decency photos on Flickr

#artwork #pauljaisini'sverdict #contemporaryart #art #artcomment #criticism #pauljaisinisaid #conart #catwoman #viralart #homage2jaisini #invisiblepaintings #inspired #not4sale #gleitzeit #condom #comics #sexy #pussycar #pink #pastelpink by E_Y_K_G

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MANIFESTO GLEITZEIT 2015

BY STELLY RIESLING

Featured below is another original art work of mine in homage to THE PIONEER OF INVISIBLE ART — PAUL JAISINI. Forget all the copycats that came after him — Master Paul Jaisini was the *FIRST* of a totally original concept and the *BEST*. My favorite thing about him is that he’s a voice, not an echo, which is quite rare.

DISCLAIMER: This is for anyone who is a hater OR wishes to better understand me, what I’m all about, so you can decide whether I’m weird or normal enough for you — a kind of very loose manifesto, rushed and unrevised, full of raw uncut emotion that I don’t like to be evident in my writing as lately I prefer a more professional, formal style, so we can consider this a rough draft of the more polished writing to come when I have extra time. I might return to this text later and clean it up or break it into separate parts. Right now it’s a long-winded hot mess, so if you manage to make any sense of it, BIG PROPS TO YOU. lol …and if you manage to read it ALL, you have my solemn respect!!! in a day when reading has been reduced to just catchy headliners and short captions of images once in a while. The consequence of this one-liner internet culture is non-linear, tunnel thinking, which is baaaaaad.

There lives among us a most enigmatic and charismatic creature named Paul Jaisini who led me into the wonderful world of art, not personally, but through descriptions of his artworks in essays written and published online by his friend, which painted the most fascinating images in my mind. Early on as a kiddo, I experimented with photography, simple point and shoot whatever looked attractive to me. Digital manipulation of my photographs with computer software followed… and somehow I learned useful drawing techniques along the way to combine existing elements with nonexistent ones, which allowed me to elevate the context for my ideas. Later, I started creating my own digital art from scratch for my friends and family as a favorite pastime. They would shower me with praise and repeatedly encouraged me to share my “different” vision with the rest of the world… it took a while and wasn’t easy to overcome the insecurity of not being good enough along with a gripping fear of being harshly criticized, but one day I woman-ed up and started publishing my work on the web, reminding myself that my livelihood didn’t depend on a positive reception.

Paul Jaisini’s role in all this has been to not disgrace myself, even if what I do is just a hobby. And I would never do him and other genius artists the disservice of calling myself a professional because I know I’ll never be as good as any of the GIANTS of pre-modern history. Be the best or be nothing, no middle ground.

People’s jealousy in the past, future and present over my obsessive love of Paul Jaisini, which they are well aware is purely plutonic, has caused them to despise the man and has made many relationships/friendships impossible for me. I refuse to have such people in my life because by harboring any negativity towards Paul, they unknowingly feel that way about me and express it to me. It’s their own problem for not realizing this. Paul’s new art movement, Gleitzeit, shaped me into the allegedly awesome girl I am today, giving my art more edge, more “sexy” because it refined my vision of the world and propelled me to attain the skills necessary to not dishonor my family name through tenacious pursuit of perfection. Since the beginning of my life, I attempted to depict what I saw in visual, musical and literal forms, but continuously failed without adequate training and determination. Paul Jaisini’s Gleitzeit was the answer to my prayers. Who I am today I owe mostly to him and his selfless ideals of the artverse that I’ve given unconditional loyalty to (he has this cool ability for hyper-vision to see whole universes, not itty bitty worlds, hence I call it an artverse instead of art world, with him in mind). So again, anyone who hates Paul Jaisini hates ME because, regardless of what he means to you, he is the most important person in my life for making me ME. The way a famous actor, dancer or singer inspires others to act, dance or sing, Paul inspired me to become a better artist, better writer, better everything. More people would understand if he was a household name because they’re wired to in society. But we’re inspiring each other all the time in our own little communities without being famous, so if someone has the ability to change even ONE person’s life immensely with creativity, it is a massive achievement. And passionate folks like myself are compelled to scream it from the cyber rooftops. So here I am. It’s whatever.

Furthermore, I’d like to address here a few pressing matters in light of some recent drama brought on by both strangers and former friends. To start, I never judge the passions, interests or likes of others, which are often in my face all over the place, so likewise they have no right to judge any of mine. It is quite unfortunate and frustrating how very little understanding and education the majority of people have or want to have. Their logic is as primitive as a chipmunk when it comes to promotion of fine art on the web: “spamming, advertising, report!” It’s their own problem that they fail to understand what it’s about due to the distorted lens through which they see the world or inability to think for themselves; an inherent lack of perception or inquisitiveness. Well, guess what? Every single image, every animation, every video, every post dedicated to Mr. Paul Jaisini and “Gleitziet” (to elaborate: a revolutionary new art movement Paul founded with his partner in crime and personal friend, EYKG, who discovered him and believed in him more than anyone) has an important purpose. Every one of those things you run across is a piece of a puzzle, a move in a game, an inch down a rabbit hole; the deeper you go, the more interesting it gets; the more levels you pass, the more clues unfold, the greater the suspense and nearer the conclusion (yet further). You earn awesome rewards like enlightenment, spiritual revelations, truths, knowledge, wisdom and the most profound reward of all: the drive to improve yourself to the absolute maximum, so an unending, unshakable drive. People often make a wrong turn in this cyber game and go back a few levels or get stuck. Those that keep on pushing, however, will come to find the effort has been worth it. And what awaits you in the end of it all? The greatest challenge to beating the game: YOUR OWN MIND. You will be forced to let go of every belief you held before you had reached the last level, to completely alter your mindset and perception of the world, of life, of yourself. But by the time you’ve gotten to that point, it will be as easy as falling off a cliff! (It is a kind of suicide after all — death and rebirth of spirit.)

