Idling.

[All images taken and, of course, owned by Anton Kusters.]

For some reason these Kusters gave me a lot of anguish. It would probably be better to just go into talking about them in whatever way I'm able, but I've got to work through some of the issues that these raised for me.

I found these through Burn. I've linked there before. I'm almost a little frightened to look at Burn. No matter how much time you give to it, it never seems enough. The caliber of the work presented there is almost too much. It crosses, sometimes, if you're in a weak mood (such as following the receiving of a series of mediocre contact sheets) from inspiring to crushing. If you really look, it makes you nervous. Not have I matched this (I haven't), but can I?

I suppose anyone striving toward something has these moments. I think, sometimes, secretly, that when someone says they don't view other's work in their field because they don't want to be influenced, really, they're probably afraid of being intimidated.

I don't know. Sometimes it's like a test. You flinch, disgusted with the depth of your admiration and jealousy.

And where you go from there determines something fundamental. Will you learn something? Take something away, something you can use? A rigor in your edit? A boldness in your shooting? Instead of looking at your meter reading and lamenting, again, damn, it's so dark in here and me without my tripod and cable release, or do you wedge yourself against a filthy wall, unmindful of the filth and city-grime on your clothes, unmindful of noise and other's eyes, willfully shutting out their thoughts, your imaginings of their hateful, "look at this fucking kid; thinks he's Larry Clark," and think, only, narrowly, "A quarter second. I can do that. Breath. Easy. Hold. Do I like that line against my frame?"

And it's done. Not to be considered again until, days later, you're hunched over a loupe, or peering uncertainly at a poorly, crudely calibrated screen.

Or maybe not. Maybe you don't learn a damn thing, or think a damn thing. Maybe I'm totally wrong. Maybe when I shoot I should be thinking about Beethoven, or tits in slow-motion so slow that it barely moves, or repeating kōans, or wondering about my death and whether anything I do, say, or make will outlast my blip on the cosmic calendar.

Really, accurately, probably I and others don't think a damn thing. You think before you get there, and after, in editing. In the moment, today at least, my thoughts were meter, curb, light, bicycle messenger, cock shutter, frame, frame, release, traffic, winding, and then walking, looking.

It feels really good.

But the Kusters.

My two problems:

One is that it makes me feel unworthy. Is my blog worthy enough to show this work? But this gets all tied up in bland, internet related copyright bullshit.

The work is online, I found it, I loved it and was deeply moved by it.

My job here, as I see it, is to bring attention to that moment of transcendent admiration. Not to worry about my permission to bring attention to it. If you didn't want me to be moved, then you shouldn't have shown me. Or crippled the moment with the subtle concessions to commodity that go along with the approach of the sublime and the internet. Size, resolution, and watermarking.

Fair?

The second problem is the enormity of the task of briefly summarizing the Yakuza.

Of which I will defer, out of convenience, for now.

Recommended viewings could include the films of Kitano, Suzuki, Fukasaku (specifically the five-part Yakuza Papers) and Miike. Also the documentary Young Yakuza by French documentarian Jean-Pierre Limosin.

Recommended reading might include:
Karl Taro Greenfeld's Speed Tribes.
Anything by Yasunari Kawabata 川端 康成 Kawabata Yasunari, Ryūnosuke Akutagawa 芥川 龍之介 Akutagawa Ryūnosuke, or Mishima.
And The Japanese: A Cultural Portrait by Robert S. Ozaki, still the best book on Japan I've yet read.

And with that ridiculous homework list and the very earnest recommendation that you Google this photographer and read the accompanying text on his website, which talks about his process and procedure of facilitating access to his subject (in projects under Odo), I leave you to contemplate the work.

Thanks for reading.