SANDRA LIVE!

Heading out tonight to the Orpheum Theater in Downtown Los Angeles to catch Sandra Bernhard do a 20th Anniversary version of her seminal off Broadway show and film "Without You I'm Nothing." I never got to see that show live so I'm pretty excited to get to see it tonight.

I was hired to shoot Sandra backstage and onstage during her Everything Bad & Beautiful Tour. The shot above is really my favorite digital capture from a New Year's Eve show in 2006. Joe's Pub was extremely dark and the lighting was very dim, but I was lucky to catch a moment where purple stagelights and that iconic mouth convened.

Sandra Bernhard Photo by Lydia Marcus
Photographed December 31, 2006 at Joe's Pub in NYC.

JPG MAGAZINE POLAROID PORTRAIT CHALLENGE

Well here it is - my photo "Sandra's Stare" in the pages of JPG Magazine Issue #17. I was one of the winners of the JPG Magazine (teamed with Flak Photo and File Magazine) Polaroid Portrait Challenge. Among the four page spread, I was pretty psyched to have the second largest image (as far as layout) and to be one of the five images (out of 23 total) that had some text about the shooting of the photo included. The feature starts on page 18 and my image is on page 20. As a winner of the competition, I get paid real cash money (I actually received payment BEFORE the issue came out - a FIRST for me for sure), a free year's subscription to JPG Magazine, and of course, my photo printed in the magazine. JPG also lists the web address of the image on jpgmag.com and lists me in the back of the magazine in the contributors index (and that includes a mention of my fotonomous blog). I have to say, JPG is a real class act, now if only more publications treated their contributors so well. Big congrats to all the other Polaroid photographers whose work was featured in JPG.

HAPPY NEWS

Even though I post a lot of my work here on fotonomous and a few other places on the web (like flickr, facebook, myspace, jpg), I'm actually fairly protective of my work. I usually post pretty small versions and sometimes I hold back a few pieces that are just for me. In the case of my Polaroid photo of Sandra Bernhard ("Sandra's Stare") I hadn't shown it anywhere until I decided it was a worthy candidate to participate in JPG Magazine's Polaroid Portrait competition. I'm not big on online photo contests but I think that JPG Magazine has some great work up and I like that they have so many themes you can contribute to. So after much deliberation, I decided it was time to publically unveil Sandra. I posted it on jpgmag.com, flickr, and on fotonomous. I've never gotten as much positive feedback online as I have for that photo. People really seemed to dig it - fans of Sandra, fans of Polaroid, just photographers in general. I'm sure Sandra's celebrity status added to the recognition, but I also know that the portrait stands alone as a great photo. Sometimes I question the ability of a photo to stand alone. Sometimes I question the quality. Sometimes I question the interestingness (is it interesting to just me or also to other people?). In the case of this particular shot, I had the more rare case of confidence all around. I uploaded to the jpg competition fairly late, so I didn't know what my real chances to place were. I've submitted to jpg before and never had one of my photos declared "HOT" (which puts the photo in a whole other viewing category "sort photos by hotness" - meaning many more people see your photo). Well Sandra got declared "HOT" - my first jpg victory! When you submit to a jpg competition, they always let you know if you placed or not. I've had several emails saying sorry, try again (well actually the tone was a little nicer than that). But it had been awhile and I hadn't received any news about the Polaroid Portrait competition. Well as of late last night, I have fantastic news to report, "Sandra's Stare" is being published by jpg magazine in their next issue! I don't know if I'm the sole winner of the competition or one of several. But not only is jpg publishing my image, they're also paying me (wow, actual currency!) and giving me a free year's subscription. Color me very excited! So thank everyone for the great feedback on the photo, thanks to Sandra for being a great sitter, and I'll report more when the image gets published.

SANDRA'S STARE

Back at the end of 2006, I got together with an old friend who I hadn't seen in a few years. Just to catch him up on what I was doing, I showed him my photography portfolio - mostly images of distressed cars and neon signage around L.A. He happened to be Sandra Bernhard's manager and after seeing my pix he invited me to come to New York and shoot Sandra at her New Year's Eve live show at Joe's Pub. Considering I'm not much of a people shooter and my portfolio truly reflected that, I questioned his intent, but he seemed secure and satisfied that I'd be good to shoot Sandra. I guess he was looking for something different and a little out of the ordinary (kind of like Sandra). I had carte blanche to shoot her backstage and onstage. She was a totally 100% willing subject - as this super up close Polaroid shot can attest. I mean when you're sticking a bulky, analog Polaroid SLR 680 SE in someone's face as close as it can focus, well you know that they're game. I shot about two boxes of Polaroid 600 film but this shot was my favorite.Sandra Bernhard Polaroid portrait by Lydia Marcus shot December 31, 2006 in NYC. Photo taken with a Polaroid SLR 680 SE using Polaroid 600 Film.

This photo has been submitted to JPG Magazine online as part of their Polaroid Portrait competition. If you'd like to vote for this shot go to http://www.jpgmag.com/photos/716532.