Non-Photography Day

Or should it been seen as a day of?

regards.
h.l.s.

Interesting that you’ve lived in Tokyo for 6 months now yet your able to put “the Japanese” into a neat little box of conformist sheep.

Not THIS crap again. It was a stupid idea once before and its a stupid idea a second time. Go out and take LOTS of pictures on her “non-photography day” just to piss her and her idiot friends off. The last time this pinhead was talking about “Non-Photography Police” that would try to stop you from taking pictures.

F**k ‘em.

She is supposed to be the new enlightened and illuminated person who can accept herself and assert herself because she is in touch with her existential ground..or something like that?; even more, she is in touch … with us!!!!
We have being choosed…!!!!

I can’t really reallyze how lucky I am…!!
C’mon!!! We are trying to work here!!!

NExt…

AAaahhhhhhjajjajajjajajjaja..fffffhhhfff
huhuhhuhuhuuffff..

this is too much!
I have a better idea!!!
Why not some days before?...some 13 days!!! juajjajajjajajjaa..

she is initiating a non-photography police force

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5121856.stm

I vote for taking photos of photographers taking photos of non-photography day. That could be really deep like the mirrors in my grandpa’s barber shop!

An image of a image of a non-image of an image of a non-image of a non-image of a image…..how’s that go again?

Imants really make a point!!

LOL…

I propose an extremely long photo thread here on LS on the 17th July of pictures taken that very day and dedicated to Ms Bland and her ridiculous idea.

I also ask her to explain in detail her proposal for photography police.i refer to the BBc website article.

I’d like to take the opportunity to ask Miss Bland if in light of recent abuses regarding photographer’s and media rights (there are more than a few articles I can point to, had they escaped her) she has really thought about her proposal.
I also would like to know if a student asking people not to work for a day has any sense of shame at all.

But she won’t reply.

not that I give a fuck.

(:
Well, my mom made me give up HBO, so I don’t know anymore ):

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I agree completely Gayle.
Still,
who knows one day she might even grow up.

...look what hitler did to the german expressionists, after he wasn’t accepted into art school.

character mask? I’d say barbara bush without a clue, commenting on the advantages that hurricane katrina brought to the poor.

“In a segment at the top of the show on the surge of
evacuees to the Texas city, Barbara Bush said: ‘Almost
everyone I’ve talked to says we’re going to move to
Houston.

‘And so many of the people in the arena here, you
know, were underprivileged anyway, so this—this (she
chuckles slightly) is working very well for them.’

The former First Lady’s remarks were aired on American Public Media’s “Marketplace”
program.

By E&P Staff Published: September 05, 2005 7:25 PM ET updated 8:00 PM

Why should we hear about body bags, and deaths, and how many, what day it’s gonna happen, and how many this or what do you suppose? Or, I mean, it’s, it’s not relevant. So, why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?
—Barbara Bush on Good Morning America, March 18, 2003

...as inspector clouseau would say, “gewd one.”

she has a lot to learn..
but help seems near..

thanks, Gayle.
unfortunately there are just so many ‘good’ quotes to be found.

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(.(....(....(..../.)..)..(..(.\....)....)....).)

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Here is my quote….

As before, I just posted that I would be there, and anyone who wanted to join should be there at the same time. How about meeting at GCT, NYC July 17th at noon…..with cameras, of course….heh. And if you don’t…....that’s fine too. No obligations required and DEFINITELY no “tour of NYC” wanted. Just a quick meet, than go shoot like you normally would, meeting occasionally with people from the group to eat or some special event…like a gallery or such.

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TS, hmmmmmm, that sounds interesting. Imants help with T-shirts?

On TS’s idea, I’m in. Wherever I may be on July 17, a Tuesday, I’ll definitely shoot, even if it’s just a cloudless sky or a cloudy eye, whatever. Everyone show off their pix here. Let’s call it the “Put your camera up to your eye and press the shutter button and screw those who try to declare July 17 a non-photography day day”.

Kind of messes with the porn industry too…

http://www.epuk.org/News/436/the-epuk-2006-awards

but the whole page is brilliant!

You’re just trolling for action with that one…

Wow…

And…LS Presents!!! for the best comedy initiative of the year..BeCCa “noclick17” Bland, Executive producer in association with NDP “Nonimage Development Productions” in Japan…..
But you’ve missed…
My name is Becca Bland, I am a 23 year old conceptual artist and writer , originally from Brighton in the U.K.

And a great link to…..The nomusicday.com !!!!

