest thing possible to exactly what I saw, because anything else, I think, is fake or bullshit, but it means I have to get it right when I'm right there, and sometimes when people are fucking about six feet in front of you, and the crew is watching you, and some guy from Fox magazine is elbow-to-elbow with you, it can get a little challenging.

Anyway, I like this shot because a) it's pretty, and b) if you cropped it so all you saw was their faces, it would look like the cover of a romance novel. And who's to say porn isn't romantic? Just because they didn't know each other that well and went at it like dogs in a matter of minutes, maybe that's true romance -- the ultimate intimate performance in homage to our one true love: the almighty dollar.

Once upon a time, someone told me: "When I dream, I dream of the sea."

These days, when I dream, I dream of the Valley.

Miss Douchebag 2009

I took this photo of myself last night, right after I came home, less than an hour after I won top honors at the Miss Douchebag 2009 pageant. It was simply an amazing night, a true honor. If only I had been able to fit the trophy through the front door. Thankfully, I had the strength of mind to capture my image in the bathroom mirror, but a few feet from the toilet.

This is the first photo of myself that I've posted online in around five years, I think. Conveniently blurry, isn't it? Flash, thou art mine enemy.

Alas, I did not receive the Queen's blessing ...

Queen Elizabeth I: For you and for your heirs, Orlando: the house.

Orlando: Your Majesty, I am forever ...

Queen Elizabeth I: But on one condition. Do not fade. Do not wither. Do not grow old.

He's a Muthafuckin' Puppet!

This is the battery pack of the set photographer on one of the adult movie sets I was on. The sticker is for "Black Devil Doll," which appears to be a black "Chucky." It reads: "AND IF YOU THINK YOU'RE READY FOR HIM, THINK AGAIN, BITCH!"

Snapshot

My favorite part of being back in Porn Valley was taking photographs. That was the part that made me happy. Sometimes, I think I would like to stop writing and just take photographs, but I don't know if I'm any good at it, which is a silly reason not to go after something, but maybe when you were raised by someone who says things like, "Wishes aren't reality," things can get complicated on the way to happiness.

Flickr: "This is Jim Powers, a porn director. His ouvre includes 'American Bukkake 13,' which caught the eye of the U.S. Department of Justice and ended up in an 18-count obscenity indictment."

What happened after the US government handed down that indictment is another story altogether. Suffice to say, Jim is still hard at work in the Valley. On the set of "Fuck Machines 6," his black T-shirt reads: "IMMORAL PRODUCTIONS."

At Sonny Bono's funeral, Cher said Sonny was the most unforgettable character she'd ever met. In Porn Valley, Powers is that person for me.

"You're welcome on my sets anytime," he told me, before I left.

Day

In the Valley, kept forgetting it was my birthday, more here.

Hell-Ay

Yesterday, I booked my trip to Los Angeles for the feature story I'm doing on the adult movie industry. I'll be there for about a week. I'm staying in Hollywood. I'll be driving back and forth over the Hollywood Hills, which divide the real Hollywood from the Other Hollywood, just like old times.

I got a camera. I will be taking photographs, as well.

At this stage, there is a lot of talking on the phone, a lot of poking around the Internet, a lot of jotting of random notes that will be revisited in several weeks and deemed incomprehensible.

There's a bit of a balance to be struck here, between planning and chaos. Some things I expected to be happening while I'm there are not, but you never know what will happen when you are where you happen to be.

I guess it's sort of like this photograph. I went out on the front porch to take some test shots, so I could download the photos onto my computer for the first time and figure out how to use the software. I took some shots of bright flowers in pots that looked like photos taken by someone who had escaped from a Hallmark insane asylum. After a while, I jutted my arm out and took this random snap of the trees against the sky, of which someone said: "The tree is like a dendritic forest--like a slide of the brain of a rat who'd been raised in an enriched environment."

A rat in a maze.