Slow motion is cooler than you. That is, unless you're photographer Ryan McGinley.
Ten years ago, McGinley rocketed onto the art scene with his book of Polaroids, The Kids Are Alright. Featuring pictures of his (often nude) friends, the portraits celebrated them getting high, tagging buildings, sleeping late, climbing trees, riding skateboards, swimming and beating off; time in all of its sleek, youthful abandon, captured forever. The resourceful young photographer sent the self-published book to artists and magazines he thought might be interested and secured a gallery showing the same year. In 2003, he was the youngest artist every to be be featured by the
Whitney Museum in a solo show.
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Now he's gotten his hands on a Phantom HD camera that can shoot as many as 1,000 frames per second, resulting in the slow-motion joyride Entrance Romance (it felt like a kiss).
A dog's tongue entering a woman's mouth looks like it belongs there.
Glass shatters into glistening rain-like fragments.
Accompanied by the Buddhist-chant stylizations of Benjamin Morsberger, the over-all experience is breathtakingly lovely, creating a Zen-like calm (as well as laughter), revealing McGinley's considerable skill at capturing the unnerving, the joyful and the dangerous.
If you're intrigued by this video, you may also want to back up and see some of McGinley's earlier video work: ,
A fashion shoot in Scotland with actress Tilda Swinton:
Nude people falling out of the sky:
Mayday Parade / Kids In Love from Nickolas Hawkins on Vimeo.
Dave Barton has written for the OC Weekly for over twenty years, the last eight as their lead art critic. He has interviewed artists from punk rock photographer Edward Colver to monologist Mike Daisey, playwright Joe Penhall to culture jammer Ron English.