viz.

Image Credit: Joshua Hoffine

With Halloween on the horizon, I thought I'd take a break from the horror show of the campaign to consider some more visceral scares, and photographer Joshua Hoffine provides viscera aplenty in his works. The image above is one of Hoffine's tamer outings, though it is still disturbing. A small child stands outside before a clothes line hung with drying laundry. The sun shines behind a large white sheet, casting the shadow of a clown holding a bunch of balloons in one hand and displaying a set of menacing claws on the other. Hoffine uses children in many of his photos, contrasting the innocence and helplessness of childhood with the savage agency of monsters human and supernatural. Before we look at other photos, I suggest readers consider the images below the fold not safe for work or for those who prefer to avoid depictions of bodily violence and mutilation, death and decomposition, children in life threatening scenes, or children posed near their dead, violently murdered, parent's corpses.

Image Credit: I Made America

When in the course of human events it becomes necessary for one person to distract herself from work, Facebook provides. Through the The Second City Network I found a video entitled “Founding Fathers History Pick-Up Lines.” Clearly, I couldn’t resist. I was deeply amused to watch Benjamin Franklin, Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, George Washington, and John Adams seduce modern women with such lines as “It’s not the Louisiana Purchase, but it will double in size,” “Never leave for tomorrow what you can screw today,” and “I take the virgin out of Virginia.” The full video below features many more salacious lines, some of which might not be SFW:

Image Credit: Austin Culture Map

H/T: Noel Radley

Austin’s Thirteenth Annual East Pet Parade, held just last Saturday, not only celebrated “family, friends, and of course our furry friends,” but also Austin resident Leslie Cochran, who passed away a month before.  The organizers encouraged owners to dress their dogs in drag in Cochran’s honor, so Chris Perez dressed her dog Leslie in traditional Leslie garb: a pink bra and a feather boa.

(NSFW after the jump.)

Image credit Unknown via f*** yeah, wild horses

Last week I wrote about the curious dual-natured relationship we seem to have with horses. In books and film and popular media horses are situated as both friend, companion, partner and as disposable beast, object, mere chattel. Last week, too, I teased the case of Jasha Lottin and the relationship she had with a horse. Her story is surprisingly simple at first blush. Lottin and her friend bought a 32-year-old, near-dead horse already scheduled to be euthanized. They shot it in the head with a high powered rifle—apparently killing it instantly and painlessly. Then Lottin, a nudist and Star Wars fan, staged a photo shoot featuring her and the now-dead horse. Throughout the following post I’ll be discussing her pictures with the horse. They are excessively gory; there is some nudity. Discretion advised. Not safe for work content after the break.

Image Credit: F--- Yeah Ryan Gosling

Some recent procrastinating led me to Jezebel and thus Joey Thompson’s recent YouTube video, in which he teaches men how to look like actor Ryan Gosling. I was intrigued because I have been following the proliferating Ryan Gosling memes for a while—which have gone on long enough that they’ve been accused of jumping the shark.  Still, I’d like to take some time to think a little bit about what their newest evolutions might tell us about memes, form, and feminine desire.

Image Credit: Rion Sabean

H/T: Melanie Haupt

My favorite way to take a break from dissertation research is to visit Facebook.  Some days, I’m lucky enough to be entertained by my friends, as when Melanie Haupt posted a provocative link to an article about male pin-ups.

(Image Credit:  Substantia Jones, Adiposivity.com)

Substantia Jones is an award-winning, Manhattan-based photographer whose work has been featured in The New York Times and showcased at galleries and shows throughout the Northeast.  Her website, The Adipositivity Project, is dedicated to documenting and celebrating bodies that are typically invisible--except as negative examples--in modern media.  In her own words, Substantia promotes size-acceptance "not by listing the merits of big people, or detailing examples of excellence (these things are easily seen all around us), but rather, through a visual display of fat physicality. The sort that's normally unseen."

I was thrilled to have the opportunity to exchange emails with Substantia and develop a post that would showcase some of her favorite photographs. Her answers to my questions are in bold. Many of the photographs below are NSFW. 

Lee Price, Sunday.  H/t to Jezebel, Sociological Images

Lee Price paints photorealistic portraits of her subject (usually herself) consuming food that we might label "bad:" for example, McDonalds, cupcakes, pie, and so on. While Dr. Lisa Wade's piece for Sociological Images focused on the way these paintings make public what is often a shameful, private act and elevate it through the use of "high" medium (painting), I was most interested in the way these images seem to acknowledge these commonly held beliefs about indulgent consumption even as they complicate them. I'd like to take a stab at raising more questions about Price's work and how it formulates an argument about bodies, pleasure, shame, and excess. Pictures after the jump are NSFW.

Giovanni Bortolani, from the Fake Too Fake series

Using some seriously inventive (and at times disturbing) photoshop, Italian artist Giovanni Bortolani has created a series of photos about the composition of the human form.  While the image above suggests a relationship between the body and the organic by superimposing a leaf skeleton on a man's back, most of Bortolani's photos in the series explore bodies in terms of that which is "fake" or constructed.  The images in Fake Too Fake are jarring, but they ask us to consider what we're doing to our bodies in this age of plastic surgery and diet pills.  NSFW (and somewhat gruesome) material after the jump.

Temeca Freeman via J'Adore Magazine

On 10 March, 2011, Germany’s Pro7 TV aired a story about U.S. “po” model Temeca Freeman in New York City for Fashion Week. As a butt model, Freeman voluntarily welcomes people to stare unabashedly at her backside.  But Pro7’s story went beyond a curious stare and into a visual “fressen” – a German term which means to devour, or consume like an animal.  NSFW content after the break.