Paul Jaisini does NOT, *I repeat* does NOT use mystery and obscurity to his advantage as a clever marketing ploy, no, he’s too next level for that with a consciousness so rich, he should wear a radioactive warning sign (he’ll melt your brain, best wear a tinfoil hat in his presence as I certainly would.) The statement he makes is loud and clear, hidden in plain site for those who take the time to connect the dots and have enough curiosity to fuel their journey into unknown territory (an open mind and flexible perception helps a lot). Actually, anyone with an IQ above 90 is sure to figure it out sooner or later. Hint: You don’t have to SEE an extraordinary thing with your eyes to know it exists, to understand it and realize its greatness — you can only feel it in your bone marrow, your spinal fluid, your heart and soul. The moment you do figure it out, as the skeleton key of the human soul, it will unlock the greatness and massive potential buried deep within, changing the doomed direction humanity is undoubtedly headed. I don’t speak in riddles, I speak in a clear direct way that intelligent humans will understand, so I’m counting on them.

GIG is an international group of artists and writers that support Paul Jaisini’s Gleitzeit. We started off as an unofficial fan club of Jaisini in 1996, comprised of only 6 individuals spanning 3 countries, and eventually escalated in status to an official fan group across the entire globe. A decade later it had grown to hundreds of fans. Nearly another decade later, there are thousands. Let’s not leave out another delightful group of vicious haters that have been around for nearly as long as us since the late 90s and have also grown in impressive numbers. Now, for the record (and please write this one down because I’m sick of repeating myself), Paul Jaisini himself is not part of our group and has nothing to do with us. He loves and hates us equally for butchering his name and making him appear as a narcissistic nut-job in his own words. He casts hexes on us for the blinding flash we layer over the art that members contribute to GIG — “disgusting-police-lights, seizure-inducing-laser-lightshow, bourgeois-myspace-effects retarded-raver shit” in Paul’s words. Ahh, how we love his sweet-talking us. In a desperate attempt to please him, those among us who make the art and animations have spent countless hours and sleepless nights trying to solve a crazy-complex quantum-physics type of equation = how to not create tacky or tasteless content. He does fancy some of it now, we got better, that’s something! In the reason stated below, our mission just got out of hand at some point.

What little is known about Paul Jaisini, even in all this time, is he’s a horrible perfectionist who slaughtered hundreds of innocent babies — I mean — artworks of remarkable beauty created by his own right hand (mostly paintings, some watercolors and drawings). He’s a fierce recluse who wants nothing to do with anyone or anything in life. But those few of us who know of an incredible talent he possesses (one could go as far as calling it a superpower), could not allow him to live his life without the recognition he FUCKING DESERVES more than any artist out there living today and, arguably, yesterday. We use whatever means necessary to reach more people, lots of flash and razzle-dazzle to lure them into our sinister trap of a higher awareness. Mwahaha! The visual boom you’ve witnessed in both cyber and real worlds, that is GIG’s doing — two damn decades of spreading an art virus — IVA. InVisibleArtitis… or a drug as in Intravenous Art. It’s whatever you want it to be, honey.

Our Gleitzeit International Group (GIG) started off innocently enough and gradually spiraled out of control to fight the haters, annoying the hell out of them as much as humanly possible. They don’t like what we do? WE DO MORE AND MORE OF IT. But never without purpose, without a carefully executed plan in mind collectively. If we have to tolerate an endless tidal wave of everyone’s vomit — e.g., idiotic memes and comics; dumbed-down one-liner quotes; selfies; so-called “art photography” passed through one-click app filters; mindless scribbles or random splatters by regular folks who have the nerve to call themselves serious/pro artists; primitive images of pets, babies, landscapes, random objects, etc… then people sure as shit are gonna tolerate what we put out, our animated and non-animated visual art designed for our beloved master, Paul Jaisini, who has shown us the light, the right path to follow, taught us great things and done so much for us — and so in our appreciation of him, we stamp his name on everything, for the sacrifices he has made in the name of art, to save our art verse, he’s a goddamn hero. There’s a book being written in his dedication where little will be left to the imagination about him.

