Thursday, February 28, 2008

Wow!


Is this the first ever LGBT specific presidential ad? If so then this man is walking the talk about inclusiveness and change.

Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.

Wednesday, February 27, 2008

Thursdays



One of my guilty pleasures is watching "The West Wing" every night at 7:00 pm. CLT, the Canadian Learning Channel plays all seven seasons in sequential order in a continuous cycle thats gone on for a couple years. Needless to say, I love the show and am constantly intrigued by the characters. Lately I have been dissecting why I am so compelled to watch the show so many times.

Last week Thursday was the first anniversary of mothers passing. Every Thursday night when the show was in prime time I would call her and we would watch the show together. See she loved the show too. We loved it for many of the same reasons. Beyond the entertainment and patriotism it postulated that all things considered people are good and well intended and as such there was hope in the world.

We both had our favorite characters, she loved Toby and CJ while I liked Josh and Charlie (though I wonder if she knew just how much I liked Charlie ;-)
We both liked President Bartlett, I think like many we wished he was our reality instead of the clown thats in office now.

Strange looking back that we took time every week to meet and watch this particular show, but it seemed to connect us. I miss watching the West Wing with my mother. I miss the 3 minute conversations at the commercials.

I miss her.......

But I'll keep watching and remembering.


Todays image is of my mother and her friend Edith Howell(with camera) in front of the White House in 1957. A snapshot of simpler times she was on her senior class trip ans she often told me how much she loved the history and the grandeur of going to Washington DC. When I became an adult it was one of the first places I went to visit and have been several times.


Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.

Sunday, February 24, 2008

Mafa

The past couple weeks I have been working ona project for my friend Mafa who dances with Ballet Creole and is looking to soon start his MFA program. Here are but a few of the images we have collaborated on... enjoy!














Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.

Friday, February 22, 2008

Adding A New Gun To My Arsenal



I have been on a little camera binge over the past couple days and the outcome is the new gun in my Canon arsenal The new PowerShot G9! Shown here next to my Canon 300D, this rather large point and shoot is at the top of that line from Canon. While I recently purchased a Fuji FinePix 480 as my go anywhere party fun time camera (a steal at $190.00), I needed something a little more serious yet still small and easy to carry . The G9 is tremendous amount of camera packed in a body that is about 3 times bigger than a regular consumer point and shoot. The body harkens back to the Lieca range finder cameras of the 60's and 70's with is boxie exterior and upper control dials. Several things separate the G9 from other cameras in this category, the first and most important to me is that it will capture Camera RAW images. In addition to that there are manual dial controls all over this camera including an ISO dial that goes from 80 to 1600 and an option marked HI that supposedly represents 3200 ISO.

There is both an optical range finder at the top and a full 3 inch LCD screen in the back (largest one I have ever seen) This camera packs a full 12.1 Mega Pixel sensor and can create virtually noise free and very vivid images up through 400 ISO. The camera has a full metal frame and is covered in a textured durable plastic covering and feels/weighs like a tank. Over the next few weeks I will be featuring some images from my new camera.... so stay tuned!

Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

First Portrait in 08!



Finally off the mark with my first shoot for 2008, illness, weather, work have conspired to keep me away from my camera. Happy to start this year with these portraits of Kevin Ormsby. I think we will be hearing allot from him this year!







Things I think about when creating a portrait:

“While there is perhaps a province in which the photograph can tell us nothing more than what we see with our own eyes, there is another in which it proves to us how little our eyes permit us to see.”

“This benefit of seeing... can come only if you pause a while, extricate yourself from the maddening mob of quick impressions ceaselessly battering our lives, and look thoughtfully at a quiet image... the viewer must be willing to pause, to look again, to meditate.”


Dorothea Lange

“Simply look with perceptive eyes at the world about you, and trust to your own reactions and convictions. Ask yourself: "Does this subject move me to feel, think and dream? Can I visualize a print - my own personal statement of what I feel and want to convey - from the subject before me?”

“No man has the right to dictate what other men should perceive, create or produce, but all should be encouraged to reveal themselves, their perceptions and emotions, and to build confidence in the creative spirit.”


Ansel Adams

“Sometimes I enjoy just photographing the surface because I think it can be as revealing as going to the heart of the matter.”


Annie Leibovitz

“A photograph is a secret about a secret. The more it tells you the less you know.”

“What moves me about...what's called technique...is that it comes from some mysterious deep place. I mean it can have something to do with the paper and the developer and all that stuff, but it comes mostly from some very deep choices somebody has made that take a long time and keep haunting them.”


Diane Arbus

Whether he is an artist or not, the photographer is a joyous sensualist, for the simple reason that the eye traffics in feelings, not in thoughts.


Walker Evans

Think photographs should be provocative and not tell you what you already know. It takes no great powers or magic to reproduce somebody's face in a photograph. The magic is in seeing people in new ways.


Duane Michals

"I try to photograph people's spirits and thoughts. As to the soul-taking by the photographer, I don't feel I take away, but rather that the sitter and I give to each other. It becomes an act of mutual participation."

“I have found that great people do have in common an immense belief in themselves and in their mission. They also have great determination as well as an ability to work hard. At the crucial moment of decision, they draw on their accumulated wisdom. Above all, they have integrity.”


“If there is a single quality that is shared by all great men, it is vanity. But I mean by "vanity" only that they appreciate their own worth. Without this kind of vanity they would not be great. And with vanity alone, of course, a man is nothing.”

Yousuf Karsh

“Existence is no more than the precarious attainment of relevance in an intensely mobile flux of past, present, and future.”

“To take a photograph is to participate in another person's mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time's relentless melt.”


Susan Sontag

All Quotes are attributed to their originator.
Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.

Thursday, February 07, 2008

BHM: Heroes

Been thinking about coming up with an image for Black History Month and I wanted to do something different and uplifting. The world is very short on heroes you can look up to. As soon as someone obtains fame or notoriety their lives are picked apart. In the era of terrorism we have elevated fire fighters and the police, first responders as heroes often risking there lives to save others. With armed conflict we support our troops as heroes because they volunteered to do the hard things we would not do. I wanted to find a group of heroes that exemplified the heroic explorers of days gone by and who's mission of positivity was one that anyone/everyone could look up to. Hope you enjoy my collage of Heroes!


Click to enlarge!

All of the images are from NASA and paid for by our tax dollars! Again why no photo credits for the photographers who shot them.
Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.

Tuesday, February 05, 2008

Yes We Can!

I love the spirit of this! Again not telling anyone who to vote for, but I will say please, please vote... It is possible to change the world ...Change is possible!



Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.

Friday, February 01, 2008

EPIPHANYNoir hits 35 Countries!

The goal of any Photographer/Artist is to get their work seen. Most people work very hard to get seen in the city in which they live in. When I started this blog in 2005 that was me as it is very hard to break through in a large city like Toronto. I had had several shows in Detroit, but that was it. Unable to put a show together here was also frustrating so technology came to the rescue! Thanks to blogger and Google Analytics I now have put together over 244 posts with my art and images and bit of my life. In addition with over 21000 visitors, analytics has also told me from what countries they have visited from! In all 35 to date! From all over the world!
I still want to put on a show here in Toronto but my hope now is that perhaps one day that show will be somewhere else in the world. It's gratifying to reach people from other cultures , to receive their comments.... It's simply amazing!


Click on image to enlarge

Note: All images and text (not specified) is copyrighted by Christopher Cushman. This site does not specify or denote the sexual orientation of any model and as such please post your comments accordingly.