If you want to read, Becca is the person…”whose parents privately admitted to EPUK that they where somewath disappointed that whe couldn’t show them any pictures from the holyday they paid for.”

Great post!
Lol

Starting now, I shall practice circular breathing until I can AUUUUUMMMMMMM the half hour necessary to achieve proper exposure of the light at the end of the tunnel…

But I know now to make 50 grants without even using my pinhole.

1 – Take unexposed paper.
2 – Drop in fixing bath.
3 – Frame.

Caption: Jumping on the Blandwagon.
Price: 50Gs.

maybe we should ask her for the advanced training module in self-advertising? thanks to us must have had a lot of traffic on her page recently g

i’ll have stickers printed: celebrate the moment, document it!

We should stop being goof balls and show bb “some” support.
I suggest cranking those fancy SLRs down to 3 fps…

Surely a decent compromise…

Jason..that’s why they invented slrs..lol- I remember my using a rangefinder..
With polaroids it’s worse.because you pull ‘em out..wait, peel apart..and start swearing.

Deeply deeply embarassed at the time.

Maybe Becca did the same thing when she was a student? Maybe this is where her whole idea sprang from? An attempt to cover up a simple mistake with a load of Zen bollocks…

af,autoexposure slrs really spoil you..

As for the said Becca..

she would have done better to develop her sense of humor.

she still hasn’t replied to my pm or directly here.
come on.
we’re only taking the piss.

you know what they say-
oh well.

Can we all start suggesting “day” ideas? Where do you apply for a “day”? I thought “wear a brown paper bag over your head day” would be kind of cool, but I don’t know who to contact about getting this started. Unlike not taking photos, there is a lot of room for creativity with my idea. You can personalize your bag/head anyway you want (the only rule is you can’t cut any holes in it to see out of). You can draw a face on the back of it and hair on the front, you can draw someone elses face on it, or you can leave it blank and open to interpretation(that is reserved for the more artsy types). Who’s with me? What? You got something better than walking around all day and not seeing?

DAY IN THE LIFE OF BECCA BLAND DAY

a 24 hr, around the clock, minute by minute, photographic exploration, meditatively, visually, existentially concerned with the photographic exploration and excavation of Becca Bland. PHotographers from around the world are encouraged to (a la the reknown “Day in the Life of” series) approach the said subject with as much candor and intimacy and exposure as possible. The project encourages any manner of photography (film, digital, cell phone, surveillance camera, russian-spy cams, toy camera, box cameras) any manner of style (pj, art, b/w, digital, 35mm, med format) and any manner of photographer (pro, amateur, kid, voyeur) in an attempt to better understand and penetrate the murky and opaque world of Becca Bland.

Good Luck Ladies and Gentlemen: it’s a tough assignment, the last frontier….

Aperature’s agreed to publish the book….

cheers,
bob

we should buy her an old Brownie or Rangefinder, or shit, a small disposable, let her see that sometimes the effort to photograph can be as transformative and meditative as silence….;)))))))))))))

i dont feel bad for those who attempt to abolish someone else’s pleasure/principle/job under the bullshit (umm, i mean principle) of betterment, their idea of betterment: if she were really a zen buddhist, i’d tell her something simple: the world is a dream and so are all those annoying photographer who break her silence….

silence is the space of breath inside, not the world around….

im meditative and im also a “loud” photographer ;)))))))

cheers,
bob

You have been in Japan only 6 months and you manage to conclude ALL THIS?

Wow! I have been here for 7 years and can’t yet conclude anything so simplistic.

You’ve really got the hang of the Zen thing heh?

Nick

P.S Found a spelling mistake on the opening shpeel of your site.

poor girl,first her surname,can you imagine kids at shool?
then that photo..

well I remember an aunt of mine wanting ‘to rip my eyes out’ after seeing a photo I had taken of her..

ah, women..

Years ago a friend of my sisters would habitually forget his camera at our house. As a prank, my brother and I decided would take one shot each of each others butts. He’d get the film developed and amongst all the pics he’d taken there were two of us mooning him. This went on a few more times until he started to remember to take his camera with him. To this day, he never forgets his camera.

There could be many moons in Japan on the 17th of July.

Your not American by any chance, are you?

Your not American by any chance, are you?

Come on. Bullshit like that could only come from a British art school student.

I ought to know, I went to a British art school…

Blimey, reading this stuff you’d think there was a fatwa out on the lass – its not like she asked for a copyright grab or nuffin’. I can think of a lot more photo-people to throw in a wicker man than Becca Bland.