If Paul Jaisini was as famous as Koons or Hirst, for example, people would know it’s not him posting stuff online with his name on it but fans creating fanart like myself among others. But noooooo, such a thing is unfathomable to most people - the promotion of another artist. Like, what’s in it for us? Uhh, nothing?? This is all NON-PROFIT bitches, the way art should be. It’s a passion FIRST, a commodity/commercial product/marketable item LAST and least. Its been that way for us since the early 90s to this day. Not a single member of GIG has sold an art work (neither has Paul Jaisini who’s a true professional) and we want to keep it that way. We do it for reasons far beyond ego. So advertising? Really? How the hell do you advertise or sell thin air, you know, invisible paintings, invisible anything? Ha ha, very funny indeed. The idea here is so simple, your neighbor’s dog can grasp it. Our motives: replace fast food for the mind with fine art, actual fine art. You know, creativity? Conscious thought? Talent? Skill? Knowledge? All that good stuff rolled into one to bring viewers more than a momentary ooohand aaahh reaction. Replace the recycled images ad nauseum; repetitious, worn-out ideas; disposable, gimmicky, money-driven fast art for simpletons. Stick with the highest of ideals and save the whole bloody planet.

Fine art is often confused with craft-making. This often creates bad blood between classically trained artists who put out paintings that leave a lasting impression, that make strong conversation pieces, that are thought-provoking and deep… and trained craftspeople whose skills are adequate to create decorative pieces for homely environments — landscapes, still lifes, animals, pretty fairies, common things of fantasy, and other simplicity. Skills alone are not enough for high art, you need a vision, a purpose, the ability to tell a story with every stroke of your brush that will both fascinate and terrify the viewers, arousing powerful emotions, illuminating. I have yet to see a visible painting in my generation that does anything at all for me, other than evoke sheer outrage and disgust. What a terrible waste of space and valuable resources it all is.

Paul Jaisini leads, we follow. He wishes to remain unknown - so do most of us. I’m next in line, slipping into recluse mode, no longer wanting to attach my face, my human image to my art stuff. I wish to be a nameless, faceless artist as well, invisible like P.J., and in his footsteps I too have destroyed thousands of my own artistic photography and digital art made with tedious, labor-intensive handwork. The whole point of this destruction is achieving the finest results possible by letting go of the imperfect, purging it on a regular basis, to make way for the perfect. I love what I do so it doesn’t matter, I know I’ll keep producing as much as I’m discarding, keeping the balance. Hoarding is an enemy of progress, especially the digital kind as there’s absolutely no limit to it. It’s like carrying a load of bricks on your back you’ll never use or need.

The watering down of creativity that digital pack ratting has caused as observed over the years is most tragic. For the creative individual, relying on terabytes of stock photos or OSFAP as I call them (Once Size Fits All Photos) instead of making your own as you used to when you had no choice, being 100% original, is a splinter in the conscience. It’s not evil to use stock of, say, things you don’t have access to (outer space, deep sea, Antarctica, etc.), but many digital artists I know today can’t take their own shot of a pencil ‘cause they “ain’t got no time for that!” How did they have time before? Did time get so compressed in only a decade?

Ohhhhh, and the edits, textures, filters, plug-ins and what-have-you available out there to everyone and their cats… are responsible for the tidal wave of rubbish that eclipses the magnificent light of the real talents.

I can tell you with utmost sincerity there is no better feeling on earth than knowing your creation is ALL yours, every pixel and dot, from the first to the last. It’s not always possible to make it so, but definitely the most rewarding endeavor. I’m most proud of myself when I can accomplish that.

Back to Paul Jaisini, from the start there have been a number of theories floating around on what his real story is. One of my own theories is that he stands for the unknowns of the world who can’t get representation, can’t get exhibited at a decent gallery because highly gifted/trained artists aren’t good enough - those kind of establishments prefer bananas, balloon dogs, feces, gigantic dicks/cunts, and all kinds of what-the-fucks…

So again, you don’t get the Paul Jaisini thing? That’s your problem. Don’t hate others for getting it. People are good, very good, at making baseless assumptions and impulsively spewing it as truth. They criticize and judge as if they’re high authorities on the subject yet they clearly lack education in fine art or art history and possess little to no talent or skill to back up their bullshit. My little “credibility radar” never fails. When they say I know this or I know that, I reply don’t say “I know” or state things as fact as a general rule of thumb - instead say “I assume/believe” and state the reasons you feel thus to appear less immature, especially about a controversial topic like invisible art. I have zero respect or tolerance for egomaniacs who think they know it all and act accordingly like arrogant pricks. Who can stand those, right? Once again, a good example would be: I, Stelly Riesling, believe everything I’ve written in this little manifesto to be correct based on personal experience and observation from multiple angles, thorough research and sufficient data collected from verifiable sources (and don’t go copying-pasting my own words back at me, be original). Just because you or I say so doesn’t make it so. Just because you or me think or believe so doesn’t make it true or right. I only ask that my opinions are regarded respectfully and whoever opposes them does so in a mature, civilized manner. We should only be entitled to opinions that don’t bring out the worst in us.

I don’t normally take such a position, but the time has come to stand up for what I believe in! It’s quite amusing and comical how haters think calling me names, attacking me or my interests or members of the project I’m part of for years is going to change something. It only makes more evident the importance of what I’m doing so I push on harder still.

Words of advise to those who can identify with me, with my frustrations over people’s reluctance to change their miserable ways, with our declining art world…

DON’T waste time on people who sweat the small stuff, whose actions are consistently inconsistent with their words. DO waste time on people who always keep their eye on the ball—the bigger picture of life.

