As one sometimes does, we found Santa Claus shopping for some LP’s. He’s a vinyl kind of guy who carries a fire extinguisher in his back pocket in case things get too hot.

Smut has some great vinyl and we got lost in all the wonderful huge album art. The even had King Crimson’s “In the Court of the Crimson King”!

And more!

Mrs. Kram, being of a slightly younger generation, was surprised to see that Robert Fripp had made not one but two albums with the Police’s Andy Summers.

As we went outside, these people cheerily wished us a Merry Christmas! I know it’s the 3rd of July, but this is Portland and we aim to keep Portland weird!

Good lord, there are Santas everywhere! They make the random guy walking around with the parrot on his shoulder look rather normal.

They all left in unison. Maybe the fact that it was getting close to 68ºF made them start moving north?

Just about that time, we discovered a brand new brewery, just opened last week. It’s called…

Yes, that’s Coalition Brewing Co. They were going to call it Hobo Brewing Co. but someone owns that name. Drat! We liked this glass design so much that we bought it!

Here’s some old guy with the record that we bought. No, we don’t own a turntable but the art is by R. Crumb! It will be framed soon.

Fresh berries are our reward for all the rain we get. They grow everywhere! A wonderful day with my true love.

As I like to hear the music that I’m creating art for, Trey kindly provided a rough disc of the music. I generally create in a somewhat improvisational way, taking a journey visually and following my eye wherever it leads me.
These are some works that were created along the way to the final work..

This is the CD itself:

The final CD cover:

You can download a free sample from Modulator here: http://www.treygunn.com/modulator/
There are also some videos with Trey and Marco.

The discipline of photographing daily has been very good for me. I’d love to hear your comments/feedback.

My new studio is in a bulding that once housed the club La Luna. Nirvana, Fugazi and many others played here. This telephone pole has many remnants of flyers of gigs gone by.

Another pole, another hood.

None of my favorite musicians had pinball games named after them.

Guess where I walked to?

Yeah, the boneyard!








Spring, it’s lovely.

I took all three lenses out for a somewhat unscientific test yesterday.

The lenses are:
Pentax SMC Takumar 55mm f/2.0 (used/refurbished, Japanese not Russian).
Helios 44-2 58mm f/2.0 (used).
Carl Zeiss Jena Pancolar 50mm f/1.8 (very used, yellowed glass some fungus inside and on rear element).

Off we went early on a nice gray morning to one of my favorite places to shoot, a cemetery.

My criteria was to use the lenses in the way that I usually do. I like to shoot nearly wide open but rarely all the way open. So these test images were shot with the lens stopped down one stop from wide open.

These are only test images, YMMV.

First, the Pancolar:

The yellowing of the Pancolar glass is apparent but not without it’s charm. Easily corrected in PS. I’ll discuss the Pancolor later, next is the Helios 44-2:

The 58mm f/2.0 Helios 44-2 proved to be very sharp! This copy has a “0″ at the beginning of the serial number which is rumoured to signify “copies made for factory syndicate members only”. I guess I’m in the Russian syndicate now!

The color rendering of the Pancolar and the Helios is less than the Pentax 55mm f/2.0, as the Pentax has more modern coatings of a lens made in the ultra modern 1970’s. It’s a very sharp lens as well.

Another from the Pentax 55mm:

The lens that I really fell in love with was the yellowed, fungus-infested, stiff focusing Pancolar. The Pancolar was the sharpest, seemed to have the most pleasing bokeh and just had that certain *something*.

Wonderful bokeh, smooth, subtle.

The intense color of these azaleas was handled very well by the lower contrast Pancolar.

Another nice aspect to the Pancolar is that it has a very good close focus distance of .35 meters or about one foot! Closer than the Helios and the Pentax.

This was shot with a no. 1 extension tube as was the image below:

My next mission is to test these lenses on people. I think with the 1.6X DSLR crop factor (Canon EOS), the lower contrast and the small size that they will make superb portrait/people images.

