An exhibition and a film

Question: Why do I write a blog?
It  came up when a photographer friend, who has just acquired a new powerful camera and is now exploring film making, met me for a drink to discuss ideas for a film. We had just been to see the exhibition of the MA Fashion Photography finalists at LCF.
Natasha (Natalia) Lipchanskaya, one of the finalists,  had me model for her project and invited me to the preview. I was quite excited at the prospect of seeing those pictures, at last (students are under strict  instructions not to show their photos to anyone until they are mounted on the gallery wall) and they did not disappoint. Natasha, a young photographer from Sochi, a Russian town I happened to visit some years before she was born (that was indeed another era, Russia was known then as the USSR), asked me and another mature model to pose for her, for a project entitled Invisible Women. Older women are invisible, according to our youth worshipping society, and never sexy. Natalia wanted to challenge this, coming from the position of a fashion photographer. I really love the work.
My photographer friend- turned-film-maker joined me at the exhibition and then, as alcohol had run out, we adjourned to a nearby bar. By the time I got home I was a little drunk, champagne always goes to my head.

Answer: I blog to be visible as a model.
I could have just turned my blog into a subsidiary portfolio, but that is boring. So I talk to an invisible gathering of online friends, mostly about things that concern me, one way or another.
My friend and I discussed options. Soon this blog will have short films to enliven it. Silent ones, primarily, I dont like speaking. But who knows?
Talking of films, I saw one yesterday which challenged me. I enjoyed watching it , mostly, but towards the end it had me gasping and wanting to leave - it was a tad too long.
I am talking about Synecdoche, New York the 2008 directorial debut of screen writer Charlie Kaufmann. In my last post I discussed the film about Anna Halprin, in which the message is that art and life are a continuum. Kaufmann's film also makes the point that art and life merge but his view is so far removed from the exuberant life affirming Breath made visible. Through Synecdoche (a figure of speech by which the part is named for the whole eg England for United Kingdom) Kaufmann drives home that life is disappointing, death is inescapable and art is part of life and thus it  fails us as life does. The synecdoche of the title refers to the replica of New York the hero of the film, Caden, builds for his project, in an abandoned warehouse. It is also a replica of the world.
I will not spoil things by giving away the end. It is a film that often may seem insane, PSYCHOTIC EVEN  and yet very lucid, an immensely tragic experience.
So an interesting week for me, in which I went from celebrating maturity and life and then, temporarily,  being plunged into despair through a reflection of how tragic and utterly senseless living is.

(Photos by Natalia Lipchanskaya modelled by Alex B.)