False Awakening

2009-02-11T19:05:00.001+01:00

Beauty School

2008-05-22T07:58:00.003+02:00

Please copy and paste the following link to see and hear about Minnie and Asia, both currently attending Alameda Beauty College:

http://danaullman.webng.com/Wanda Loves Lee/Beauty School/

Wanda and Lee

2008-05-22T07:57:00.003+02:00

Please copy and paste the following link to hear and see Miss Wanda:

http:/danaullman.webng.com/Wanda Loves Lee/

Aging

2008-05-19T03:21:00.018+02:00

A senior center lunch hour is like walking into the diner of a lost generation. Here sit old movie stars, ex-opera singers, former businessmen and their wives, painted and dressed by the Goodwill boutiques just for lunch “out”. This is a “Hall of Elders”; the clientele are the ones we get up for on the bus, stand behind in line at the pharmacy and read ever exponential life statistics in the newspaper.

2008-04-07T21:36:00.001+02:00

2008-01-19T07:00:00.000+01:00

Barcelona

2008-01-14T06:11:00.001+01:00

FOOD!

2008-01-14T06:10:00.001+01:00

Barcelona had amazing tapas and an incredible open market (see the fruit). Most of which I stared at with terrified longing because I had food poisoning for three days. Hence the limited photos.

Barcelona

2008-01-14T06:03:00.001+01:00

Okay here are come outtakes from a stunning city I was privileged to visit. I want Barcelona's soul. Read about Gaudi.

Change of Seasons

2007-11-15T10:13:00.000+01:00

It's starting to snow here, but the autumn was immaculate. Reminded me of Portland. San Francisco may be beautiful but it has nothing on Portland when it comes to Fall. Aarhus is close to second.

Viva Madrid

2007-11-15T09:15:00.001+01:00

Weeks behind I know. I am in the process of finishing a magazine project and beginning my final project so the wheels are grinding towards the end. But here are some photos I took in Madrid - a beautiful city. I met some interesting people, saw some amazing art and walked and walked and walked - one thing I'm really good at. Hope these find you well.

Stereotypes workshop

2007-10-19T15:58:00.000+02:00

Just finished working on this multimedia piece with the lovely and talented Ingeborg. Still need to add some things but check it out. Let me know what y'all think. Off to madrid now for the week. Enjoy.

Aki

http://www.enlowphotos.com/danna/index.html

Generations: The Troubador

2007-10-11T21:01:00.000+02:00

I'm doing this piece on generations. Here are some photos of Mr. Free, one of my subjects:

Hamburg

2007-10-10T16:06:00.001+02:00

More Hamburg....

2007-10-10T15:51:00.000+02:00

A really aggressive game of cop and anarchist - "It's tradition", someone said. It just all seems like a vicious cycle to me. With no outcome. Just a bunch of anarchists perpetuating a police state by giving the police work to do.

Night I in Hamburg: Hipster or Hooker and drawling violence

2007-10-04T22:24:00.000+02:00

So the night we got in from Aarhus we went to the "Red Light District" of Hamburg. Really nothing to mention about it except everything that the name implies which wouldn't be surprising and therefore is unexciting. One thing I will note though is the SF hipster fashion of wearing fanny packs and headbands is the fashion accessory of choice for prostitutes here. Not one prostitute I saw was without a fanny pack at least. I like to think they're safe sex kits and full of condoms, but I think they keep their money in them. (sigh.) But way to go fashionista-wise! I guess that goes both ways- for hipsters who dress like Northern German hookers and to Northern German hookers for really keeping functional fashionable.

While walking around Claudi, Anne and I came across this weird scene of the police wrestling some guy to the ground with a small crowd watching. But the whole thing sort of moved in silence. It was strange. Except for the photojournalist in a wheelchair who let my friend Anne know that none of her photos would come out because she wasn't using a flash. Anyway here are my photos that came out without flash.

There's the photographer in the wheelchair (middle) and the "crowd" which included a film crew. Perhaps this was a for TV?

