I honestly don't understand the [lack of] thought process that exists for most people. Last night was soured for me by one of the red-shirted security monkeys with an utterly bizarre interpretation of the "no unauthorized cameras" rule at Sin City. I had my long lens on the DSLR for the sake of shooting the performers on the stage from the balcony. With that lens I need to be a minimum of three metres away from a person to photograph a portrait, and more like six metres if I want to get more than just their face in the photo - not going to happen in a crowded club - so for the sake of doing portraits I brought along my new compact digital (the underwater camera). I had just finished shooting the last burlesque performance of the evening and was about to make a portrait shot of Sisi and her beau and I am pounced on by the red-shirt. I showed him my staff card and told him I was the photographer. He responded with the most amazingly retarded reasoning. Pointing to the big, black camera he said it was OK for me to take pictures with it, but not the compact digital because "no personal cameras". He said I would have to "talk to the promoter" if I wanted to use my "personal camera" and I can't even imagine who he thought gave me the staff card if it wasn't the promoters. "They're both my cameras. I've been photographing this event since it started. That's my picture in the Sun today - I'm the fucking photographer!

Another red-shirt joined in the fun. Fortunately he had a couple of brain-cells to rub together and eventually produced a spark.

I didn't stay much after that. I had the pictures I wanted. The heat was getting to me (and Elaine), and with that much stupid flung at me like monkey-poo, I needed to cool off in more than one way so it was time to walk home.

All said and done, though, it does make a point about the perception of the camera in the mind of the average idiot layman.

Mastophobia from the Greek μαστος (mastos), meaning breast. and φοβος (phobos) fear - fear of breasts. You might think this should be mammophobia or mammaphobia, but mamma is Latin and a correctly formed phobia name should be formed with the Greek to match the "phobia" part, although there are a lot of exceptions.

The reason I bring this is because this peculiarly American affliction has presented itself as a significant problem. It's quite legal for a woman to go topless in Vancouver. Making photos in the alternative and bohemian night clubs, and at avant garde fashion shows means there are a few exposed breasts in my photography portfolio and more than a few on Gothic BC. It's really absurd that I should have ever had to spend any time with this, but American mastophobia means that these images have wound Gothic BC in particular on content blacklists, which have affected other sites I serve, such as valerian's store or my résumé site.

How absurd and extreme is American mastophobia? Try using the image to the right, which is a detail from a Leonardo da Vinci painting, as your default icon for a while. Livejournal has consistently deemed images of breast-feeding "inappropriate" for default icons. People using images derived from vintage photographic artworks where a breast is visible have gotten in trouble for it, so clearly their rule of thumb using the "Miller Test" and artistic value is just lip-service. And, moving away from Livejournal, let's not forget the Janet Jackson Superbowl nipple incident that whipped up more righteous indignation than their president lying through his teeth to start a war.

So, in order to deal with this absurdity, I started looking at ways to protect myself from American mastophobia. That's what my experiment with GeoIP look-ups back in May was about. Turns out I was overcomplicating the solution and came up with a better approach this weekend. I should be able to finish it off this week and get this ridiculous issue behind me once and for all.

One of my photographs from the Collide show at Richard's on Richards January before last has now been published in Australia. It's on page 22 of issue 10 of Fiend Magazine.

You can view the image as it appears in the magazine ( here )

I've got a couple copies coming in the mail, but princeoigan and takkarin, if you want to pick up copies (or just look) they have the magazine in Melbourne at Bliss for Women (Level 1, 245 Lonsdale Street), Heartland Records (61 Peel Street West), Off Ya Tree (249 Swanston Street), Peril Underground (17 - 19 Elizabeth Street),  Ground Under Productions Store, and Mame Clothing (don't know the addresses on those).

Click image for full-size flash animation (will open in a new window)

If you like the way the smoke was hanging in the air in Stereo #25, you'll really like this one.

In all my years now of club photography, often rather drunk, I had not until yesterday ever dropped any of my gear. In bending down to pick up a dropped flyer that cheekydevil had handed me, the strap on my "new" stereo camera chose that moment, 51 years after manufacture, to give up the ghost. The camera was unharmed — it's made entirely out of metal and I'd have to drop it considerably farther than the half-metre or so it fell from in order to hurt it. My Cullmann MD-40 flash, however... part of it remained in the hotshoe, and the rest was on the floor. Thinking that it was damaged beyond repair it put me in a rotten mood and I only stayed long enough to have one drink and make a few images.

I learned after the fact that the part that broke is actually a replaceable adaptor. The flash itself is a SCA-300 format flash (I had no idea about this standard until last night, I guess that makes this a "learning experience"). I have bids on eBay for a new SCA-300 to hotshoe adaptor as well as an SCA-300 optical slave trigger. It seems like the optical slave trigger is in the bag as no one else is bidding on it. I have some competition for the replacement adaptor, but it's not that important. The optical trigger will allow me to use the flash for the purpose I bought it for, the hotshoe adaptor is just a bonus and there are others listed that I could go for if I lose this auction. In the meantime, I've learned my lesson and bought a cheap-like-borscht manual flash for use on the stereo camera in the clubs and for my will-inevitably-be-knocked-over reflector that I use at Sin City. I'll be putting a new not-going-to-snap-on-me-so-who-cares-if-it-doesn't-match nylon strap on the stereo camera and all is well.

I've yet to finish the roll that is in the stereo camera so it will be a while before I have the first stereographs. Yup, this thing has me shooting with film again — the last images I made with film were from this set of photographs at Sanctuary in 2001 using my old SLR, which like the stereo camera dates from the 1950's.

By way of a teaser, I used my DSLR to test exposures. The images from the stereo camera should be similar to the one below, only they'll be 3-D :-)

I don't know what it is, but everywhere I go lately, someone is wearing a space suit.



( Four more pictures from the Toybox Burlesque. All work safe. )

I intend to paint at least six of these images this year:

All culled from photos taken between December 2001 and December 2002, inclusive.