Rip Torn, #34, Mendoza, Argentina, 2021
“Today everything exists to end in a photograph.”
I’ve always been attracted to those old billboards that have had the original poster ads removed, leaving behind a chaotic sea of ripped shards of paper. Sometimes, bits and pieces of faces from previous ads remain. It is there that I see the faded stories… hints of a once happy and lively past?
That’s the trick… finding, in the midst of what most normal folks would describe as a vertical trash dump, some kind of order, the hint of a story, and framing it within the camera’s rectangle.
Hmmm.. could this turn in to a possible project? Maybe it already is!
Here are some examples, with some suggested titles:
“Frank has lost his ability to express himself, but he is pretty sure he is happy and his hair is certainly well-combed.”
Rip Torn, #22, Mendoza, Argentina, 2021
“Katy, and her kitty kat, smile innocently at the world in the midst of overwhelming odds.”
Rip Torn, #23, Mendoza, Argentina, 2021
“Magic Mike hides from his overbearing mother and gloats in his hubris as he considers himself quite the lady’s man.”
Rip Torn, #24, Mendoza, Argentina, 2021
“Jerry feels like he is losing his mind, but it’s only an ear (much like Vincent before him), so he is relatively content.”
Rip Torn, #25, Mendoza, Argentina, 2021
“I want YOU to fix me because I can’t seem to find my own path forward.”
Rip Torn, #30, Mendoza, Argentina, 2021
“I don’t usually find my face desintegrating on a billboard in full view of the passing public, but when I do, I just smile and keep faking it–after all, it’s not how you feel, it’s how you LOOK!”
Rip Torn, #31, Mendoza, Argentina, 2021
“Rasputin finally loses consistency and is abandoned for dead in Felix’s basement.”
Rip Torn, #34, Mendoza, Argentina, 2021
“Rasputin melts away into a psychedelic world of his own macabre design.”
Rip Torn, #37, Mendoza, Argentina, 2021
“Rasputin, having had a piercing revelation, realizes he is possessed from within by someone else with lots of hair and a shorter beard (and who likes to whistle happy tunes).”
Rip Torn, #38, Mendoza, Argentina, 2021
“Sara, in an attempt to imitate Barbie, attends her final, high-class, New York City photography exposition and finds it not at all to her liking.”
Ghost Women, #526, Mendoza, Argentina, 2021
“Glen doesn’t realize it, but there has been something strange tickling his nose for many years, and it is actually his own lizard brain that is the source of all the trouble.”
Rip Torn, #39, Mendoza, Argentina, 2021
“‘Catch me if you can’, said the petty and populist politician to his adoring public–all with a smile and a smirk.”
Rip Torn, #40, Mendoza, Argentina, 2021
“Tyler was more than slightly irritated after realizing his terrible luck of growing up in a completely dysfunctional family that was a far cry from his friend Beaver’s family.”
Rip Torn, #42, Mendoza, Argentina, 2021
“James Bond slides out of public view just long enough to get a facelift, a hair transplant, and liposuction so as to appear suitably macho next to a leading lady a third his age.”
Rip Torn, #43, Mendoza, Argentina, 2021
“Sylvia can clearly see it all now, despite the trauma of her childhood and the abuse of her three husbands, as she slowly emerges from the unexamined and misunderstood funk that was her life of the past fifty years.”
Ghost Women, #507, Mendoza, Argentina, 2021
“Stephen found himself the target of the irrepressible ire (with pitchforks) of his once-friendly neighbors once his lustful secret life was revealed in the local paper.”
Rip Torn, #55, Mendoza, Argentina, 2022
“They thought of themselves as pioneers–even superheroes–and their determination was still largely intact, despite the piercing slings, cracks, wrinkles, and arrows of racism and misogyny that were slowly taking their toll.”
Rip Torn, #56, Mendoza, Argentina, 2022
“Their main mode of transporation being their Santa Cruz VX skateboards or the occasional stolen car they nabbed for a quick joy ride, Digger, Badger, and Flaco were the cool kids in the neighborhood–that is, until the bigger gangs started moving in and enforcing a much higher level of dedication and criminality to which they were morally, emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually unprepared.”
Rip Torn, #68, Mendoza, Argentina, 2022
“William was, on the surface, a good man, a loving grandfather, and a pillar of the community, but the daily pressures of his bustling law practice–and the stress of a huge mortgage, two car payments (a BMW and a Porsche), two monthly alimony payments, and the expensive health care for his third wife (PTSD, with heavy physical manifestations)–were slowly eating him alive.”
Rip Torn, #71, Mendoza, Argentina, 2022
“With slight feelings of sadness and regret, Phil slowly slid out of the picture that had been his family and his life as an accountant for 30 years, leaving behind a half-finished manuscript of bizarre ramblings in big block letters. It is said that he is still alive and living quietly with a Russian woman half his age in a small condo in Costa Rica.”
Rip Torn, #77, Mendoza, Argentina, 2022
“Misogyny and racism were his life-long specialties, but it resulted in a tremendous case of necrotizing fasciitis to his once-pointy head and to his once-unsoiled soul.”
Rip Torn, #81, Mendoza, Argentina, 2022
“Five was his always lucky number, so when things got desperate he put all of the family’s savings on horse #5 in the 5th race at Lingfield, but things didn’t quite work out as he’d hoped. Still, he tried hard to put on a happy face with his track buddies as they all drank their beers and he sat silently in the corner contemplating the exact wording of his suicide note.”
Rip Torn, #84, Mendoza, Argentina, 2022
“Clark Kent really does exist, Virginia, and he is quietly monitoring criminal behavior from the most unexpected of places!”
Rip Torn, #85, Mendoza, Argentina, 2022
“The mustache and goatee were a sexy hit with the silicon-enhanced women at the discoteque and–to top it off–they had the wonderful and unexpected secondary purpose of absorbing the annoying humidity from his runny nose without anyone being the wiser (the mustache and goatee, not the women).”
Rip Torn, #88, Mendoza, Argentina, 2022
“Aiden was still a happy kid as he wasn’t yet fully conscious of the effect of the little daily traumas he was accumulating (thanks to Billy Bruin, the bully of his 6th grade class) and that were gradually eating away at his childhood innocence.”
Rip Torn, #89, Mendoza, Argentina, 2022
“Christopher Gallant was a politician par excellence and thought himself of great value to his constituents in his rural, conservative district–but what if they knew that, instead of his wife and numerous children, his thoughts were constantly and erotically occupied by the face and touch of that handsome gentleman, with the plain, black-rimmed glasses who bought him a vodka spritz at that unusual bar in the city last Saturday night?”
Rip Torn, #95, Mendoza, Argentina, 2022
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