Arty Farty Friday ~ Scorpio Photographer Joey L & "Twilight"

Tomorrow will be the 22nd birthday of an amazingly talented young photographer known as Joey L, full name Joey Lawrence. He was born in Lindsay, Ontario, Canada on 5 November 1989.

Joey L's name might be unfamiliar to any other than avid photography fans, but some of his work will be recognisable to many: the "Twilight" posters and promotional photographs for the movie series.

(Note: This "Twilight" is no relation to me, by the way - I had chosen my screen name long before the Twilight movies were even a twinkle in the producer's eye.)

It's astrologically appropriate that a photographer with four planets in Scorpio should be the one to portray a vampire-themed movie series. Scorpio links traditionally to "the dark side", eroticism and passion. Joey L has Sun, Mercury, Mars and Pluto in Scorpio - the last named planets are Scorpio's traditional(Mars) and modern (Pluto) rulers.... now THAT's some kick-ass Scorpio right there!

However, there's some very helpful balance to all that steamy Plutonic darkness: another cluster of 4 planets in down-to-earth, business-oriented Capricorn : Venus (art), Uranus (the new and avant garde), Saturn in its own sign of rulership (work and business sense), and Neptune (creativity and photography).

Without knowing his time of birth it's not clear whether Moon was in Capricorn, along with the cluster of four, and putting even more emphasis on his commonsense and business-sense side; or in Aquarius, which would match very well his inventive use of technology.

Any link to his gravitation towards photography in far-off lands would be found in either Jupiter's position, or with Sagittarius prominent in his natal chart. There's no Sagittarius link, however, unless that sign were rising as he was born (we can't know that without a time of birth). Jupiter, though, is at 10 Cancer and exactly opposite Neptune at 10 Capricorn - a balance of travel (Jupiter) with photography/creativity (Neptune).




Joey L is self taught, and a pioneer of techniqes using digital hyper-realistic photography, lighting and manipulation. He has been a commercial photographer since age 17 and now has agents in London, New York and Toronto. He has worked in more than 20 countries, has a client list long enough to cause most would-be commercial photographers to salivate: Warner Brothers Records, NBC, United Way, the Salvation Army, Verizon, Nickelodeon, History channel, FX Channel, Smirnoff, Pennzoil, History Channel, Forbes, Services for the Underserved, The Government of Abu Dhabi, among others.

Joey L's true tour de force are his beautiful portraits of African tribespeople.
SEE also Joey L's website

From Wikipedia:

In the making of a gallery exhibition, Lawrence traveled to Ethiopia three times over the course of three years to photograph the Karo, Mursi, Hamer, Daasanach and Arbore tribes of the Omo Valley. On his second trip, Lawrence took the photographs back to Ethiopia and showed them to the tribes people in order to gain trust amongst the clan chiefs and continue the photographic series. One of his 2009 trips was filmed to make the documentary Faces of a Vanishing World. In discussion with The National Post, Lawrence said he used studio lighting and a modern style to shoot the photos, saying "they become overlooked when they are depicted in... black-and-white..., as noble savages, as unchanged people". The stylistic treatment is to render them too as part of the modern world. The images were published under the title The Cradle of Mankind, and were featured on the Time website.

And from the opening paragraphs of a good piece at "brass magazine" website:

Joey Lawrence is sound asleep on the floor of an Atabai Clan house, surrounded by members of the Mentawai tribe. Inches from his head, a pig is sacrificed to honor his arrival, but Joey doesn't stir. He's exhausted from carrying 50 pounds of photography gear on rain-slickened mud trails, and trudging through rock-strewn creeks that slice their way across the jungle-like forest floor.

It's August 2009, and Joey, a 19-year-old Canadian based out of Brooklyn, NY, is visiting the Mentawai tribe on the island of Siberut off the coast of Padang, West Sumatra, Indonesia. The Mentawai believe in animism and are connected to the spiritual world by the leadership of shamans. Their way of life is disappearing, as the predominantly Muslim country is focused on assimilating the Mentawai into the broader culture. "To have these people away in a rain forest practicing their own beliefs that they've practiced for a really long time is special," Joey says. "It may be something that's not going to be around for a long time."

A handful of examples of Joey L's photographs are below - many more can be seen at the photographer's website or via Google Image. He also hosts tutorials:
Sessions with Joey L.

Wednesday Woo-Woo~ The Vampire Fad

The recurring vampire fad is one of life's mysteries - to me at least. It comes and goes, each generation seeming to experience its own period of vampire fandom.

I've never been able to see entertainment or educational value in stories involving the sucking of blood from the neck of a human being. Still - whatever floats yer boat! The classic Dracula was just about acceptable, as a novelty, but beyond that I'm unlikely progress within that genre.

A September 2009 article by Christopher Beam and Chris Wilson at Slate, titled The Garlic Years has an interesting timeline of the ebb and flow of vampire fads between the 1960s and 2009/10. They call the years of ebb "Garlic Years". Their research covered movies, TV and books, and threw up 4 such periods when the vampire fad faded:

1960 - 1965
1975 - 1976
1980 - 1984
1997

It'd be intriguing if those periods corresponded with some particular astrological patterns, but so far I haven't identified anything specific to just those years. It'd be necessary to consider the age groups mainly involved in vampire fads too: late teens/twenties? Their natal years and positions of the generational planets during those times would also be significant as would be any peculiar alignments to those planets occuring during the "Garlic Years". That could get very complicated, and I'm not a complicated gal! Astrological connection to the vampire legend itself must have a very strong link to Pluto/Scorpio, the planet and sign of its domain represent all that is dark, erotic, and with links to death. That's as far as I'll go down the astro road on this.

There could well be some more mundane reasons for the Garlic Years, from the fans' point of view anyway. The presence of an alternative fad or concern, or even a lack of stress related events. I have a feeling that in stressful times, such as those we are currently experiencing, vampire tales provide something of a release valve for young people. The Twilight series, as well as True Blood and others, in TV and cinema, have provided a mega-fad during the past 2 or 3 years.

In the 1960-65 Garlic Year period the Beatles and the hippies provided alternative fad focus.

In 1975/6 the Vietnam war ended - a relief from stress in the US at least. (For the UK though the IRA were wreaking havoc in London and elsewhere.)

In 1980-84 the Reagan years in the US - a recession in the early 80s had improved by 1984. Was there an alternative fad then? The first rock video cassette appeared in April 1980 and spawned a whole new industry - and fad. By 1983 MTV had conquered the New York City and Los Angeles markets, as well as network television.

1997 - I don't even have to research this one: Princess Diana was killed in a motor accident in France, and it seemed that the whole world went mad with grief = alternative fad focus.

For whatever reasons, astrological, mundane or a mix of the two, we now find ourselves in the midst of some very non-Garlic Years!