None of the above lenses cost me over $40!

A great place to learn about manual focus lenses is from my new friends at http://www.mflenses.com/

You look like a nice person. Tell you what I’ll do; I’ll be your very own personal Portland tour guide! The first thing you need to do is buy one of these:

All real Portlanders carry these in case of emergency. We keep our flasks stowed in our garter belts.

Portland is really nice. Oh, put on your hoodie. What?! You only have an umbrella?! Throw that away before you get us kicked out!

Where was I? Oh yeah, Portland is really nice. Look- a free box!

Whazzat!? They don’t have free boxes in Boise?! Yer kidding me, right? OK, the idea is that you take something out, and add something into the freebox, so that people can share cool, innovative shizznit with each other locally, in a totally free environment! Whazzat!? That makes no sense?! Better take a little nip out of your PDX flask.

OK, that’s better. Go ahead- look inside!

Sure, go ahead, take another nip. Some local church probably put that in the box just to boost business. It’s called “social media”. We don’t have real Satanists here. No, really.

Like Boise, Portland is famous for it’s produce. There’s nothing like a fresh, raw rosetater! Careful of the thorns. Hey, you better slow down on that hooch!

No, it’s not entirely abnormal to see dancing, psychedelic, headbanging Twinkies here. Not at all.

Portland is full of talented gardening musicians.

We love to ride bikes, re-use, and recycle things too!

Yes, this is a typical neighborhood. Why?

People just like to have birds living in their yards, that’s all. Chill!

You don’t look so good. Maybe we need to get you some real Portland coffee to sober you up. I know just the place! They roast their own beans every day! Remember their name, it’s Heart.

Their beans are the best; fresh, real, live shizzle yo! Whazzat!? It means that it’s really, really good and locally roasted.

Hey, this is just what you need, a quadruple espresso and some live music- on vinyl! Punk rock!

Whoa! Check out their art work! No, I told you, some church put it in there.

You wanna what?! Do I know what?! No, I don’t know where the bus station is. Maybe you could bike back to Boise. You need one of these:

Look, I am not taking you to the freaking bus station. It’s getting late. Listen, I’ll drop you off at the mayor’s house. He’s very plugged in. Maybe he can help you out. Later.

*Kram Namloc has retired from his position as Official Personal Portland Tour Guide to pursue his lifelong dream of becoming himself. No scene depicted in this blog was altered in any form. The scenes depicted here really exist. A real homeless dude builds those traveling bike shelters. He even lives in one. I have recieved no monies for this blog and if I did it was not from Mayor Sam “Beelzebub” Adams, honest.

It rains every day in Portland. This is the actual view, out of an actual window, in a actual cafe in Portland. If you google “most depressed cities”, Portland scores high, if not at the number one slot. Oh woe is me, I live in Portland. If you live in sunny, star studded LA, count your blessings, and stay put. You are a star. No, really..

Many of us don’t even own cars! If we do, we don’t use them much. This truck was sighted in actual SE Portland driveway.

We prefer to use alternative modes of transportation.

We do obey the law, which we often define for ourselves. Actual sign sighted in SE Portland. I slowed way down too.

Parking is never a problem. These actual bike parking spaces were sighted out of my actual, brand new, really, really amazing photo studio window.

Despite being severely depressed, we try to keep up with all the Hollywood stars by making our mansions unique, contemporary and highly stylish. Yes, this is an actual house in an actual SE Portland neighborhood.

We love to shop. Oh, rest assured that we so actually do. The next several pieces were seen at my favorite store in Portland, Cargo, actually. This, is my favorite celebrity Babu Abu. Never heard of him?! You are so out of the loop!

This is Babu’s brother, Moostafah

This is Julia Roberts. Actually, I think so. Yes.

Pink is actually very in right now.