Which by the way is a top name. I really hope its not a pseudonym…can I call myself Kevin Spicy?

You’d better all be observing this one though, you scurvy dogs…

but, ......your right Akaky!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRR, ...IT BURNS, IT BURNS ….IT SEERS ….MY EYES!!!!!!!

ok, I scroll down.

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My goodness, Imants, who is that sweet little lady coming up to bat?

Now that becca has met our secret weapon, hope she doesn’t try to sweet talk your friend into joining the popo nofo brigade.

I hate to say this, but, she looks as if she could turn against just about anyone for the right bustier.

And you know, it wasn’t even called nofo day last year….it was much more positive and enlightening experience. It was called:

Ecstasy Day

Come on – I for one, totally agree that both I and my kids have a lot more fun if I’m kicking the ball, rather than photographing them doing it. I guess for ONE day, I can be a full-on participant rather than an observer. Geezz … you’d think she was FORCING everyone to give up their crack for a WEEK, or something!

Oh, please…you two (and not Imants or John) plus becca are the ones that need to lighten up…and you are right, barry, the rest of you are scurvy dogs... <sub>ho-ho, I tease you, you my little puuppy. (o:</sub>

Holy Mary, between colleagues getting kidnapped, tortured executed, beheaded, blown apart, missing God only knows where, kids sacrificing their lives and well being on dangerous assignment, this post was just pleading for some comic relief. Particularly being posted practically the same day as when Dmitry was killed.

If Becca is looking to just advertise and invite people to experience things differently so that their images may be greater, then that is one thing. But I have some real problems with her approach of her thesis and I definitely have some problems with her trying to enforce her ideas on people.

The whole thing about thinking one knows better than a whole history and culture of people is what is arrogant here.

The people who have posted in response do not agree at all with her proclamation and at the same time they are blowing off steam with the same natural biting sarcasm that allows them to survive the traumas of a difficult vocation. I don’t care if you think she is just some “hippy dippy” student, students should not be coddled like that out in the field.

As a professor, I would never have approved this thesis. I don’t care how much press she gets, in my opinion, it is arrogant and ignorant of not just a profession but it trivializes a whole history and culture of people.

And my God, if she can’t take what comes with promoting what she claims she wants to enforce as a “globalized” movement outside of the classroom, then I think she needs to reevaluate her quest.

Most of the people that are joking here I don’t believe are teachers so certainly they have no reason at all to coddle anyone. I think perhaps and I may be wrong, that I am practically the only one here that was a college professor and it would be a disservice to coddle any student period, let alone one with a thesis this bad. It is not a good conceptual piece and it is a very shallow and pompous cultural piece.

And comparing professionals’ livilihood and a vocation that one has fought so hard to not just achieve but to maintain to “crack” is about as ridiculous as this thesis.

This is not the place for students to tell professionals what to do and why they need to do it.

I think Becca posted with very bad timing and with a very unattractive proposal….not even a proposal rather a demand, and that is always a great recipe for satire.

If these comments have caused her outrage, rather than dismiss them as uncalled for, she should rather examine why she got this response in the first place and why does she have this need to demand and control human behavior.

It is just not right to not give her honest responses particularly when she wants to advertise this thread as a deep discussion regarding her ideology for her website.

Sorry, but that’s my opinion.

If Ms Bland wants to go and have a day of non-photography to have a different experience that is all well and good but why does she have to make it into “a day”? Days are to celebrate something like: Mothers` day, Fathers` day, Independence day, Christmas day. NPDay celebrates nothing actually, get this, here we have an artist trying to make a special day to celebrate the non-creation of art. Does not that seem strange to you? There is no point that I can see in following the principles of NPDay other than to massage Ms. Bland`s ego and that doesn`t sound too Zen to me.

The ribauld abuse she is getting here is no different to usual pub banter in the UK and she should be used to it. As Gayle said if she can`t handle it what is she doing organising hoped for “global” events?

What myself and other Japan-based people find particularly unpalatable is her take on Japan. I`ve been here five years. Some of the other`s like Nick or Nathan much longer and I am sure none of us would dare to assume so publically that we understand the place. We have all experienced disappointments here and made sweeping statements of rapid reflection but long exposure to the culture has taught us that almost every opinion you form about Japan is proved wrong at some later date. If Ms.Bland has kept the same point of view on Japan for the six monthy since she stepped off the aeroplane in Narita she is obviously not getting out there to find real Japan.

