Pink Dreams - the magnificient works of gay artist Jim Ferringer

The allegorical and alluring digital photographs of openly gay artist, Jim Ferringer, celebrate male body and male nudity. Some may label the works as pornography, but they are a far cry from pornography, rather come close to the magnificent paintings of Renaissance masters.   

He states in his blog, "I am fascinated and in love with light. It’s what draws me to the art of photography and what I strive to capture in my imagery. To me the art of manipulated photographs is the ability to see and paint with light and combined images. Through the manipulation of images and the overlaying of textures, most of my work ends up looking like paintings. I am captivated by the beauty of men, all men, and have embarked on a journey to explore that in my current imagery. These manipulated photos explore the world of the beauty of the male body and soul. My work is a reflection of my thoughts as I make sense of the world around me. They are my notes as I navigate through. They are part of a process of a releasing of my sense of self and finding what is beyond my limited thoughts. To me, there is something about the beauty of the human figure which stimulates contemplation of life’s deepest mysteries and stories".

I have included some of his works in this post. Some time later, I will post the excerpts of an e-mail interview with him. He was very open minded and gave frank answers to my questions related to the struggles of being gay, male nudity and his art. It was really wonderful to connect with him and I cherish the opportunity to cross paths with such a genuine soul.

a fine balance

boy in venice

Listen to what Ferringer has to say about how he creates such dreamy montages,

“I would describe my work as manipulated figurative photography. All work is created with a Nikon D60 and an iMac with Photoshop CS6. My goal is a contemporary photograph with a reference to painting, history and environment. Light, shadow and color all build stories around the male figure. I try to bring to my photography some of the qualities that Carravagio, Jacques-Louis David, Anthony van Dyck and others brought to their paintings. It is important that my art have a sense of history and mystery”. 

an indulgence of 100 days

Andrei

 Adam

black shaman

For more details and to see his amazing opuses, visit the below mentioned links,

http://dreamsandothermysteries.blogspot.com/
http://naked-man-project.com/joomla/en/featured/guest-artist/jim-ferringer-american-artist

Please bear in mind that some photographs show explicit male nudity. 

5 Weird Practices to Preserve Beauty Through Ages in Asia

Beauty even though doesn’t have any survival value, human beings will do anything to preserve it. Anybody remember the legendary Queen Cleopatra who is known for her high maintenance beauty secrets like bathing in milk and honey, fortified with natural plant products and herbs. Well, most of her beauty secrets were scientific, how about this - using crocodile dung mixed with donkey’s milk as a face mask. Here are some of the weirdest Asian practices to preserve ideal beauty, arranged in no particular order.

1. Japanese Ohaguro

People these days are visiting more often to dental clinics to make their teeth sparkling white and cosmetic dentistry is a burgeoning field of medicine. But not everyone believes that white teeth are the ideal beauty yardstick. In Japan, there is a tradition called “Ohaguro”, where women dye their teeth pitch black using lacquer or plant extracts. Believe it or not, these materials are said to provide some antibacterial action and thereby prevent tooth decay too.

2. Chinese foot binding 

Another weird ritual from China. The cruel practice of binding the feet of young girls in unusually small shoes (3 inches) curbing the further growth of bones resulting in extremely mutilated and unbelievably small feet (The golden lotus foot). This epitomizes “suffering for beauty” and those women will remain crippled for life (link).

3. Padaung of Burma



Another painful and weird beauty experiment - Burmese “neck stretching” or Padaung. The women will stretch the length of their necks by wearing metallic rings around neck, sequentially added over time (usually many years) and stretching the neck up to 18 inches high. Well, there is an interesting story behind this practice that this originated as a means of protection of women from tiger attacks which later transformed into a status symbol - of beauty and wealth. The most bizarre thing is that if you take the rings off the woman's neck, she may die as the neck is no longer strong enough to support the head. The husband can demand to take the rings of, if the women betrays him, nice custom, right?

4. The nose plugs of Apatani Tribe - India

Well, the above said traditions were intended to make people more beautiful (or atleast they thought so), this on the other side were done to make people ugly. Apatani women of Arunachal Pradesh, India, stuff large nose plugs (Yaping hullo) to make themselves unattractive to foreign men. Anyway this practice is no longer in vogue among the tribe.

5. Ear stretching

 Ear stretching (Guaging) is a fashion right now. People stretch their ears and wear fashionable ornaments, but for some it is tradition. The Lahu from Thailand do this because they believe that human ear is sacred and so should wear more jewellery for better life. By gauging their ears, they are able to wear the maximum amount of jewellery and a resultant grace from gods. Fashion mongers can read this article about Guaging here (link).

References.

http://www.oddee.com/item_98514.aspx
http://fractalenlightenment.com/11982/culture/the-intriguing-apatani-culture
http://ezinearticles.com/?History-of-Ear-Gauging-in-Tribal-Civilizations&id=6959962
http://mom.me/mind-body/7471-weirdest-beauty-rituals-throughout-history/item/black-lacquered-teeth/

"Because who is perfect, get closer" - an inspirational video by Pro infirmis

Sharing a beautiful, poignant and inspirational video ('Because who is perfect? Get closer') on physical disability. We should be thankful for our sound health and do not complain about silly things which we have not got. This video teaches humility at its best. Rejoice at your small imperfections (these days it is easy to go for a nose job, if you have ample amount of money), remember that there are other people who are in no way near perfect, but remains happy. You can read more about the video here. The video was directed by Alain Gsponer and the project was made to honour people who are diasbled on International Day of Persons with Disabilities (December 3rd). The technicians created mannequins based on the bodies of disabled people to raise the awareness that no one has a perfect body (everybody likes to think otherwise). Pro Infirmis, an organisation for people with disabilities, worked with people suffering from scoliosis (a curved spine), shortened limbs and a woman in a wheelchair. The models in the video are radio host and film critic Alex Oberholzer, Miss Handicap 2010 Jasmine Rechsteiner, athlete Urs Kolly, actor Erwin Aljukić and blogger Nadja Schmid. Restructured mannequin made accordingly to perfectly reflect their body shape was then displayed in a high street store in Zurich's main shopping street. The joy in their eyes was evident. See the pictures and video.

All models with their mannequins

 Picture courtesy (link)

 

Buddha's last words remind us of our own imperfection, "Decay is inherent to a all compounded things. Strive on with diligence". 

Yes, decay is inevitable and unavoidable. Just imagine how the human body turns into a pile of filth following death irrespective of the beauty of the body. Physical beauty has a huge impact on our minds, we draw biased opinions and conclusions on others based on external beauty. It is undeniable. A very concerted and conscious effort is needed to  see beyond that "matrix" of beauty. Those who are beautiful always have an edge on almost everything they do, totally undeserving at times, then it becomes a bias. Even parents get biased on their children who differ in their skin tone or facial features. Dark skin tone is equated to being dirty; dark skinned people are low lives. Judging people by looks is not fair, at least in my opinion. It is always a pleasure to see beautiful men and women, but their beauty is just a "random lucky gift", not a "talent". When you see Aishwarya Rai, Angelina Jolly, Hrithik Roshan or George Clooney, you are awestruck or simply blinded. But the smiles you see on the faces of the people portrayed in the above video are just "natural and real", not "plastic" or "coached" like our stars. We should respect these people, they mirror the ugliness of ours rather than their own. Compassion, empathy, more disability friendly spaces are required. Such attempts to create awareness should be lauded and welcomed. It is better to have a black skin rather than a black heart.  Do you agree? Please let me know your opinion through your comments!