We are so depressed that we go to Cacao Drink Chocolate and we just drink and drink and drink, and eat actual chocolate even.

Even Brad Pitt doesn’t own a Siamese Shih-tzu like I do!

Images shot with my crappy, 12MP “cell phone camera”. ©2010 Mark Colman

My first nude image, shot back in 1983 on Kodak HIE infra-red film (now extinct).

I was in my last months as a photo assistant after graduating photography school and assisting for two years.

Not bad for a beginner.

Spelling is not the Aladdin’s strong suit!

The show featured totally improvised music. It was as wonderful as one might hope for, with such an all star cast. The theater was totally sold out with a long line wrapping around the block when I showed up.

The sight of Terry Bozzio’s modest drum kit was rather overwhelming when I walked in.

It spawned much phonography.

Which spawned some photography.

Ho! [Sorry Allan!]

Bo!

Le!

Ma!

All together now: HoBoLeMa!

After the show I asked Alan what it was like to go out there and improvise every night. “Terrifying!” he said.

Wonder what they’re saying?

Thanks so much to my favorite drummer and Terry’s too (he said so)- p@ Mastelotto!

All images ©2010 Mark Colman. All rights reserved.

Every time I see them, usually about a year apart, I always say, “They just keep getting better!”. Still true and it’s really beginning to be unbelievable!

UPDATE: more images added of the colour variety. Thanks for your kind comments.

Do not miss a chance to see these guys live! They are the best live band out there!

If you’d like to see some of the images I created for their amazing CD, “e” go here You may buy their way and totally awesome CD here

Oddly, the building above, an abandoned remnant of the civil rights riots in the 1960’s (in Cairo, IL) already had an “E” in it (despite being upper case, I gave it a go).

They are a dangerous trio!

I would love to hear your comments on the work. If you missed parts I -III, you may see them here: Part I Part II Part III

You may buy the CD here: http://adrianbelew.net

There’s even a small section of “e” that reminds me of the theme from The Twilight Zone.

For those who know me, it won’t surprise you that I wanted to explore this dark side and maybe even get lost in it.

I would love to hear your comments on the work. If you missed parts I and II, you may see them here: Part I Part II

You may buy the CD here: http://adrianbelew.net

If you missed the opening for this exhibit, it will be up for the rest of October.

The exhibit is open during weekday afternoons. Please tell the good people in the offices of PIE that you are “here to see the art” as you go in. Know too that there are works to the immediate left when you first walk in and also the room in the far back left.

If you’re interested in buying prints they are available in three different sizes. Feel free to email me.

Photographic artist Mark Colman exhibits a substantial body of art at the Portland Incubator Experiment in the Pearl.

The show, “Optical Delusions” features works from the early 1990’s to the present, including many large scale color prints (fifty inch tall cibachrome prints mounted on aluminum).

“Photographer Mark Colman is a provocateur, adept at seeing.” ZOOM magazine.

“Colman’s photos exist far outside the expected limits of erotic art.”
The Portland Mercury

Wieden Kenndy’s PIE, or Portland Incubator Experiment is a creative space where Portland’s innovators come to brainstorm.

Never been by PIE before? It’s at 1227 NW Davis, on the corner of Davis and 12th in The Pearl. Right across the street from North Face and kitty corner from the Art Institute of Portland. Any time after 6PM

Yes, it’s a bit difficult to find, but just head up the stairs and come in the door.

This is part two of a four part series on the making of art for Adrian Belew’s new CD “e” which features powerful playing by his amazing bandmates, Julie and Eric Slick.

Adrian provided me with some roughs of the music so that I could get a feel for it. The images shown here explore the connectivity of the musicians, not only through their instruments and their bodies, but their connection on a higher level, a level at which magic happens.

