SCOTT GORDON BLEICHER PHO(BLOG)GRAPHY

Susquehannock State Forest is in central Pennsylvania, along the northern border, just south of New York state.

Susquehannock State Forest is located in Potter County God’s Country, with a few tracts of forest stretching into nearby McKean and Clinton counties.

Susquehannock State Forest contains 262,000 acres of woodlands and 89 miles of hiking trails.

Susquehannock State Forest was named after the Susquehannock tribe of Native Americans whom lived along the Susquehanna river.

Susquehannock, adapted from the Algonquian name, means ‘people of the muddy river.’

There are no cellular towers in Susquehannock State Forest. There are no wi-fi hot spots or internet cafes. So how do you write a blog post from Susquehannock State Forest?

With a pen and paper.

They used to call it writing a letter.

We just spent the better part of four days in Susquehannock State Forest, nine miles deep in the woods and even further from any semblance of civilization.

We drank beer. We ate red meat. We shot guns. We filmed a music video. We played music on the camp porch. We watched the sun set over the Lushbaugh. We sat around the fire pit and listened to the old men tell railroad stories and redneck jokes. We lost track of the days of the week.

All was good.

Now it’s back to the city, back to the grind, and back to the editing table. As the music video period piece for Catfish Breakfast begins to take shape, a few snapshots from our woodland weekend can be seen below.

The phone booth.

Camp.

Fire pit.

Chipmunk season.

Got one…

…for dinner.

Moonshine and a magnum.

Rain rig.

Front porch concert.

The can crusher.

Fishin’.

No creatures were harmed in the filming of Catfish Breakfast. Scout’s honor.

Lushbaugh.

Back yard.

Men.

North of Newry.

The recent purchase of a two thousand gigabyte external hard drive for photo archiving purposes has lead me down the tedious road of making back ups of my back ups. A small pleasure I’ve found in this process has been the rediscovery of old images, some of which I shot while on a cross country road trip nearly a decade ago.

I found a handful of black and white film scans, ranging from Yellowstone to Yosemite, from the Badlands to Canyonlands. It is possible that these images, heavy on film grain and contrast, may have been tinted by the distorting lens of nostalgia- but coming across them again after a few years has allowed me to see them with as objective an eye as possible.

I’ve crisscrossed the country by auto and aero a number of times since (even once by train), but this inaugural expedition remains the most memorable: setting out with not much more than a paper map, a full tank of gas, and many rolls of film, intent on coaxing the ghosts of Lewis and Clark from their roadside tombs, rolling down the interstate in an old jeep like a four-ton Sacagawea with a manual transmission.

Camping out in national parks, eating at gas stations, getting rooms in cheap motels every once in a while just to take a shower; inspired equally by Jack Kerouac and John Muir.

I returned with a widened world view, or at least with wide opened eyes, amazed by the country’s sprawling geography and varied topography.

Maybe something can be said for the act of getting lost to find one’s self, of searching for a place to belong and realizing that you belong everywhere, and no where; that your place is the space in between. And that old standby about it not being the destination but the journey that holds true significance? It is tempered by more truth than I knew at the time, and still rings true to myself to this day.

Westward expansion began, in earnest, with the California Gold Rush of 1849. The first Model T Ford rolled off the assembly line in 1914, one year after the first transcontinental highway, the Lincoln Highway, was formally dedicated.

In the near-century since the age of the automobile unofficially began, the idea of the open road has become firmly entrenched in our collective pop culture subconscious- a romanticized symbol of the American Dream, synonymous with the notion of freedom and adventure, and roads leading west have held the promise of challenge and discovery, of a new life, of a second chance.

In song and cinema, in literature and legend, our highways become hallowed, the west remains wild. And upon returning east, if we do return, we realize that the true westward expansion is an expansion of the self.

Tokyo Juxtaposed- my series of photographs pairing cultural and aesthetic imagery from modern-day Japan, went on display last Thursday at Supercore in Williamsburg, Brooklyn. A small opening event marked the occasion. Old friends came out to show their support, new friends were made, and a good time was had by all in attendance.

The evening was anchored by the marathon beat/noise mashup of Loud Objects vs. DJ Nori, which allowed the juxtapositions to extend from the images on the walls and the projections on the ceiling to the sounds filling the space, and turned a darkened room into an intimate mixed media environment for a small crowd.

Below you’ll find a selection of snapshots from the evening followed by a few low resolution high definition (what?) video clips.