Paul Jaisini’s invisible paintings are more than hype, more than your lame assumptions. Here’s one I got that’s pure gold: a cult! It started out as A JOKE OF MINE that was used against me. I told a then-good friend that he should come join our little “art cult” in a clearly lighthearted manner, and later he takes this idea I put in his head first and accuses me of being in an (imaginary) cult—the jokes on me eh?. But wait, aren’t cults religious? Our group consists of people around the world of different faiths (or none at all) so how could that ever work? If religion was about making fine (non-pop) art mainstream and bringing awesome, fresh, futuristic concepts to the collective consciousness, the world would not be so fucked up today because talent, creativity, originality and individuality would be the main focus, not superficial poppycock; those things would be praised and encouraged and supported in society by all institutions, not demonized and stigmatized.

Here is one thing I CAN state as solid fact: only one person close to Paul Jaisini knows the TRUE story, or at least some of it: EYKG. Everything else that has ever been said about him is myth, legend, gossip, speculation, the worst of which is said by jealous non-artists (wannabes, clones, posers, hang-ons, unoriginal ppl in general) and anti-artists (religious psychos, squares, losers and -duh- stupid ppl). Sadly, people are unable to see the bigger picture by letting their egos run their lives or repeating after others as parrots.

Commercial art, consumerism, and ignorance of the masses truly makes me want to curl up in a ball, not eat or drink or move until I die, just die in my sleep while dreaming of a better world, a world where real fine artists rule it with real fine art as they used to and life is beautiful once again….

Well I hope that settled THAT for now, or perhaps inadvertently made matters worse. I hope I didn’t sound too pissed from all these issues that keep popping up like penises on ChatRoulette… just got to me already! Can you tell? I had to put my foot down, stomp ‘em all!

To be continued, still lots more ignorance and pettiness to battle… Till then peace out my bambini. MWAH!

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

MANIFESTO GLEITZEIT 2015

PROLOGUE

Paul Jaisini was like a messiah, as you wish, who saw/understood the impending end and complete degeneration of Fine art or Art become and investment nothing more than that. He predicted the bubble pops art when everybody would eventually become an artist, including dogs cats and horses, because they as kids followed the main rule: express yourself without skills or knowledge or any aesthetic concerns. J. Pollack started pouring paints onto canvases; Julian Schnabel, former cab driver from NY, suddenly decided he could do better than what he saw displayed in galleries, so he started gluing dishes on canvases; A.Warhol, an industrial artist who made commercial silk-screen for the factories he worked in, started to exhibit "Campbell's soup" used for commercial adds... and later the thing that made him an "American Idol": by copying and pasting Hollywood celebrities (same type of posters he made before for movie theaters).

When Paul Jaisini stood out against the Me culture in the US by burning all of his own 120 brilliant paintings (according to the then-new director of Fort Worth MoMa Museum, who offered hin an exhibition of his art in 1992, and later the Metropolitan Museum curator, Phillippe de Montebello, in 1994).Paul probably assumed all fellow true fine artists would join him or stand by him against corruption of the art world.

And after 20 years of his stand-off...the time has finally come today. Many artists and humanitarians around the world took a place beside him. His invisible Paintings became a synonym for the future reincarnation of fine art and long lost harmony. The establishment is in panic! The "moneybags" (as Paul Jaisini named them) are in panic, because they invested BILLIONS of dollars in real crap made by craftsmen. Now they realize that the reputation of American legends of expressionism was nothing but a copy of Russian avant-garde" Kazimir Malevich, Vasiliy Kandinsky and tens of others from France and Germany.. US tycoon investors were spending billions on "Me more original, than you". "Artist Shit" is a 1061 artwork by the Italian artist Piero Manzoni. The work consists of 90 tin cans, filled with feces. A tin can was sold for £124,000, 180,000 at Sothebys, 2007.

EPILOGUE

Before I resume promoting and admiring a very important art persona on today's international art arena, I'd like to clear up some BIG questions; people ask continuously and subconsciously, directly & indirectly: "Why does the name Paul Jaisini, flood the Internet in such "obnoxious" quantities that it's started suppressing some other activities that my friends might share with the rest of the Internet's Ego Me only Me www society? I can't just answer this... so I'll try to explain why I'm writing this: Jaisini's followers keep posting art and info about,

He IMHO the only hope in quickly decomposing visual fine art. "Paul Jaisini realized many years ago, in 1994, when he declared (at that time to himself only) the start of a New era, a New vision, that he is trying to redirect from the rat race, started by an establishment in post-war New York, long before the Internet culture.

Sub related information: Adolf Gottlieb, Mart Rothko, etc (after visiting Paris France in 1933):

"We must forget analytical art, we must express ourselves, as a 5 year old child would, without a developed consciousness. Forget about results - do what you feel, EXPRESS yourself with your own unique style"

With this statement Mark Rothko starts to teach his students, degeneration of fine art begins, and the generation of war of styles took a start signal of the material race, greatly rewarded by establishment "individual" - eccentric craftsmen - show business clowns.