I would love to hear your comments on the work. If you missed Part I, you may see it here: http://bit.ly/adrian-belew The CD may be bought here: http://adrianbelew.net

As a long time fan of both Adrian Belew’s music and that of King Crimson, I was thrilled to be commissioned by Adrian to create the art for his new CD, “e”. The music is a forty plus minute instrumental work divided into five sections, a-b-c-d and e.

If you don’t know who Adrian is, he is a guitarist, vocalist and song writer. He has played with David Bowie, Nine Inch Nails. Talking Heads, Frank Zappa, King Crimson and many others. He plays a variety of guitars, often processed through an immense array of effects. He is s true artist with a really unique gift of lyric writing, guitar playing and singing.

I spent over a month working on the art. Adrian gave me complete creative freedom. Over the next several days, I will post a series of images that I created for the album.

I’m seeking press exposure for this work. If you know anyone who’d like to cover it, please hook us up. I would love to hear your comments as well.

See Part II: http://markcolman.tv/?p=241

Much of my commercial photography career consists of making photographs with a crew of people. Make up artists, hair stylists, wardrobe stylists, art directors, creative directors, clients, assistant are often all on hand- not that there’s anything wrong with that. Even most of my fine art work requires, at least, a model. Hence, a need to always have someone else involved in making the images.

Being alone, observing the environment, being in “the now”, with no one else around is often zen like for me. This focus creates some quiet yet strong images. There’s something to be said for quiet simplicity.

All images were created with a fully manual camera from the 1970’s, the Rolleiflex SL-66.

More images from this series here: http://bit.ly/mark-colman-photos

Kram Namloc, Mark Colman, has over twenty years experience in fine art, fashion, and advertising photography. In this episode, Mark teaches of the benefits of crappy plastic cameras!

Want to be critiqued? Email pictures at 800 pixels in the longest dimension to: colemanpix at yahoo dot com

Where to buy film, classic and crappy cameras from real, decent, analog people: http://www.bluemooncamera.com/

Check out Mark’s new book! http://www.hiddenwithin.com/

Mark’s fine art work: http://www.markcolman.com/

This image was created for a self-promotional piece. It was a postcard with red text, “We are here”, and an arrow in pointing at Los Angeles, where my studio was.

It was shot with a vintage Crown Graphic camera (below) circa 1960. I wanted the option to print it poster size. Instead of dinking about with a measly 21 megapixel DSLR. I shot 4×5 inch film which is approximately 360 megabytes!

I should mention that this image, as are all my images, is for sale in a limited edition of twenty five. Email me for prices.

Techie specs:
Crown Graphic 4×5 camera (like there are new ones), 127mm Ektar lens, probably near f/16, bellows racked out fully with three closeup filters stacked (+1,+2,+3). Agfapan 100 film developed in Tmax developer. Lit with one raw strobe head.

Make up: Melanie Randolph
Model: Sadhna

This is my original photograph shot on an old skool medium format camera, the amazing Rolleiflex SL-66. This camera shoots 120 film, with negatives that are 2.25×2.25 inches. The lenses are some of the best ever made (Zeiss). The film when scanned results in a whopping 80MP image size. That said, all the other images that I compiled with Trey’s portrait were shot digitally.

My method of working involves trying to go to places, creatively, where I’ve never been before. This process is rather lengthy and involves many many hours of venturing to the outer limits. I probably generated over fifty images in this project. Only the worthy got shown to Trey.

Much of the music concept was digitally manipulated. The CD is music that will be used for film, video and TV (soundtrack/pictures). I was trying to bring these elements into play. Hence the film reels. The reels did get used on the final art with his image below, combined with Trey’s amazing instrument.

Did I tell you that “Weird” is my middle name?

Exploring the complex.

Clearing my palette by trying to create the most crude image that I could muster. Maybe “Crude” should be my middle name? Trey actually liked this.

This is the final chosen image used on the CD. A digitally manipulated musician who, on occasion, digitally manipulates his music.

My final cover art. I don’t often do graphic design but I did enjoy creating this. The CD is amazing and can be bought here.