Ugh, I'm brilliant.
Last night a large group of us were walking back to my friend's house, and my friend Chris and I were running and jumping in puddles. Well in a move of sheer intelligence and grace, I was trying to splash down in a puddle with each footfall by running and jumping as hard as possible. For some reason it did not occur to me that the reason puddles exist is because of uneven ground beneath them. I splashed down with my right ankle into a jagged pot hole posing as an innocent puddle, and I believe I have sprained my ankle. Go me. The worst part is that my car is still at Sam's house, and I can't so much walk anywhere to get an ankle brace. I'm not even going to get into how I have to work in the morning, and do a huge shoot for my senior. This sucks so crazy bad.

I may find this more abhorrent because I'm a vegetarian, and strongly believe in Animal Rights, but seriously... come on. The below images are C-Prints by artist Nathalia Edenmont from the Former Soviet Union. She kills and dismembers mice, rabbits, house cats, and chickens for the sake of her art. I can enjoy the formal beauty of her images but simply can't get over the fact that it's the shock value that she depends on to make here photographs noteworthy. Organizations like PETA have broken into the only gallery which will showcase her work, and destroyed exhibits.




Another artist that I have been reading about recently is Damien Hirst. He is being canonized as the UK's most famous living artist. He has been in the media lately because of his work "For the Love of God" in which he bedazzled a human skull with over 1,100 karats in diamonds set in platinum. It is in negotiations to be sold for $100,000,000, making it the highest selling piece of art in history. (I don't think he saw Blood Diamond). Anyway, the work of Hirst is often controversial. Second to his bling skull he is most famous for taking livestock, fish, and sharks and suspending them in formaldehyde, and plastic. His work reminds me of Bodyworlds which we've discussed a lot in past classes. But Bodyworlds isn't touted as and art exhibit, it is seen as scientific. What is so artistic about someone who takes a chainsaw to a calf and sticks it in a tank to compliment it's bisected mother? The strangest part is that there is far less controversy over Hirst's art than Edenmond. I believe this is because Hirst is not the killer of his subjects. It also goes to show you that the smaller and cuter the animal being disemboweled the greater the outrage.





I am left to wonder if Edenmont had turned a calf's head into a hand puppet, would she have been left alone? Or had she plasticized her pet cat instead of putting it's head on a floral pedestal would the public have cared?

Go forth and stick your dog in a tank of formaldehyde! It is art after all.

After changing my senior thesis idea about three times I've settled on this. I am creating a family by photographing, and subsequentialy photoshopping subjects to a point where they look related. The final images will be printed as four color lithographs using the Pronto Plate technique. This is the first image from the series. I'm naming her Dorthea Lovejoy, and she will have a twin named Clarissa Lovejoy. This is actually my best friend Claire. I've enlarged her head and eyes to make her look oddly childlike. I'm a huge fan or Loretta Lux and she's becoming a huge influence on this project.

I wish someone would tell me which fork to take. I can't make up my mind whether I want to move to Nashville and strike out as a commercial photographer and specialize in editorial rock photography, or take the starving artist path. I wish I felt like I could do both. I have more fun doing rock photography, I like meeting new people and developing that way as an artist. Meh. Hopefully I figure it out soon. I'm looking forward to traveling this winter for my second senior which is sort of a combining of those two passions I can't decide between.

We'll see... convex bubble glass and oval frames are really expensive.

Bozeman. I feel so stuck here. One more of my closest friends just moved away after graduating last December. He moved to California. This was okay though because his girlfriend (another close friend of mine) was staying here, and it was just a 5-6 month internship chasing around sea birds. Well his girlfriend just informed me that she's moving to California as well... so there's no ties for either of them to come back here for. It's very likely that I won't ever see them again unless I have the money to go to southern California for a visit.

Losing friends has been the basic theme this semester. My best friend went abroad, and isn't coming back for good until next fall. I haven't been away from him for this long in the three years I've known him. I've always been the type of person who relates better with guy friends and this semester nearly all of my closest ones have left. It makes it difficult. They were so easy to be friends with, friendships with my lady friends is much more time consuming. Time is the one thing I don't feel like I have.

I've met so many people from bands out on the road this semester, but they always leave, it's inevitable. I was so looking forward to 10 days away to not think of anything and just be with my best friend Claire in Boston. But I have the flu, couldn't go, and I'm basically stuck in bed, alone. Being sick is the pits. Being sick with no one to take care of you is hell.