Hitchhike to Hamburg

2007-10-01T00:09:00.000+02:00

...Anne (not a doppelganger of a certain ex-boyfriend, I hope) and I hitchhiked to Hamburg last week. I have to say it was the perfect way of traveling (I would never do it in the U.S. or by myself). But it suited me with the change of drivers and sporadic breaks along the way. It was a straight shoot, too. We left around four and got into Hamburg around eleven p.m.. I brought a couple cameras with me but also found a lot of cheap ones, so this post is a hodgepodge films and cameras.

First night. Claudia was our hostess. This is her kitchen. We stayed in the "Schanze" district which was a nice contrast to the small, sleepy streets of Århus.

Senior Dance Competition

2007-09-11T20:22:00.000+02:00

Miss Landmine 2007

2007-09-05T19:30:00.000+02:00

So I found this Amnesty International magazine on the ground and was looking though it (all I do is look) and I saw this project:

http://www.miss-landmine.org/misslandmine_project.html

It's opening in Norway in couple days and I want to go. The project brought up some conflicting thoughts/feelings for me. I mean I get the whole "giving identity to a largely faceless population" and showing the various facets of beauty... but the beauty pageant theme just gets me. I mean it's funny (I laughed). I wouldn't compare such unique beauty with something so traditionally in line with perpetuating exploitation and stereotypes.

Feria: The Circus came to town...

2007-09-05T19:29:00.001+02:00

So, in Aarhus they have this annual festival (festuge). It's a BIG deal for this small town. We were assigned to go out and shoot newspaper style (in six hours). We needed to shoot an artist, features and an event. It was draining but fun; the deadline looming is always a good push for me. Unfortunately there were about sixteen photographers shooting the same thing. So I suppose the critique will be interesting; a shot from below, above, on each side, far away...

I figure most festivals, especially ones touting an old time carnival, would be a terrific place to find stories; all these traveling troupes, living for and from their art. I have been most impressed by the performance/cinema presented by Les Cubitenistes. Dadaists, er, cubitenistes always brighten my day. Really clever.They have this caravan with dozens of windows. When the show begins, the audience stick their heads into the whole and a curtain drops around your neck. It is quite a vulnerable position. With your bag, ass and camera just sort of swinging behind you.

A picture of one of the duo... oh and check out... http://www.cubitenistes.com/

I'm going back tomorrow to get to know them a bit better and give them the portraits I've taken.

2007-09-05T19:20:00.000+02:00

The Harbor

2007-08-29T16:10:00.002+02:00

My friend from Berlin, Anne-Christin, and I spent the other day at the harbor in Aarhus with our flashes. I thought some of these came out alright. I included a portrait I took later that night of my friend Ingebor from Norway. Just some faces that are familiar to me for you to see. Anne, Ingebor and I went down to the seashore and found this Circus tent and did some portraits there using the headlights of Ingebor's car. I'm still editing these takes, but I thought I'd make up for the blogless days. Let me know what you think. Hope all is well with each of you.

2007-08-26T17:45:00.001+02:00

A couple weeks ago I visited City Hall. The building was designed by architect Arne Jacobsen, known quite well for modern Danish design (you'll get the idea, http://www.arne-jacobsen.com/neobuilder.20020207200336520000001846981104.html).

City Hall is kind of an eyesore, I just try to ignore it; marble exterior, rectangular in shape, with a phallic tower just sort of shooting out, while on the inside it's all wood. He did however, have an amazing adeptness for natural light. Anyway, no one cares about my naive attempt at explaining this.

The tower is very tall. The view is good. You can see where I live.

and inside City Hall...

Oh, the photo above is the "Wedding Room" (where you get married, quick, and then have your portrait taken for the record against this wall- I want to just have a collection of portraits against this wall). No matter how expensive the wood was, the room is wood-paneled not unlike many a ranch-style home basement circa 1970. No matter how respected in architecture Jacobsen is/was, he still painted atrocious bouquets of flowers with ivy borders, not unlike a tacky stencil, on the wood-paneling (each wall having a season theme, here we have "Summertime"). Tacky but retro and so 1944.

A $3 cup of coffee...