Sub related Information: In the summer of 1936, Adolf Gottlieb painted more than 800 paintings, which was 20X more than he created in his whole art career as a painter, starting from the time of Gottlieb becomes a founding member of "The Ten" group in NYC "Group of Ten" was a very peculiar, enigmatic group... Based on a religious point of view;(where a human figure was prohibited from being created)

GLOSSARY

IN 1997, Paul Jaisini's best friend Ellen Y.K.Gottlieb started a cyber campaign by promoting on a very young Internet, back then, Paul Jaisini's burned paintings as Invisible Paintings, visible only through poetic essays. She and a handful of people saw his originals and were devastated that nobody could ever see them again. "We, his fans, believe that someday Paul will recreate his 120 burned paintings if he has any decency and moral obligation to his fans, who have dedicated decades to make it happen, for their Phoenix to rise from the ashes and the whole world will witness that all these years we spent to get him back to re-paint the Visuals again were not in vain," - said E.Y.K.Gottlieb in 2014 during the 20th anniversary celebration of Invisible Paintings to GIGroup in NYCity. So now, hopefully, this clears up why I and others do what we do - our "cyber terrorism" of good art, dedicated to Paul Jaisini's return, which is & and was our mission & our goal. We post good art to fight "troll art" which is worthless pics, after being passed through 1-click filters of free web apps. We are, in fact, against this www pops pollution, done with "bubble art" by the out of control masses with 5 billon pics a day: Pics of cats, memes, quotes,national geographic sunsets and waterfalls, not counting their own daily "selfies: and whatever self-indulging Me-ego-Me affairs, sponsored happily by photo gadget companies like Canon, Nikon, Sony...who churn out higher quality madness tools at lower cost.

This way Government taking away attention from the real world crisis of lowest morality & economical devastation. The masses are too easily re-engineered/manipulated by the Establishment PopsStyle delivered to them by pop music and Hollywood "super" stars. In 1992 Paul Jaisini's Gleitzeit theory predict such a massive, pops self-entertain madness, following technological explosion, but not in illusive scales.

Uber Aless @2015 NYC USA

NOTE Date's numbers and events can be slightly inaccurate.

#gleitzeit #paul-jaisini #invisible #painting #art #futurism #art-news,

Gregory Peck by Truus, Bob & Jan too!

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British postcard in the Picturegoer Series, London, no. W. 187. Photo: R.K.O. Radio.

American actor Gregory Peck (1916-2003) was one of the most popular film stars from the 1940s to the 1960s. Peck received five nominations for Academy Award for Best Actor and won once – for his performance as Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (1962). He almost always played courageous, nobly heroic good guys who saw injustice and fought it. Among his best known films are Spellbound (1945), The Yearling (1946), Gentleman's Agreement (1947), Roman Holiday (1953), The Guns of Navarone (1961), and Cape Fear (1962).

Eldred Gregory Peck was born in 1916 in La Jolla, California (now in San Diego). His parents were Bernice Mary (Ayres) and Gregory Pearl Peck, a chemist, and druggist in San Diego. His parents divorced when he was five years old. An only child, he was sent to live with his grandmother. He never felt he had a stable childhood. His fondest memories are of his grandmother taking him to the cinema every week and of his dog, which followed him everywhere. Peck's father encouraged him to take up medicine. He studied pre-med at UC-Berkeley and, while there, got bitten by the acting bug and decided to change the focus of his studies. He enrolled in the Neighborhood Playhouse in New York and debuted on Broadway after graduation. His debut was in Emlyn Williams' play 'The Morning Star' (1942). By 1943, he was in Hollywood, where he debuted in the RKO film Days of Glory (Jacques Tourneur, 1944). Stardom came with his next film, The Keys of the Kingdom (John M. Stahl, 1944), for which he was nominated for an Oscar. Tony Fontana at IMDb: "Peck's screen presence displayed the qualities for which he became well known. He was tall, rugged and heroic, with a basic decency that transcended his roles." He appeared opposite Ingrid Bergman in Alfred Hitchcock's Spellbound (1945) as an amnesia victim accused of murder. In The Yearling (Clarence Brown, 1946), he was again nominated for an Oscar and won the Golden Globe. He was especially effective in Westerns and appeared in such varied fare as David O. Selznick's critically blasted Duel in the Sun (King Vidor, 1946), the somewhat better received Yellow Sky (William A. Wellman, 1948), and the acclaimed The Gunfighter (Henry King, 1950). He was nominated again for the Academy Award for his roles in Gentleman's Agreement (Elia Kazan, 1947), which dealt with anti-Semitism, and Twelve O'Clock High (Henry King, 1949), a story of high-level stress in an Air Force bomber unit in World War II. In 1947, Peck, along with Dorothy McGuire, David O'Selznick, and Mel Ferrer, founded the La Jolla Playhouse, located in his hometown, and produced many of the classics there. Due to film commitments, he could not return to Broadway but whet his appetite for live theatre on occasion at the Playhouse, keeping it firmly established with a strong, reputable name over the years.