Becca I ask you to spend longer experiencing things before you pronounce so surely on them. Photography is not evil, try taking a few more pics before you throw aside your camera. Also Thailand is more than noisy, rude tourists. I lived in Thailand for a year too and know exactly what you find distasteful about tourism there but your beach stoner epiphany is as ill thought through and predictable as your gaijin eyes.
Damon

Remember most of us are just taking the piss on this thread. And i, for one, firmly believe she’s left herself wide open for having the piss taken.

Some of the statements on her website, especially, about the Japanese are not only pompous, pretentious and ignorant, but downright racist at times.

An art school education, a mere six months in Japan, and a few books by D.T. Suzuki and probably a few more on post-modernism doesn’t make her an expert on representation, photography, or a foreign culture.

I personally dislike the reducing of an entire culture to an easily defined stereotype.

I imbed with the National Guard on July 14th. It’s my first time with the armed forces, so you’ll have to pry the camera out of my hands to get me to stop shooting!

I say we have a Non-Breathing Day; it might prove to be more productive.

Will someone please say something funny again. Or gratuitously swear which seems to work just as well!

Damon

How’s that Damon?

First of all I am much more in awe at the shallowness of Ms. Bland thesis advisors than Ms. Bland’s premise, unless, of course, Ms Bland is doing this inspite of their advice.

This thesis never should have left the formulation stage, let alone the building. As I said before, this, not just presented in it’s final and formal stage but actually launched is an immature, arrogant and ignorant concept. And to present it in this stage to a professional forum is highly laughable and deserves worst treatment than we so lovingly (except Imants, of course….(o:) teased it with.

Now there is a core in the thesis that Ms. Bland’s thesis advisors could have recognized as substance, but then they allowed it not to enter into the worthy genre of conceptual art but rather let it run amok into an alternate universe that is not clever at all, but rather senseless and frivolous and formed from perceptions that border on, in the least, ignorance, and at the most, cultural and economic racism, either that or else some poor grad TA has taken over their professor’s duties for free and doesn’t know how or doesn’t care to carefully direct Ms. Bland’s, shall we say, “overzealousness” for the Japanese culture and the chinese/japanese philosophy of Zen Buddhism.

The arrogance I speak of, comes in when a student of the same profession comes onto a professional trade site telling it’s members to please respect “ma authoritay” and follow the “New Rule”, and I’m not talking about “New Rules” with the quality content sarcasm that Bill Maher weaves. Also, there is a telltale arrogance about someone (non-japanese?) critiqueing the Japanese with the Japanese’ own historical, religious and cultural philosophy of Zen and by someone whom, if I understand this correctly, I believe was there for less than half a year?

This “new rule” tells us to respect a day that we had no part in organizing and hopefully would never agree to. And to have the day and rule policed? Well, isn’t that Orwellian, for you.

Now if Ms. Bland had had the thesis advisors she had probably paid an arm and a leg for, they would have saved the core of her project and helped her realize it as a potentially great idea that could have stood on the shoulders of giants rather than cut them off at the knees. Of course, the concept that she started with is not original in the least.

It’s core comes from the honorable/noble protest category of “hunger strikes” and in this particular form most recently it was used to protest the horrific devastation that AIDS was having on the Art community. December 1, is World AIDS Day, thousands of organizations mark a Day With(out) Art. Between 1989 and 1997, a Day Without Art was a reminder of the void that would exist in a world without artists.. It was created to symbolize the loss of so many of our most talented and gifted colleagues to the then terminal immune deficiency disease.

