Walking the Red Carpet copyright 2009 Douglas Stockdale
In September of 2009 I developed a photographic concept that I thought might be well suited as part photobook, part performance, what I am calling a blog-photobook. Recall that this was about the time of the first iPad launch, some two and a half years ago. So rather than trying to develop a iPad app, which was pretty rough in those days, I decided to go a little more public with an open book and available to all who had an interest to read it.
The project itself, Milan Fashion Week, was borne out of two consecutive years of attending Fashion Week in Milan, Italy. Well kinda. I actually was in Milan in September at the same time as Fashion Week was occurring. So I decided that since I was in Milan during Fashion Week and I did not have a fashion portfolio, why not develop one? I have noted that some artist are being commissioned to do some edgy contemporary fashion layouts, so why not do a self-assignment of my own? My portfolio should show all of those photo editors and creative types that I do editorial fashion photographs. And this portfolio should lead to a ton of assignments and big bucks that would end up paying for all of those artistic concept projects that I want to publish. Can you say win-win?
Okay, maybe I did appropriate a couple of fashion shots, but I did it in a very creative way! If you look at each photograph, I hope you will eventually find a little irony. I did contact a couple of real fashion photographers and editors to write an essay about the juxtaposition of my project and the fashion world and for some reason they did not want to come within a ten-foot pole of this project. hmmmmm. So lately I have been tweaking it a bit and making some trade-outs of some of the photographs. Perhaps a work in progress.
As part of the performance aspect, I designed a blog so that all 36 posts would show up in consecutive order, starting on the top and working sequentially down, without having to click between pages. Which meant that I did all 36 posts on the same day and posted them in reverse order, as the last post (start of the blog-book) is on the top of the stack. Not a difficult photobook layout task. And taadaa, the blog does function just as intended. Now go look at it here.
So in the last 2-1/2 years, no fashion commissions have been flooding my in-box. hmmmmm. odd.
I am now thinking that after the final tweaks, one option is to continue to allow the blog to stay public until the 3rd anniversary date, then poof! eliminate it. Sort of like Cristo’s “running fence” performance project. Now it is here, but soon gone.
Another option is to actually publish this project as a real book. I have already poked a few publishers, but no interest yet. Maybe after I make the final tweaks the interest may grow. Or not.
Interesting to see what comes of this.
Cheers!
Singular Images 
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