Maybe I'm bitter
Or maybe not.
I've meant to write more in my journal. There's months and months of stuff I've been meaning to share with you guys, but none of that is going to be posted today.
I guess this is a shitty entry to use to start getting back into the swing of things here on LJ, but it's my journal, and I can say what I want, right? This is how I feel now.
Get ready for some racism. I've received it, I feel entitled to spew it back.
I realized tonight that while I hold both LOVE and HATRED in my heart for a lot of people of all colors and creed, and have in fact kept mostly white friends for most of my life, nothing makes me more FURIOUS than when I see UPPER MIDDLE CLASS WHITE PHOTOGRAPHERS getting recognition for "wonderful" photos of down-trodden minorities, foreign war victims, and the poor. It makes me fucking SICK.
I'm sorry guys, I don't mean to offend you, the Caucasian among you. Which is like, 90% of you.
(Including my girlfriend.) But it burns me up (and if you know me well, you know it takes a LOT for me to get actually UPSET) when I see that a photographer is lauded as a genius and a visionary because he/she can snap a picture of a "dirty" homeless person, usually of African-American or Hispanic heritage. It's not that their composition is good, or that it necessarily captures some great moment, no, it seems that the praise is almost weighed upon just how "dirty" the photographer was willing to get.
"Oh, So-and SO! You mean you were down there, in the slums, with them, for a whole HOUR? Oh you GENIUS YOU! Your art is so BOLD, you are SO BRAVE. Here's an art show and TONS OF MONEY."
Jealous, you say? Sure. I'm mediocre and so is my art. But that's not the point. The point is that these ASSHOLES make TONS OF MONEY off of OTHER RICH ASSHOLES by taking pictures of people that were put in that awful situation that's so "interesting" and "artistic" BY TONS OF OTHER RICH ASSHOLES JUST LIKE THE PHOTOGRAPHER ASSHOLE without even a HINT OF IRONY OR FUCKING SHAME. Like they are completely oblivious that their lifestyle is directly contributing to the way these people live and the situation they find themselves in. I'd love to see an example of one of these assholes taking the 5 grand that they got from a picture and splitting it 50/50 with their subject.
Really though, I'd love to see it. Maybe it'll patch up this crack in my heart.
I'm glad Jello can back me up, all the way from 1980.
P.S. For those of you who say I'm no better than the assholes I'm calling out, you're right. I'm not. I buy stuff from big box stores, I feed money to the corporations destroying the earth.
All I'm saying is that I don't take pictures of the cows I eat and get applauded for it.
I've meant to write more in my journal. There's months and months of stuff I've been meaning to share with you guys, but none of that is going to be posted today.
I guess this is a shitty entry to use to start getting back into the swing of things here on LJ, but it's my journal, and I can say what I want, right? This is how I feel now.
Get ready for some racism. I've received it, I feel entitled to spew it back.
I realized tonight that while I hold both LOVE and HATRED in my heart for a lot of people of all colors and creed, and have in fact kept mostly white friends for most of my life, nothing makes me more FURIOUS than when I see UPPER MIDDLE CLASS WHITE PHOTOGRAPHERS getting recognition for "wonderful" photos of down-trodden minorities, foreign war victims, and the poor. It makes me fucking SICK.
I'm sorry guys, I don't mean to offend you, the Caucasian among you. Which is like, 90% of you.
(Including my girlfriend.) But it burns me up (and if you know me well, you know it takes a LOT for me to get actually UPSET) when I see that a photographer is lauded as a genius and a visionary because he/she can snap a picture of a "dirty" homeless person, usually of African-American or Hispanic heritage. It's not that their composition is good, or that it necessarily captures some great moment, no, it seems that the praise is almost weighed upon just how "dirty" the photographer was willing to get.
"Oh, So-and SO! You mean you were down there, in the slums, with them, for a whole HOUR? Oh you GENIUS YOU! Your art is so BOLD, you are SO BRAVE. Here's an art show and TONS OF MONEY."
Jealous, you say? Sure. I'm mediocre and so is my art. But that's not the point. The point is that these ASSHOLES make TONS OF MONEY off of OTHER RICH ASSHOLES by taking pictures of people that were put in that awful situation that's so "interesting" and "artistic" BY TONS OF OTHER RICH ASSHOLES JUST LIKE THE PHOTOGRAPHER ASSHOLE without even a HINT OF IRONY OR FUCKING SHAME. Like they are completely oblivious that their lifestyle is directly contributing to the way these people live and the situation they find themselves in. I'd love to see an example of one of these assholes taking the 5 grand that they got from a picture and splitting it 50/50 with their subject.
Really though, I'd love to see it. Maybe it'll patch up this crack in my heart.
I'm glad Jello can back me up, all the way from 1980.
Click to viewP.S. For those of you who say I'm no better than the assholes I'm calling out, you're right. I'm not. I buy stuff from big box stores, I feed money to the corporations destroying the earth.
All I'm saying is that I don't take pictures of the cows I eat and get applauded for it.