For my self portrait series I'm thinking about doing spy photography of myself. I've been putting my camera on a timer and setting it in closets, and cabinets. In photoshop I'm adding status reports and information. Kind of like the government is spying on me. I'm having lots of fun taking them, I'm also setting all the date and time stamps one year in the future, because it's scary how close our current administration is to employing such techniques.

Worky worky worky worky....

I survived it. The first week of school is over and done with and now I can breathe again. It was one big clusterfuck of stress to be perfectly honest. It left me wondering if I'm over doing it this semester. Actually I know I'm over doing it but I'm moving forward anyway. Being insanely busy just makes the year fly by which isn't really a bad thing. I have two more years left in this place, which really means only two more years left with my friends. Then we're all moving to different places. That last part is the part that scares the crap out of me really. I can't honestly bear the thought of moving somewhere where I know no one, and all of my friends being thousands of miles away. It makes me cringe. I'll get a test of that next spring when Sam and Andy both go abroad. Until then I guess I just need to squeeze in as much time with my friends as I can afford. This semester is going to kill me.

Overpopulated areas fascinate me. I spent the last few days driving to and from Seattle with only one day in the city itself. Pretty amazing how many people can fit into it's borders. My mother said "There's so many people here, and I haven't seen a single one that looks happy." It was true no one was smiling, they were just going about their daily lives without paying attention to anyone or anything around them. Nothing seemed to be bringing joy to them. It was weird.

I had the chance to catch up with two dear old friends who I haven't seen for months and years in one case. I only got to spend three hours with Matt and Aaron but the time was really special even though we didn't do anything memorable. I miss my friends. I'm truely awful at keeping in touch with people I like, and my ability to keep in touch with people who've angered or lied to me in the past is even more appaling. I could try to rekindle some of those relationships but it's even more difficult when you find out that they haven't changed. They are still telling lies to get attention, and are hurting people. Why bother with them? Good friends, I wish I had more like these.

Trial number one...
Copyright infringement! Yay! This is definately one of those little buggers that you ignore, because you trust people and then it comes right back to bite you in the ass. A couple weeks ago I photographed a local band for free on the agreement that they would credit me on their myspace and website at CD packaging and all that good stuff. Well they never credited me on their myspace.... even after I sent them an e-mail saying "Hey guys remember we had that agreement that you would credit me? WTF?" They ignored it and kept getting hits on the photo, comments from people about how good the photo was, and none of them knew that I had taken it. Awesome. Now I don't have it in wrighting that they would credit me, but I'm pretty sure it's still copyright infringement if they use it in their album artwork which is what I took the photos for in the first place. Blah. So I'm pissed because I did it all in good faith because they are a well known band in these parts and I figured "Hey free advertising" but not if no one knows I took the damn shot. UGH. I'm so annoyed with the situation. I don't want to be a horrible bitch and sue them should they publish my photos without permission, but I don't want to be walked all over either. I learned my lesson and from now on I'm tagging all of my photos with my stamp before I give the band a CD that's for sure. These little assholes ruined it for all the other bands. I'll probably write up a contract too, just to have it incase. It's lame, but I learned my lesson.

P.S. All photos published within this blog are copyright Megan Thompson!

Wedding numero two down for the summer and I have a strange feeling that I will never get to be this girl. The one in the perfect dress with the perfect day and all that rot. Jordan's wedding last week made me all the more conscious of this missing piece of my life. I am single, and single without prospects. I'm not a mutant, I'm not fat, and I have abnormaly nice teeth, so what's the deal? I have found it getting to me, and I hate that. I never wanted to be the girl who's looking for a husband and not a nice guy. I'm only 22 and I feel like I'm going on 32. Four weddings in five weeks is too many for a girl to stomach I think. At least the next one I can relax and do my job, and photograph it. It will take some of the time away from me grouching around and drinking myself into a depressed stupor. I took about 100 drunk photos at Jordan's shindig. These are just the hilights.

Examples of my work over the past year....

One of my 10 "animal" portraits from last semester.

I worked at The Event at Rebecca Farms as an assistant photographer this summer.


But for the most part my heart is in concert and rock photography


This Word is Weapon promo shot.

c.j. of This Word is Weapon

Last year I had the chance to photograph The Vans Warped Tour.

Here I am. Mid August, and school starts in less than 20 days. I'm registered for three separate studios this semester, and honestly starting to wonder what the hell I was thinking. My class load thus far includes one 5 credit Lithography print making class, Experimental photography, and Studio photography, as well as a 1 credit position as a teaching assistant with the intro to photography class. I've never been more excited or scared for school to start. I survived last semester and somehow emerged with a 4.0, and no real understanding of how my grades remained that high. I had three jobs, this semester I'll have two. So it should all even itself out... here's hoping.