Thanks again to all who attended, to Katie, Kunal, and Nori for their sonic foreplay, and to Yoko and the rest of the Supercore staff for having us.

Hope to see you at the next one.

Domo arigato.

As seen on the ceiling, Thursday evening, at Supercore.

So we’ve made it to the bleary-eyed Friday conclusion of Tokyo Week! here on Pho(Blog)graphy Island, and the survivors are fed up with pressing the button every 108 minutes. (If you don’t know, you’ll have to start with Season One. Trust me.)

Thanks to everyone who attended the opening last evening, and an extra special thanks to Katie, Kunal, and Nori for entertaining the crowd and to the staff of Supercore for having us.

Check back next week for a recap of last evening’s festivities, replete with images and HD video clips, and be on the lookout for a possible weekend bonus tomorrow.

Other than that, I’m looking forward to a weekend filled with Los Hermanos chorizo tacos, alternating between the new Hot Chip and Spoon albums, a little Modern Warfare 2 Free-for-All, and heated message board ‘discussions’ concerning reincarnated Sayid’s supposed infection and possible possession by Jacob’s nemesis aka The Smoke Monster Guy, if that really was Claire, and which of the parallel timelines is reality.

Oh, and your T.G.I.F. diptych is below.

Namaste.

After countless restless nights and days of breathless anticipation, the moment has finally come. Tokyo Juxtaposed + Loud Objects, 7pm, Supercore, Williamsburg, Brooklyn,

TONIGHT.

Hope to see you there, although, the weather should prove an adequate and believable excuse if you are unable to attend. Heck, I don’t even know if I’m gonna go, still digging out from Snowmageddon.

Your Thursday courtesy diptych is below.

Hump day diptych: Progress.

Diptych of the day: Asakusa Attractions.

In recognition of The Tokyo Juxtaposed Photography Exhibit Opening Party Gala Celebration Event and Potluck Dinner Sleepover emceed by Mr. Kunal Gupta coming up later this week at Supercore, I’ve declared this week to be:

Tokyo Week! here on Pho(Blog)graphy Island.

(The natives are doing sake bombs as we speak.)

Each business day of the work week I’ll be posting a new photographic juxtaposition for your carefully measured objective consideration, ones that will not be shown at T.T.J.P.E.O.P.G.C.E. & P.D.S. (see above) and may or may not be available in the magazine.

As for a quick update on Thursday’s goings on, it’s looking more and more likely that there will be some sort of projected video juxtapositions on a loop for your attention-deficit-disordered viewing pleasure and there is the distinct possibility of a continuous, amorphous set by Loud Objects, like the bastard child of a radio transmitter and a seven layer cake.

(By the way, none of this is confirmed so don’t tell anyone.)

Your first free diptych of the week is below.

Dou itashe mashite.

The Honeymoon.

Next month I’ll be showing a select number of photographs from my Tokyo Juxtaposed series at Supercore in Brooklyn.

The opening event is set for Thursday, February 11th at 7pm and the show will run through the middle of March.

There will be drinks (of the caffeinated and the alcoholic variety), there will be live music of one kind or another (to be announced soon), there will be professional networking, there will be Japanese tapas,

and hopefully, there will be you.

See you there.

Q. What could possibly make for a better Christmas gift than a copy of Tokyo Juxtaposed?

A. Fruitcake.

Oh. Right.
…

Tokyo Juxtaposed, my self-published ‘zine chock full of aesthetic and cultural photographic juxtapositions from my early summer jaunt to the land of the rising sun, is still available for purchase over at MagCloud.

And it’s on sale!

While a copy of Tokyo Juxtaposed certainly makes for a great Christmas gift, it DOES NOT make for a great stocking stuffer. (Please, gently place the magazine into the stocking, preferably with a cardboard backing in a plastic sleeve, taking care not to bend its edges or crease its pages.)

And if you live somewhere in the six boroughs (I’m looking at you, New Jersey), I could meet you (along the L) and sign your copy for you, that way it would, you know, have my signature on it.

Or maybe you’d buy one if I told you that the other THIRTY ONE pages that you CANNOT preview at MagCloud were filled with hentai.

But they’re not, so, tough luck.

Pervert.

I was in Pittsburgh last week

I was in the City of Champions last week, working on a shoot with good friend and outstanding photographer Matthew Furman. It was a quick flight out of LaGuardia, only spending about 45 minutes in the air.