With a string of hits to his credit, Gregory Peck made the decision to only work in films that interested him. He continued to appear as the heroic, larger-than-life figures in such films as Captain Horatio Hornblower (Raoul Walsh, 1951) with Virginia Mayo, and Moby Dick (John Huston, 1956) with Richard Basehart. He worked with Audrey Hepburn in her debut film, Roman Holiday (William Wyler, 1953). While filming The Bravados (Henry King, 1958), he decided to become a cowboy in real life, so he purchased a vast working ranch near Santa Barbara, California - already stocked with 600 head of prize cattle. In the early 1960s, he gave a powerful performance as Captain Keith Mallory in The Guns of Navarone (J. Lee Thompson, 1961) opposite David Niven and Anthony Quinn. The film was one of the biggest box-office hits of that year. Peck finally won the Oscar, after four nominations, for his performance as lawyer Atticus Finch in To Kill a Mockingbird (Robert Mulligan, 1962). He also appeared in two darker films than he usually made, Cape Fear (J. Lee Thompson, 1962) opposite Robert Mitchum, and Captain Newman, M.D. (David Miller, 1963) with Tony Curtis, which dealt with the way people live. The financial failure of Cape Fear (1962) ended his company, Melville Productions. After making Arabesque (Stanley Donen, 1966) with Sophia Loren, Peck withdrew from acting for three years in order to concentrate on various humanitarian causes, including the American Cancer Society. In the early 1970s, he produced two films, The Trial of the Catonsville Nine (Gordon Davidson, 1972) and The Dove (Charles Jarrott, 1974), when his film career stalled. He made a comeback playing, somewhat woodenly, Ambassador Robert Thorn in the horror film The Omen (Richard Donner, 1976) with Lee Remick. After that, he returned to the bigger-than-life roles he was best known for, such as MacArthur (Joseph Sargent, 1977) and the infamous Nazi war criminal Dr. Josef Mengele in the huge hit The Boys from Brazil (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1978) with Laurence Olivier and James Mason. In the 1980s, he moved into television with the miniseries The Blue and the Gray (Andrew V. McLaglen, 1982) in which he played Abraham Lincoln, and The Scarlet and the Black (Jerry London, 1983) with Christopher Plummer and John Gielgud. In 1991, he appeared in the remake of his 1962 film, playing a different role, in Martin Scorsese's Cape Fear (1991). He was also cast as the progressive-thinking owner of a wire and cable business in Other People's Money (Norman Jewison, 1991), starring Danny DeVito. In 1967, Peck received the Academy's Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award. He was also been awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. Always politically progressive, he was active in such causes as anti-war protests, workers' rights, and civil rights. In 2003, Peck's portrayal of Atticus Finch was named the greatest film hero of the past 100 years by the American Film Institute, only two weeks before his death. Atticus beat out Indiana Jones, who was placed second, and James Bond who came third. Gregory Peck died in 2003 in Los Angeles, California. He was 87. Peck was married twice. From 1942 till 1955, he was married to Greta Kukkonen. They had three children: Jonathan Peck (1944-1975), Stephen Peck (1946), and Carey Paul Peck (1949). His second wife was Veronique Passani, whom he met at the set of Roman Holliday. They married in 1955 and had two children: Tony Peck (1956) and Cecilia Peck (1958). The couple remained together till his death.

Sources: Tony Fontana (IMDb), and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

The Mis-education of HDR by Jimmy McIntyre

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HDR TUTORIAL AVAILABLE NOW

French Journal Day 107 (Travel Diary Day 187)

Journal Title – The mis-education of HDR Photography

This post is designed to offend and educate. It may also bore the non-photographer section of my readership.

Why must it offend anyone? Well, being offended is often a choice and for one reason or another, there’s always a person who chooses to be offended, even in the least offensive of communications.

I live a life of HDR. When I’m not taking or editing photos, I’m running HDR One or writing this HDR journal, or even chatting with people about HDR who have no idea what I’m talking about. It’s a form of autism, my wife thinks.

Every now and then I see a wonderful image that I’m compelled to inquire about. On one such occasion I commented on an image that I was convinced was an HDR and said ‘Wonderful photo. Is this an HDR?’ What I hadn’t realised was that this very popular photographer’s facebook page was in fact a breeding ground for supposed HDR-haters.

I’d stumbled upon a beast that was waiting to be unleashed. The photographer replied ‘I would never do HDR. These are manually blended exposures!!!’ This comment received almost as many Likes as the initial image. The comments from his fans that soon followed were equally abrupt but far less flattering to the what they considered HDR.

This, however, was not the first time I’d encountered this response from ‘professional photographers’. While I didn’t have the time to reply, the lack of manners and common decency would have prevented me from doing so anyway. I have no time for bad manners, especially when the argument in question is horrendously misinformed.

This is for those HDR haters:

HDR stands for High Dynamic Range. That’s it. If you hate HDR, then you hate High Dynamic Range. Manually blending exposures is increasing the dynamic range of light in your image. Your image, therefore, is HDR.

It really is that simple.

There are different HDR processes which produce different results, like Manual Blending, Exposure Fusion and Tone Mapping.

There’s even lots of fancy names for the same thing. Some people invent new names for HDR processes in an attempt to create a new field in which they hope to be pioneers. But, I’m almost sorry if I’m bursting a bubble here, it’s all just HDR.

Some people may even say, ‘Oh, right, well in that case I hate tone mapping’. Again, this is such a ludicrous thing to even think. Tone mapping is nothing more than a way to represent an HDR image. However, tone mapped images can look extremely different – they don’t all look alike. Why would anyone want to ‘hate’ something that can have such a huge amount of variation?

