.: April 2009

Thursday, April 30, 2009

By The Numbers: 436 Posts/ 80,000 Unique Visitors/ 145 Countries!

What can I say? The power of the intranet has brought my life and my work to many others around the world! It has also brought me new friends and people I like to follow as well. For those of you who have put a link to me on your website or blog... Thank You! I could not have done this with out your help! To those who visit me on a regular basis and have provided comments and e-mails, Thank You for keeping me going and encouraging me! It means allot to me!

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, April 26, 2009

Love 'n Movement - It's Show Time!

It's April 25 and the day is here... The time has come to put on the show everyone has worked so hard to make happen. These folks will go from empty stage to curtains up in just four hours with a final practice run to boot! Beyond the physical preparations I sit an wonder if they know that these moments have a historical implication. Its been easy for me to sit on the out side while the group practices their lines and their dance moves... but its given me some time to think about how long its taken for tonight's show to really come. This play was the culmination of many peoples experiences and efforts over years and years, with much of the play uttered in full on patois meant this was a love story by and for a Caribbean audience. The sincere and ernest honesty of the dialog and plot was hard hitting, humorous, and educational all with out being preachy or too over the top. The dance routines were well choreographed and performed. The relationships between the three couples were well connected by the dancers through their performance as well as images and film projected behind them, it was easy to feel connected to their lives.

Kevin walking out on to the bare stage, show time is only 4 hours away

Kevin here with cast and crew detailing the next two hours of the final practice...

The story begins as the family prepares for the 50th Anniversary of the Grandparents Norman and Edna

The music and dance cover the 50 years of love 'n movement

The play/dance really comes to life when the relationships of the two younger couples are explored. First the straight couple, Khemani and Angel!

And the gay couple of Julius and Joe

The audience shares their approval!

The pay ends six hours after they began just before 10pm with some great words and Thank Yous' from Kevin Ormsby and Lucy Hamlet who conceived and produced the show!
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, April 19, 2009

Objectification Or Just A Sweet Tooth?

Sorry I saw the shot and I took it! Does the shirt make the man or does the man make the shirt... Anywho here is some sweetness to cap your weekend! 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.

1 Week To Go! Posters and Flyers Are Out!

The posters and flyers are now printed and out! The show is next Saturday! For tickets see me or go to the Love 'N Movement website
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.

Saturday, April 18, 2009

Dundas Square

I had a shoot at Dundas Square last week and while I waited I shot the square using several separate exposures... 16 for this nearly 270 degree view of what is arguably Canada's version of Times Square! The pieces were assembled in Photoshop using its built in stitch program....

Moving the image into illustration.... Again using the poster edges photoshop filter! Not sure which one I like the best..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, April 17, 2009

April 17 1964! Happy Birthday Mustang!

There was a time not so long ago that I use to be called "Ford Man" or "Mr. Ford"! It was pretty much the truth... I was Born on the same day as Henry Ford , I went to Henry Ford High School in Detroit! (go Trojans!;-), more importantly I spent much of the first 25 years of my career supporting Ford Motor Company... I like street iron... pony cars... the more cylinders or liters the better! So its with a great deal of pride that I say Happy Birthday Mustang! 45 years old today!

She's my time machine
She's my rolling memory
She's my family
And I love her so

She knows my secrets well
But her back seat won't ever tell
She's no Jezebel

My '65 Mustang rides along
Every mile's another song
And what I don't remember
She never forgets
That little girl ain't let me down yet
It all comes back to me
When I turn that horse's key
I'm 17 or 23
Or bringing home my first baby
Like Dad did when the '65 was three

She's been four colors
We've broken forty laws
She goes where she wants
No matter what the cost

No power nothing here
AC's 2 by 75
Yea you got it man
You roll em down and drive

My '65 Mustang rides along
Every mile's another song
And what I don't remember
She never forgets
That little girl ain't let me down yet
It all comes back to me
When I turn that horse's key
I'm 17 or 23
Or bringing home my first baby
Like Dad did when the '65 was three

Don't need to play no new CD's
She's enough music for me
I Don't need no new AC
Cause she's cooler than I'll ever be

My wild Mustang
She's waiting on me
Ready to take us away
Sail across the sea

When I'm on her back
I'm the boy each man should be
She's My Family Tree

My '65 Mustang rides along
Every mile's another song
And what I don't remember
She never forgets
That little girl ain't let me down yet
It all comes back to me
When I turn that horse's key
And she roars to me...I'm 23
Or bringing home my first baby
Like Dad did when the '65 was three

She's my family

Note: Lyrics by Five For Fighting. 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, April 14, 2009

Wow!:-)

Ok I am so late with this but this is just too kewl not to take note of! The House of Monroe at Harbor front! You betta work!

Monday, April 13, 2009

Pump, Sneeks and Tees

Polly's Friday night jam Pumps, Sneeks & Tees at Alice Fazzoolis was totally on point! The Venue, Music, and every one looked fly! For those who had their pics taken and want a copy please Contact Polly! Those are her pics to pass! Enjoy!