We would only have twenty-four hours in the Steel City, and most of that time was to be spent scouting and shooting. After dropping our gear and luggage at the hotel, we met with the art directors and enjoyed plates of pierogis and hand-crafted beers at The Church Brew Works- a brewpub set in the nave of a hundred-year old Roman Catholic church, and a worthy mecca to any beer drinker’s pilgrimage.

An early call time in the morning was followed up by a long and rewarding day of shooting in the city. And the perfect parting meal upon leaving Pittsburgh? A quick trip to the Strip District for a Primanti Bros. sandwich, famous for its fistful of cole slaw and french fries between the bread, a staple of hard-working steelworkers and hungry truck drivers for decades.

And now, photographers too.

I’ve recently self-published a magazine through MagCloud entitled Tokyo Juxtaposed. The issue contains juxtapositions of photographs that I took while aimlessly wandering around Tokyo (dérive, anyone?), many of which can be seen in the Travel portfolio on my website.

I’ve included a few extra diptychs in the magazine in order to ensure its limited edition collectibility. In theory.

Click on the cover below for a preview of Tokyo Juxtaposed and for information on how to purchase a copy.

You know you want one…

During my recent trip to Japan, I spent some time browsing the photography aisles of a few fine art book stores in Shibuya. My knowledge of contemporary Japanese photography was quite limited prior to my trip although I was fortunate enough to see an excellent retrospective last year at the International Center of Photography on this very topic.

It also seems that doing a basic internet search does not yield many solid results other than a long, phonetically challenging, alphabetical list of names on Wikipedia and photoguide.jp that, upon first glance, seems quite daunting to dive in to.

The best source that I have found is the well written and regularly updated blog, Japan Exposures.

One series of images that has stayed with me from the ICP exhibition is Asako Narahashi’s half awake and half asleep in the water- it’s subject drifting further from the shore, a hypnotic meditation which is able to balance a surreal buoyancy with an oppressive sense of aquaphobia:

A contemporary photographer’s work that I was introduced to in Tokyo and greatly admire is that of Nakano Masataka, specifically his Tokyo Nobody series, with its desolate streets and empty intersections capturing an otherworldly stillness and commenting on the impermanence of permanence. With the tranquility comes a slight sense of unease, of trepidation- I am left not thinking of the moment captured but of the moments prior to and post, wondering what happened and what will happen next:

The inverse voyeurism of Masataka-san’s Tokyo Windows series is also of note.

There seems to be a tangible sense of searching and longing to the contemporary Japanese photography that I am drawn to, even a slight sense of melancholia, of isolation. Like trying in vain to capture a fleeting moment that will not come to pass again, trying to impress stasis upon inertia.

Maybe this, in some way, is representative of the dichotomy that is modern day Japan- pre-war traditions, rigidity, and isolationism trying to strike a balance with post-war reality, modernism, and cultural assimilation, especially in regards to the work of the venerable and prolific Daido Moriyama:




In any case, the mood and message is most certainly subjective, but I feel that I can learn from the raw emotion and textured aesthetic inherent to much of contemporary Japanese photography in relation to the often calculated geometry, didacticism, and minimalism that I tend to favor in my work.

In regards to my study of said topic, I am most certainly at the tip of a very large iceberg, or shall I say, at the tip of Mt. Fuji.

Spending two weeks in Japan, traveling between Tokyo, Kyoto, and Yokohama. As much as I love New York, I must say that Tokyo may truly be the city that never sleeps. One minute your senses are being bombarded by the sounds and lights of an intersection that makes Times Square look tame- the chiming Pachinko parlors and video game arcades, salesmen shouting from electronics shops, otaku in their anime attire; the next you can turn down a narrow side street and be standing in the manicured garden of a Shinto shrine- koi fish ponds, wish trees and five story pagodas.

Truly a culture of contrasts, of the past and the future.

And it is on these side streets and back alleys that Tokyo’s character truly comes alive- sake bars smaller than Manhattan studio apartments, ramen shops with business men bent over bowls of noodles, vending machines glowing on every corner.

While there is a certain masochistic charm to New York’s megalomania and aggressiveness, and certainly to it’s cross section of ethnicities, we could stand to learn a thing or two from Tokyoites politeness, cleanliness, and urban planning. Don’t even get me started on the Tokyo Metro vs. New York’s oft dysfunctional subway.

I plan a major update to my travel portfolio when I make it back stateside and I manage to sift through all of the pictures. For now, I have posted an interpretation of Shinjuku below.

Now if I could only find bowls of ramen this good for ¥500 in Manhattan.