And what about tone mapped images that have some of the original exposures blended back into them. Do you partially hate those images?

Why hate anything at all? I mean, hate murder, by all means. Hate racism – that’s pretty bad. But hating a way of representing imagery that you don’t fully understand yet? That seems like an awful amount of hate for such a meaningless thing.

If it makes you feel better, even slightly elite, or even just part of a special little group, then fair enough. But at the very least, educate yourself on the thing you’ve chosen to hate.

Today’s Photo – An Unknown Place

You’ll probably hate this image – it’s Tone Mapped. I don’t even know what the place is – It’s in France, though.

strange-lands.com/daily/2013/01/18/the-miseducation-of-hd...

Sick Sick Sick by Matthew Field

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Queens Of The Stone Age @ Odeon, Saskatoon, SK

p.s. if you are gonna post my copyrighted images elsewhere on the internet at least have the decency to credit me with them or link them back to here, or i'll probably stop posting them or at least start putting big watermarks on them.

Brigitte Bardot in Et Dieu... créa la femme (1956) by Truus, Bob & Jan too!

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Dutch postcard by Gebr. Spanjersberg N.V., Rotterdam. sent by mail in 1963. Brigitte Bardot in Et Dieu... créa la femme/...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956).

Beautiful French actress Brigitte Bardot (1934) was the sex kitten of the European film industry. BB starred in 48 films, performed in numerous musical shows, and recorded 80 songs. After her retirement in 1973, she established herself as an animal rights activist and made vegetarianism sexy.

Brigitte Bardot was born in Paris in 1934. Her father, Louis Bardot, had an engineering degree and worked with his father in the family business. Her mother, Ann-Marie Mucel, was 14 years younger than Brigitte's father and they married in 1933. Brigitte's mother encouraged her daughter to take up music and dance. At the age of 13, she entered the Conservatoire Nationale de Danse to study ballet. By the time she was 15, Brigitte was trying a modelling career and found herself in May 1949 on the cover of French magazine Elle. Her incredible beauty was readily apparent, Brigitte was noticed by Roger Vadim, then an assistant to the film director Marc Allegrét. Vadim was infatuated with Bardot and encouraged her to start working as a film actress. BB was 18 when she debuted in the comedy Le Trou Normand/Crazy for Love (Jean Boyer, 1952). In the same year, she married Vadim. Brigitte wanted to marry him when she was 17, but her parents quashed any marriage plans until she turned 18. In April 1953 she attended the Cannes Film Festival where she received massive media attention. She soon was every man's idea of the girl he'd like to meet in Paris. From 1952 to 1956 she appeared in seventeen films. Her films were generally lightweight romantic dramas in which she was cast as ingénue or siren, often with an element of undress. She made her first US production in 1953 in Un acte d'amour/Act of Love (Anatole Litvak, 1953) with Kirk Douglas, but she continued to make films in France.

Roger Vadim was not content with the light fare his wife was offered. He felt Brigitte Bardot was being undersold. Looking for something more like an art film to push her as a serious actress, he showcased her in Et Dieu créa la femme/...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956). This film, about an immoral teenager in a respectable small-town setting, was a smashing success on both sides of the Atlantic. Craig Butler at AllMovie: "It's easy enough to say that ...And God Created Woman is much more important for its historical significance than for its actual quality as a film, and that's true to an extent. Woman's immense popularity, due to its willingness to directly embrace an exploration of sex as well as its willingness to show a degree of nudity that was remarkably daring for its day, demonstrated that audiences were willing to view subject matter that was considered too racy for the average moviegoer. This had both positive (freedom to explore, especially for the French filmmakers of the time) and negative (freedom to exploit) consequences, but its impact is undeniable. It's also true that Woman is not a great work of art, not with a story that is ultimately rather thin, some painful dialogue, and an attitude toward its characters and their sexuality that is unclear and inconsistent. Yet Woman is still fascinating, due in no small part to the presence of Brigitte Bardot in the role that made her an international star and sex symbol. She's not demonstrating great acting here, although her performance is actually good and much better than necessary, and her legendary mambo scene at the climax is nothing short of sensational." During the shooting of Et Dieu créa la femme/And God Created Woman (1956), directed by her husband Roger Vadim, Brigitte Bardot had an affair with her co-star Jean-Louis Trintignant, who at that time was married to French actress Stéphane Audran. Her divorce from Vadim followed, but they remained friends and collaborated in later work.