Friday, April 10, 2009

Creating Emotion

I have recently had to revise my plans for my first photo exhibition here in Toronto. As part of the preparation I wanted to create an image that in some way embodied the collection of images, Photos from my book Dance Through Life while also connecting the location for the show. Finally I wanted it to create some emotion via the image which would encompass the opening night of the event which will also include impromptu dance performances and readings from the book. The dancer is Byron Beckford. The challenge with this photograph was to capture the darkened facade of historic Currie Hall as well as the brightly lit interior and Byron. To pull off the shot I had to to two images at different exposures and recompose them for the final image. Added to the degree of difficulty the doors of the hall would not stay full open and had to be manually pulled open and apart by two security guards who happily wanted to help once they understood what we were trying to achieve. They as well had to be removed from the final image. We are working hard to make sure the show happens in September and hope you can make the event! Enjoy the photo!
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.

Monday, April 06, 2009

Eclipse

Eclipse is a piece being performed by Sean Smith for the Ailey student presentation, Global Harmony! If you are in New York City on April 8th and 9th you should stop by the Ailey Citigroup Theater to catch Sean and the rest of the group show. You wont be disappointed!

The Dance Through Life Project

Photograph project dedicated to capture the Art of Dance within the parameters of everyday life. The project hopes to capture the innate relationships between dance and everyday life. Images of dance performed in non-traditional locales hopefully demystifying dance as being inaccessible and drawing the obvious metaphor that while all can not express life with such movement and physicality, we all love with our own signature grace. Therefore we all dance.

Order your copy today by clicking on the books above!

Through New Eyes: The Photography of Christopher Cushman by Rinaldo Walcott

The Black male body remains an enigma despite its over representation in the public sphere. The dominance of hip hop culture globally, driven in part, but not exclusively by the innovative sounds of rap music have made Black men a standard by which Black men and other men judge themselves in contemporary culture. However, there is a paradox, because despite the prevalence of hip-hop’s popular global impact, Black men are also still some of the most despised men in Western culture. Stereotypes of criminality, disease and danger still abound and organize Black men’s lives, even within hip hop culture. Thus representations of Black men tend to be much more restricted, than open-ended. The struggle to bring Black men into complex open-ended representations has been an on-going historical struggle. One of the most potent forms of representation in the last one hundred and fifty years has been the photograph. Photography has offered the promise to represent the real in a manner that has both seduce its viewers and baffled them with its artifice. Black male photographic representations in the last half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first have promised to rescue Black men from the confines of mis-representation and stereotype. One of the most difficult and complicated circumstances of Black male representations has been in the realm of representing their sexuality. Black men’s sexuality is still over-burdened by a perceived threat and danger, especially now in the hyped-up era of the downlow. Then along comes Cushman. I first hear of Christopher Cushman’s photography from my boyfriend. He told me of a guy who was taking photographs of black nudes based upon how they wanted themselves to be seen, not how he posed them as his models. When I met Cushman he confirmed that he did indeed work from the models’ suggested posed and not impose his own. The idea is a great one because it allows the models agency in choosing what they believe to be an adequate representation of who they are. While it is now true that in contemporary culture subjects have learned to play for the camera, offering us artifice on command, this artifice can be understood as exposing inner senses of self and being. Cushman’s photography captures and reveals those inner desires. Look at me, many of the models seems to say. But look at me anew, is also what they seem to project and insist on. Cushman’s eye lavishes these Black male bodies with glimmers of light revealing their nuance personalities. While most of the men are naked their individuality comes clearly through. And yet, their eyes too reveal that they belong to a community, a family and possess desires, fantasies and needs. In these photographs, as viewers we are given new eyes to see beyond our inner voyeur. Cushman channels, Robert Mapplethorpe, Rotimi Fani-Kayode and many other artists, commercial and amateur photographers who seek to rescue the Black male body from the disastrous depths of mis-representation, and who almost always fall short. The conversations that his models create between his work and others whether unconscious or not reveal the profound influence of the image in our time. However, in Cushman’s eyes the Black male body is not being rescued, instead it stands on a self-made pedestal, not arrogantly announcing its existence but coolly (its signature) singing its own praisesong as swathes of light and behind the camera love washes over it. In each moment a small but significant revelation is made. Each revelation offers us the opportunity of an Epiphany – to think a thought about a Black man that we have not thought before. Professor Rinaldo Walcott is a cultural critic and Canada Research Chair of Social Justice and Cultural Studies at the University of Toronto. He lives and writes in Toronto.

FIERCE! Being Black, Being Gay in America

"What Chris has done with this important collection of images, Fierce: Being Black, Being Gay in America, A Photographic Essay, is to seek, lift, and affirm the identity and visibility of men-who love-men and express it in many ways. His photographs display Midwest American men from the outlandish and flamboyant, to the subdued and subtle. You’d think these were “ladies who lunch;” muscular men dressed for the “Park” in lace, and floppy hats to give effect for all to see. Brothers connecting in places we know are safe, such as our nightclubs, the discos, and special events targeting our interests.

The importance of Fierce is paramount: all men are created equal, and share a space on earth. These portraits of men have to be recognized as God’s beauty and not His damnation. Time will thank those who were strong and dared enough to express themselves for all to see and appreciate in a manner that’s loving and creative. Time will also thank us for not living in a paranoid state of mind, and afraid of our own shadows. Remember, this cluster of work isn’t Robert Mappelthope’s approach to black imagery, but the approach of documenting men as they wanted to be seen: with and without sexual stimulation, for shock value."

Curtis A. Lipscomb
Executive Director Kick – The Agency for L-G-B-T African-Americans
Detroit Michigan / 2005
www.e-kick.com