CHRISTOPHER LANGE
Photographer
ask / tell
917 • 558 • 0476
chrisplange@gmail.com
MY WEBSITE
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CLARK MEZZANINE by CHRISTOPHER LANGE
I leaned against the wall of the elevator as it crawled downward to the platform level of the Clark St. 2/3 station. Nervously thumbing the advance on my camera, I watched as the light of the mezzanine hallway slid upwards through the elevator windows as the car came to a halt. I snatched a frame as the doors opened, half hoping to catch someone unaware through the gap, half just wanting to get a picture of the doors sliding apart.
I let the camera fall to my side as I sprinted through the partially opened doorway and down to the platform just in time to see the doors of a Wall bound 2 jolt open for me. I landed in Manhattan a few minutes later, and emerged into a frigid gust of wind, and blinding early Spring light.
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dreary saturdays spent drinking shit coffee, a discussion of life taking place beneath the steely sky.
billie holiday was a day late.
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Happy Holidays, everyone.
T’is the season, or whatever, but let’s all take a moment to think of the victims of Sandy Hook, the tragic school attack in China, and the four firefighters who were shot in Rochester, NY today.
We all could be better. Let’s work on that in 2013.
Good night, everyone, I’m going to go get a cup of coffee.
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After hours in the darkroom.
Red wine, amber lights, and solitude.
I haven’t been this alone in a long time.
Pretty sure I’m the only one in the building right now.
Why am I always alone?
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A Discussion of Influence
I’ve written before about the various photographers that have inspired my work to some extent, but today I wanted to draw a bit of focus towards another influence of mine.
Frank Miller.
I read the Sin City graphic novels when I was in my early teens, and I loved everything about them…the writing, the illustration quality, and of course the darkness. The seedy grit that Miller managed to create in his version of Los Angeles was beautiful; and of course it was always raining. I’d like to think that Miller’s interpretation of film-noir in book form actually outdid a lot of film-noir.
The books haven’t come off my shelf in a year or two, but I am probably going to revisit them over the next few weeks, because they’re just so damn well written.
The narration is succinct, but it sets the mood impeccably.The rain-slicked streets, the long shadows cast by a lamp in the corner of a room, constant creaking of old hardwood floors, and the dull thud of heavy footsteps on them….it’s all there.
Do yourself a favor and buy a few of the stories, I think you can get them in anthology form now, which is easier. They’re printed beautifully, and are a hell of a way to spend a few hours. You’ll probably see some similarities to the way I write on here to Miller’s in the books, and naturally I think anyone who looks at my work knows how much I love my deep shadows.
all images are property of Frank Miller and Dark Horse Publishing.
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FORGOTTEN by CHRISTOPHER LANGE
Losing a notebook is one of the most upsetting things that can happen to someone, as far as I’m concerned.
The most interesting thing about notebooks, more specifically personal notebooks is that we usually tend to write down things that we aren’t going to soon forget in them. We use them to facilitate conversation with ourselves, not to prevent the loss of memories.
No one forgets the events that lead to a broken heart, a particularly good summer’s day, or the time you met a person in some small café downtown who would become your best friend.
And yet, these are the things we write about in solitude, rarely ever showing the pages to another soul.
I think we all want someone to read our notebooks when we’re not around.
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Normally I don’t drink screwdrivers, but I was caught off guard at the bar, and ordered the first thing that came to mind.
As I stepped onto the edge of the dance floor, I watched the mass of bodies pulsing and undulating in unison in front of me as my heart thundered against my ribcage.
Flashing lights and bursts of lasers ripped through the darkness like scalpel blades, dissecting the crowd into singular beings for fractions of a second.
A face here, an arm there, perhaps a briefly shared look before the darkness surged over the room once again.
My glass was empty.
I leaned against one of the columns at the edge of the floor and took it all in before slinging my camera across my chest, disappearing into the swarm of ghosts.
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ISABELLE’S ROOFTOP by CHRISTOPHER LANGE
The heat of the night weighed down on my shoulders like a cast-iron shirt. I hadn’t slept much the previous night, and noticing the time, realized I wasn’t about to do much better that night either. I had brought over a six of Speakeasy’s Big Daddy IPA, and they were definitely kicking in for both of us.
Isabelle’s apartment was about the same size, and temperature as a sauna, so we ventured up the rusty, rickety ladder to her rooftop. Looking out over Himrod Street, watching fellow dwellers of the night straggle home from the bars and clubs, we spoke of life, love, and loss, flipping the bottle caps into a empty bucket twenty or thirty feet below.
I had set my camera down beside me, and only noticed she had picked it up when I heard the shutter open. We dangled our legs over the void for a while longer before going back downstairs in an attempt to find slumber within the incalescence of her room.
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eleven oh eight
It’s getting cold outside.
I wake up to spider webs of fog on my windows more often than not.
Tracing their lines with my eyes from my bed as I slowly rise to pull on a pair of jeans and button a shirt, the morning sun gleams off of the tiny crystals.
There’s never enough time in the morning to appreciate anything, no matter how early I seem to wake up…9, 8, 7, 6, 5:30…
Oh well.
I keep telling myself that everything is going well…and I’m not lying; I love what I’m doing at the moment.
But I can’t help but feel like something is pinching a nerve.
Two books lie on the floor beside my bed, Frank’s The Americans, and Cartier Bresson’s Á Propos de Paris. They may as well have an intravenous feed into my brain while I sleep at night.
But the images on their pages don’t satisfy the ebb and flow of ever-present isolation I feel at the moment.
I remember the chaotic clouds of anonymous beings tearing past my shoulders, all following a path that I am not privy to…until I ask or somehow find a way in.
Finding a way in is the most difficult thing to do when you’re not sure that you’ve even crossed over your own threshold yet.
-CL
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