Here’s another interesting quote regarding the creative process coming from one of my favorite photographers:

“I don’t know what’s important to the people who look at my photos. What’s important to me is to make them. I work all the time, but there are only a few of my photos that I find really good. I am not even sure that I am really a good photographer. I think that anyone working as I do could do the same. But my purpose is not to prove my talent. I photograph almost every day, except when it’s too cold for traveling the way I do – as in this time of winter. Sometimes my photos are OK, other times they are not, but I think that eventually something will come out of my work. I don’t worry about it.”

–photo and quote Josef Koudelka, via a photo student

A few days before Christmas my brother and I did a big road trip through seven states to see family and to do some snowboarding. We started in Santa Barbara and drove north to the Oregon border, then all the way across Oregon and Idaho, skimmed Wyoming, then drove south through the entire state of Utah in a blizzard, blew through Nevada, then skimmed Arizona before finally arriving back at home. We saw a lot of pretty countryside. There wasn’t a lot of time for taking photos, but this sign in Central Oregon caught our eye.

Today is my brother’s birthday. He’s celebrating it in the air on the way to South Africa for an exhibition with Occy at J-Bay. I’ve been waiting for them to matchup at this venue for years. I hope Tom has a good board…

Amsterdam graffiti and photo courtesy of Alex Kopps.

J-Bay photo: Joe Curren

I just saw the new Surfer magazine with the 50 greatest surfers of all time article. Surfer asked me (as well as hundreds of others) who I considered the 20 best/most influential surfers of all time. Here’s my list in chronological order:

Duke
Tom Blake
George Downing
Pat Curren
Jose Angel Phil Edwards
Miki Dora
Wayne Lynch
George Greenough
Eddie Aikau
Gerry Lopez
Michael Peterson
Rabbit Bartholomew
Occy
Martin Potter
Derek Hynd
Tom Carroll
Tom Curren
Slater
Joel Parkinson

I think they all made Surfer’s list except Jose and DH…

December 2008 marks 5 years for JoeCurrenPhotography.com being online, to celebrate the site has a new look.

Q: What remarkable things have you found in unexpected places?

A:

1. Real beauty: oil stains left by cars in a parking lot.
2. Shoe shine stand that looked like thrones in Brazil made of scrap wood.
3. False teeth in pawnshop windows-Reno, NV
4. Great acoustics: in jail.
5. Best food: Airport in Tulsa Oklahoma.
6. Most gift shops: Fatima, Portugal.
8. Most unlikely location for a Chicano crowd: A Morrissey concert.
9. Most poverty: Washington D.C.
10 A homeless man with a beautiful operatic voice singing the word “Bacteria” in an empty dumpster in Chinatown.
11. A Chinese man with a Texan accent in Scotland.
12. Best nights sleep-in a dry riverbed in Arizona.
13. Most people who wear red pants– St. Louis.
14. Most beautiful horses, N.Y.C.
15. A judge in Baltimore MD1890 presided over a trial where a man who was accused of murder and was guilty, and convicted by a jury of his peers… and was let go– when the judge said to him at the end of the trial “You are guilty sir… but I cannot put in jail an innocent man.” You see — the murderer was a Siamese twin.
16. Largest penis (in proportion to its body)- The Barnacle

Q: What do you wonder about?

A:

1. Do bullets know whom they are intended for?
2. Is there a plug in the bottom of the ocean?
3. What do jockeys say to their horses?
4. How does a newspaper feel about winding up papier-mâché?
5. How does it feel to be a tree by a freeway?
6. Sometimes a violin sounds like a Siamese cat; the first violin strings were made from cat gut– any connection?
7. When is the world going to rear up and scrape us off its back?
8. Will we humans eventually intermarry with robots?
9. Is a diamond just a piece of coal with patience?
10. Did Ella Fitzgerald really break that wine glass with her voice?

Q: What are some sounds you like?

A:

1. An asymmetrical airline carousel created a high pitched haunted voice brought on by the friction of rubbing and it sounded like a big wet finger circling the rim of a gigantic wine glass.
2. Street corner evangelists
3. Pile drivers in Manhattan
4. My wife’s singing voice
5. Horses coming/trains coming
6. Children when school’s out
7. Hungry crows
8. Orchestra tuning up
9. Saloon pianos in old westerns
10. Rollercoaster
11. Headlights hit by a shotgun
12. Ice melting
13. Printing presses
14. Ball game on a transistor radio
15. Piano lessons coming from an apartment window
16. Old cash registers/Ca Ching
17. Muscle cars
18. Tap dancers
19. Soccer crowds in Argentina
20. Beatboxing
21. Fog horns
22. A busy restaurant kitchen
23. Newsrooms in old movies
24. Elephants stampeding
25. Bacon frying
26. Marching bands
27. Clarinet lessons
28. Victrola
29. A fight bell
30. Chinese arguments
31. Pinball machines
32. Children’s orchestras
33. Trolley bell
34. Firecrackers
35. A Zippo lighter
36. Calliopes
37. Bass steel drums
38. Tractors
39. Stroh Violin
40. Muted trumpet
41. Tobacco Auctioneers
42. Musical saw
43. Theremin
44. Pigeons
45. Seagulls
46. Owls
47. Mockingbirds
48. Doves
The world’s making music all the time.

Q: What’s scary to you?

A:

1. A dead man in the backseat of a car with a fly crawling on his eyeball.
2. Turbulence on any airline.
3. Sirens and search lights combined.
4. Gunfire at night in bad neighborhoods.
5. Car motor turning over but not starting, its getting dark and starting to rain.
6. Jail door closing.
7. Going around a sharp curve on the Pacific Coast Highway and the driver of your car has had a heart attack and died, and you’re in the back seat.
8. You are delivering mail and you are confronted with a Doberman with rabies growling low and showing teeth…you have no dog bones and he wants to bite your ass off.
9. In a movie…which wire do you cut to stop the time bomb, the green or the blue.
10. Mc Cain will win.
11. Germans with submachine guns.
12. Officers, in offices, being official.
13. You fell through the ice in the creek and it carried you down stream, and now as you surface you realize there’s a roof of ice.