2007-08-26T16:47:00.001+02:00

I apologize for the undisciplined posting. I've just spent the last week (and the last six months) staring at a computer screen from 9 a.m. until 3 p.m. in an endless realm known only as Photoshop so I've taken a little break to explore the "outside world", also known as "living". It's a bit too much at times, the whole post-production/editing thing, but also addicting. I have self-diagnosed myself as a workaholic. But I got my CPR number (the card you get for free health care in Denmark; yeah, you probably wouldn't know about it) so I have access to an optometrist. Although I get this guilt, I mean, I've totally done this to myself....

This posting will probably be off a bit with the lapse of time, but then again so is being here...

Today I went to a flea market by the sea. It was pretty similar to any flea market in the States. They did have a "Western Store" that was pretty stereotypical. I took some photos but it was raining off and on. I met this very eccentric geologist, very interested in my breasts, my Spanish ancestors (I told him repeatedly I had none) and wondered innocently why I was going to the worst journalism school in the world. The exchange was quite amusing.

He carried with him bag upon bag of maps which he frequently pulled out, meaning they were in some order, to show me places he thought I should visit. Places where sunbeams break a certain way on the horizon, a vantage point that I could view Sweden from on a clear day. In fact I now hold one of the most unique maps I have ever possessed (and I really like maps). On a map he had of Zealand, a region of Denmark, he marked all the rocks thrown by giants in Norse mythology, specifically the ones Fin (from Finland) threw at Denmark ages ago. I have no idea if this is true or not, the locations I mean, but I really treasure it.

people. Everyday I try to meet someone new, get their portrait, something, someone. Language IS a barrier. Directions, conversations = multiple interpretations. I am a rare one here, the "Monolingual".

The other photographers/journalists here all seem very nice. I don't believe there is one female Danish photographer though. The critiques have been more than I could ask for. Seriously, we spend an hour on each take (eight students). In SF we would have an hour and a half for twenty takes. Everyone shoots so differently, it's quite interesting to see the processes. The Danes seem more lax with what is "photojournalistic", too. For example, I was talking with this Danish photographer, Tobias, about telling stories without people; just their environment, waste, architecture, etc... For my first assignment I thought I would try to incorporate some of that into three expressions of a place. No faces. Only shadows, silhouettes, "left" spaces (which I also define as spaces that the viewer expects/feels should have people but are empty such as locker rooms, amusement parks or stores after closing). In San Francisco this is unheard of. Kobre would have thrown his book, "On Photojournalism", at you and failed you ( ah! the masochistic reverie!).

My friend Ingebor, from Norway, had a potluck the other night and Paul and I made sushi. One girl had never had sushi before. I prepared a piece for her with a bit too much wasabi. The expression on her face while she chewed (very, very slowly, her cheeks bright pink, nose flared ) was priceless. She was so sweet too, saying "okaaay, it IS very interesting".

Food is expensive here. A cup of coffee is $3 on average. I have sort of given up on it - cigarettes, too. For me that's quite a revolution. And still the Danes consider themselves to have a cafe culture. In my dreams I am at a Stumptown or smoking cigarettes in the back of my house in SF. I'll just keep it all there, I guess. I figure here with the new beginnings and all I can just try out new behaviors (such as what to do with my hands in conversation without a cigarette, I didn't realize just how much I gesticulate).

Okay, pictures...

Den Gamle By

2007-08-14T18:04:00.000+02:00

First Day of the Program...

2007-08-13T22:46:00.000+02:00

Last night we had a "Meet 'n' Greet" a full on skip through childhood with games such as the one where you have to go around the room with thirty other people remembering there names and a fruit with the same first letter. One, I stop listening about three people in. I have not been on a roll with names for a few years now. By the time it gets to me I finished this giant glass of Leffe, somehow mumble through each person's name (actually it's each person telling me their name, and rolling their eyes, their prideful fruit of choice... i.e. Pineapple Patsy, Mango Mary, Apricot Anne). I go with Daikon Dana. The controversy ensues...
"What is a daikon!?"

"Uh, I don't know, a radish...a Chinese root... or Japanese."

Of course there are two girls from Hong Kong there.

"WE HAVE NEVER HEARD OF DAIKON!" "AND...WE'RE FROM HONG KONG!"

