Stick Your Tongue Out!

"When you ask a person to jump, his attention is mostly directed

toward the act of jumping and the mask falls so that the real person appears."

 

-Philippe Halsman

 

Halsman was a famed Life photographer who towards the end of his

career would customarily ask his subjects if they would like to

jump for him. My particular favorite image of his is the Duke and

Duchess of Windsor (1956) jumping.

 

I have been asking people to stick their tongue out

for a picture. I've been doing it for some time - back to the

old days when you used "film". For convience I have only searched

my collection of digital images, and come up with the following

mosaic of images. It includes family, friends. acquaintances, and even

relative strangers - people who I met briefly and never learned their name.

As far as I know there is no one famous. (Halsman took pictures of royalty

and celebrities - like Marilyn Monroe.)

 

I am not sure what sticking your tongue out symbolizes anymore.

A little research on the internet turned up that "Sticking out

the tongue is still a polite sign of greeting in northern India and Tibet"

 

And a lot of SMS/chat/email icon references...

 

:o)Sticking your tongue out

:-P tongue hanging out in anticipation

:-r sticking tongue out

:-P sticking out tongue (symbol of disrespect)

:-q trying to touch its tongue to its nose

 

It is not clear if in the act of sticking their tongue out

for a photo if the "mask falls" and the real person shows

throuh or not - clearly I'll need to do some more research.

(Comments on this preliminary effort are welcome.)

 

There are stories to go with these pictures. (aren't there always?)

My Uncle stuck his tongue out without prompting. I sent my Aunt a cabinet

card of my Uncle with a photoshopped in tongue piercing.

Evidently the family laughed about it all weekend (though it is unclear

what response my Uncle had - we haven't spoken since I sent his family the

image over a year ago :-)

 

The "Office Space Compliant tongue piercing" (B&W with

Red push pin "tongue piercing") was a setup shot, and thanks to

my co-worker for modeling. We actually used a green push pin with

the pin cut off to do some non-enterprise critcal activities during

that work day. Inspired by the movie Office Space - that captures what

corporate cube culture really is to those of us in the cube- we

created this particular piece of flair, only a few more pieces

of flair and we'll be able to fully express ourselves:-)

 

Best viewed large

Done