Et Dieu créa la femme/...And God Created Woman (Roger Vadim, 1956) helped her international status. The film took the USA by storm, her explosive sexuality being unlike anything seen in the States since the days of the 'flapper' in the 1920s. It gave rise to the phrase 'sex kitten' and fascination of her in America consisted of magazines photographs and dubbed over French films - good, bad, or indifferent, her films drew audiences - mainly men - into theaters like lemmings.BB appeared in light comedies like Doctor at Large (1957) - the third of the British 'Doctor' series starring Dirk Bogarde - and Une Parisienne/La Parisienne (Michel Boisrond, 1957) which suited her acting skills best. However, she was a sensation in the crime drama En cas de malheur/Love is my profession (Claude Autant-Lara, 1958). Hal Erickson at AllMovie: "this Brigitte Bardot vehicle ran into stiff opposition from the Catholic Legion of Decency, severely limiting its U.S. distribution. Bardot plays a nubile small-time thief named Yvette, who becomes the mistress of influential defense attorney Andre (Jean Gabin). Though Andre is able to shower Yvette with jewels and furs, he cannot "buy" her heart, and thus it is that it belongs to handsome young student Mazzetti (Franco Interlenghi). Alas, Yvette is no judge of human nature: attractive though Mazzetti can be, he has a dangerous-and deadly-side. En Cas de Malheur contains a nude scene that has since been reprinted in freeze-frame form innumerable times by both film-history books and girlie magazines." Photographer Sam Lévin's photos contributed considerably to her image of sensuality and slight immorality. One of Lévin's pictures shows Brigitte, dressed in a white corset. It is said that around 1960 postcards with this photograph outsold in Paris those of the Eiffel Tower.

Brigitte Bardot divorced Vadim in 1957 and in 1959 she married actor Jacques Charrier, with whom she starred in Babette s'en va-t-en guerre/Babette Goes to War (Christian-Jaque, 1959). The paparazzi preyed upon her marriage, while she and her husband clashed over the direction of her career. Her films became more substantial, but this brought a heavy pressure of dual celebrity as she sought critical acclaim while remaining a glamour model for most of the world. Vie privée/Private Life (1962), directed by Louis Malle has more than an element of autobiography in it. James Travers at Films de France: "Brigitte Bardot hadn’t quite reached the highpoint of her career when she agreed to make this film with high profile New Wave film director Louis Malle. Even so, the pressure of being a living icon was obviously beginning to get to France’s sex goddess and Vie privée is as much an attempt by Bardot to come to terms with her celebrity as anything else. Malle is clearly fascinated by Bardot and the documentary approach he adopts for this film reinforces the impression that it is more a biography of the actress than a work of fiction. Of course, it’s not entirely biographical, but the story is remarkably close to Bardot’s own life and comes pretty close to predicting how her career would end." The scene in which, returning to her apartment, Bardot's character is harangued in the elevator by a middle-aged cleaning lady calling her offensive names, was based on an actual incident and is a resonant image of a celebrity in the mid-20th century. Soon afterward Bardot withdrew to the seclusion of Southern France.

Brigitte Bardot's other husbands were German millionaire playboy Gunter Sachs and right-wing politician Bernard d'Ormale. She is reputed to have had relationships with many other men including Sami Frey, her co-star in La Vérité/The Truth (Henri-Georges Clouzot, 1960), and musicians Serge Gainsbourg and Sacha Distel. In 1963, Brigitte Bardot starred in Godard's critically acclaimed film Le Mépris/Contempt (Jean-Luc Godard, 1963). She was also featured along with such notable actors as Alain Delon in Amours célèbres/Famous Love Affairs (Michel Boisrond, 1961) and Histoires extraordinaires/Tales of Mystery (Louis Malle, 1968), Jeanne Moreau in Viva Maria! (Louis Malle, 1965), Sean Connery in Shalako (Edward Dmytryk, 1968), and Claudia Cardinale in Les Pétroleuses/Petroleum Girls (Christian-Jaque, 1971). She participated in various musical shows and recorded many popular songs in the 1960s and 1970s, mostly in collaboration with Serge Gainsbourg, Bob Zagury and Sacha Distel, including 'Harley Davidson', 'Le Soleil De Ma Vie' (the cover of Stevie Wonder's 'You Are the Sunshine of My Life') and the notorious 'Je t'aime... moi non plus'.

Brigitte Bardot’s film career showed a steady decline in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In 1973 just before her fortieth birthday, she announced her retirement. She chose to use her fame to promote animal rights. In 1976 she established the Brigitte Bardot Foundation for the Welfare and Protection of Animals. She became a vegetarian and raised three million French francs to fund the foundation by auctioning off jewelry and many personal belongings. For this work, she was awarded the Légion d’honneur in 1984. During the 1990's she became also outspoken in her criticism of immigration, interracial relationships, Islam in France, and homosexuality. Her husband Bernard d'Ormal is a former adviser of the far-right Front National party. Bardot has been convicted five times for 'inciting racial hatred'. More fun is that Bardot is recognised for popularizing bikini swimwear, in early films such as Manina/Woman without a Veil (1952), in her appearances at Cannes and in many photoshoots. Bardot also brought into fashion the 'choucroute' ('Sauerkraut') hairstyle (a sort of beehive hairstyle) and gingham clothes after wearing a checkered pink dress, designed by Jacques Esterel, at her wedding to Charrier. The fashions of the 1960s looked effortlessly right and spontaneous on her. Time Magazine: "She is the princess of pout, the countess of come hither. Brigitte Bardot exuded a carefree, naïve sexuality that brought a whole new audience to French films."

Sources: Denny Jackson (IMDb), Hal Erickson (AllMovie), Craig Butler (AllMovie), James Travers (Films de France), Films de France, Wikipedia, and IMDb.

And, please check out our blog European Film Star Postcards.

Emerald-green-jaisini-art-color #jaisini #artcolor by yustas k. gottlieb

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