Now some homophobes still laugh about the devastation AIDS took on the Arts and the Arts Community, but then they should think about where our culture would be without the gifts of Leonardo da Vinci, painter-scientist (1452-1519), MICHELANGELO Buonarroti. Italian painter, sculptor and architect (b. 1475, Caprese, d. 1564, Roma), Frances Bacon artist/painter, David Hockney Artist and photographer, Mapplethorpe Photographer, artist (AIDS victim), Sappho, Greek poet (600 B.C.) Queen Christina, Swedish ruler (1626-1689), Madame de Stael, French author (1766-1817), Emily Dickinson, American poet (1830-1886), Willa Cather, American author (1873-1947), Gertrude Stein, American author (1874-1946), Virginia Woolf, British author (1882-1941), Vita Sackville-West, British author (1892-1962), Zeno, Greek philosopher (500 B.C.), Sophocles, Greek playwright (496?-406 B.C.), Socrates, Greek philosopher (470?-399 B.C.), Aristotle, Greek philosopher (384-322 B.C.), Alexander the Great, Macedonian ruler (356-323 B.C.), Emperor Hadrian, Roman ruler (76-138 A.D.),Richard the Lion-Hearted, British ruler (1157-1199), Richard II, British ruler (1367-1400), Benvenuto Cellini, Italian goldsmith (1500-1571), Christopher Marlowe, British playwright (1564-1593), King James I, British ruler (1566-1625),John Milton, British poet (1608-1674), Jean Baptiste Lully, French composer (1632-1687),Frederick the Great, Prussian ruler (1712-1786), King Gustav III, Swedish ruler (1746-1792),Baron Alexander von Humboldt, German naturalist (1769-1859), Lord Byron, British poet (1788-1824), Hans Christian Andersen, Danish author (1805-1875), Walt Whitman, American poet (1819-1892), Samuel Butler, British author (1835-1902), Algernon Swinburne, British poet (1837-1909), Petr Ilich Tchaikovsky, Russian composer (1840-1893), Paul Verlaine, French poet (1844-1896), Oscar Wilde, Irish playwright (1854-1900), Frederick Rolfe (Baron Corvo), British author (1860-1913), Andre Gide, French author (1869-1951), Marcel Proust, French author (1871-1922), E. M. Forster, British author (1879-1970), John Maynard Keynes, British economist (1883-1946), Sir Harold Nicholson, British author-diplomat (1886-1968), T. E. Lawrence, British soldier-author (1888-1935), Jean Cocteau, French author (1889-1963), Christopher Isherwood, British author, Dag Hammarskjold, Swedish secretary-general U.N. (1905-1961), W. H. Auden, British-American poet, Jean Genet, French playwright, Tennessee Williams, American playwright, Brendan Behan, Irish author (1923-1964), etc, etc…. had they or any other remarkable hetrosexual artist, for that matter, contracted the deadly disease and therefore cut short at the height of their miraculous careers.

This type protest category uses personal sacrifice as a way to ensure our own freedom to exist or freedom to be included/accepted or freedom to choose. This category of protest is not meant to be used as an anti-freedom statement; to make others/professionals abstain “for their own good” from their own livihoods and then to actually try to police freelancers into “fasting” for a day? My reaction can only one of sarcasm since Ms. Bland, in Lightstalkers’ case, has again obviously and completely misjudged a community and what I understand the professional community Lightstalkers’ supports is all about.

Now if, Becca’s unoriginal thesis kernel had been fostered into a much needed protest for (not against) the field of photography, she should have gone in the opposite direction and had a NonPhotography day in order, to say, protest Anti-copyright Legislation or unfair contracts that coerce W4H with little or no compensation.

As it stands now, presenting Non-photography day on Lightstalkers is just shallow and silly, as not of any benefit really to professional photographers or any other artist, rather it is someone’s slanted ideology attempting to be policed upon a profession. Even if only for a day, it still doesn’t make sense to not be satirical about. If it goes longer than a day then I agree with Imants, let’s hire that sweet little lady to pounce upon the opposition. If it becomes a crazy growing youth movement like “free-culture” under Lawrence Lessig then, I would love to be to first say “Step-off George!” and wear a “Focker off” Imants T-Shirt over my South Park panties ready to, on Imants que, full moon en masse.

How much and how often it is forced upon us, for me, will be the difference between the majority of my responses being teasing and satirical or the majority of my responses being outright indignant. But at this stage and to me, it is still just a bad Sarah Silverman joke that should have been cut before it made it to the second gig.

OK, now it’s time for me to follow my favorite professor’s advice, “If you talk so much, you will never get any art done.”

But not before I sing praises to the cheeky PANTS PIRATE, you scurvy dogs! Thanks Sion! :o)

HAPPY MUM’S DAY MARINA, HAPPY MOM’S DAY MARGO (that’s my mom) :)))))))))))))))

LOVE
YOUR HUBBIE AND SON

B

People seriously dissented as is their right and then it just got really satirically funny and not at anyone’s expense since that person clearly wasn’t even here to participate.

I do not want to laugh at Ms. Bland, but you know, I do have a tendency to laugh at authority figures, and I would much rather laugh at her thesis than analyze it.

Having just come from the unbelievable underworld of academia, I guess that I shouldn’t be surprised at the low quality of teaching out there now, but I would rather laugh at it’s state than analyze how it got there because I am well aware of the awful truth.

And, sooooo….. that is the reason why I am out of there and now out of here.