Whatever.

D. For what? I still can't think of a fucking fruit. Why has this game suddenly turned into a issue of correctness? It's a child's game. There was one guy, "Coca Cola Carl", c'mon.

Meet with the photo professor. He seems really nice. He invited the group to an opening exhibition of his in another town. I really appreciated seeing his work. Some professors I've had in the past were very elusive about their own work.

But even more interesting, the guy only has one "seeing" eye. The other is crystal blue glass. What? And how come?

The university architecturally is bizarre. I'll have to post photos at some point...

2007-08-12T18:19:00.001+02:00

I was going to say how warm it has been, but today it rained.

details

2007-08-08T21:07:00.000+02:00

Some shots of the show....

2007-08-07T20:43:00.000+02:00

Six Organs of Admittance show at VoxHall, Aarhus

2007-08-07T18:37:00.001+02:00

Six Organs of Admittance, from San Francisco, played the other night. This photo is what I thought of the opening act, which was in fact taken during the opening act. They had such a nauseating light show I had to find something station in the room to focus on. My head was spinning like I was wasted. But check out: http://www.sixorgans.com/

Arhus Domkirke

2007-08-06T15:28:00.001+02:00

Arhus' Center.

2007-08-06T15:07:00.001+02:00

Danish foilage...

2007-08-06T10:16:00.001+02:00

Strange suburban architecture. I believe a futbol field is right under this thing...

2007-08-06T10:14:00.001+02:00

A very old Church (circa 1749, you can see in the photo) near the place I'm living.

2007-08-06T10:12:00.001+02:00

The best of American culture can be found in Denmark.

2007-08-06T10:07:00.000+02:00

Goddag.

2007-08-05T15:00:00.001+02:00

Lightswitch

2007-08-05T13:35:00.001+02:00

Arhus: A True Winter

2007-08-04T00:07:00.001+02:00

Blogging commences. I suppose I'll explain the title, since all I've really been doing is sleeping and wandering, thinking and reflecting. Since this blog will mainly contain reflections on the wander-ponder, I thought I should start with sleeping... This excerpt is attributed to wikipedia.com...

A false awakening may occur either following an ordinary dream or following a lucid dream (one in which the dreamer has been aware that he or she is dreaming). Particularly if the false awakening follows a lucid dream, the false awakening may turn into a ‘pre-lucid dream' (Green, 1968), that is, one in which the dreamer may start to wonder if he or she is really awake and may or may not come to the correct conclusion. More commonly, dreamers will believe they are awake.

A false awakening has significance to the simulation hypothesis which states that what we perceive as "true" reality is in truth an illusion as evidenced by our minds' inability to distinguish between reality and dreams. Therefore, advocates of the simulation hypothesis argue that the probability of our "true" reality being a simulated reality is affected by the prevalence of false awakenings.

Certain aspects of life may be dramatized, or out of place in false awakenings. Things may seem wrong: details, like the painting on a wall, not being able to talk or difficulty reading (purportedly reading in dreams is difficult or impossible; see Green and McCreery, 1994, Ch. 10, for a discussion of this topic). In some experiences, the human senses are heightened, or changed. For instance, one may be able to see things in greater detail, or lesser detail, or one may feel an intense burst of fear and anxiety, or possibly pleasure

Because the dreamer is still dreaming after a false awakening, it is possible for there to be more than one false awakening in a single dream. Often, dreamers will seem to have awakened, begin eating breakfast, brushing teeth, and so on and then find themselves back in bed, begin daily morning rituals, believe that they have awakened, and so forth. The French psychologist Yves Delage (1919) reported an experience of his own of this kind, in which he experienced four successive false awakenings. The philosopher Bertrand Russell even claimed to have experienced ‘about a hundred’ false awakenings in succession while coming round from a general anaesthetic (Russell, 1948, p.186).

Dreams are extremely personal, intense and lucid for me. Dreams, whether daydreaming or sleeping, induced, have held so much vision, prophecy and inspiration for me. In a way strange experiences too that perhaps can be manifested or compared in reality but where concocted in our heads to such detail so that we used each of our senses to such degrees - it seemed.