Will the human race be subsumed by self-aware computers as they gain super intelligence and take over the planet? This is the “Terminator” type scenario envisioned as somehow a happy thing by the fans of the future melding of man and machine known as the Singularity.  Are we falling into a trap with our misplaced faith that computers are somehow able to replicate human experience? Does this mean Facebook and other social databases demean and diminish human randomness and experience? Are we willingly destroying our individuality in favor of a borg-like hive mind noosphere cult?

Web resources related to the book You Are Not a Gadget by Jaron Lanier

I’m thrilled to announce that Stephanie Menuez has joined Menuez Archive Projects as Director of New Business & Marketing. Many of you know her from her 13-year career as a top rep in San Francisco, though I knew of her long before that—she’s my sister. Here’s a shot of us my dad took when we were like 3:

©D. Barry Menuez

Steph has had her own amazing career off broadway in the 80’s and then in Hollywood in movies, got tired of that and we started working together in the mid-90’s as I was entering a new phase in my career. She has an incredible eye and is now a painter. Her intuitive way of working with people and generous spirit has been such a strong part of my work in the past. We’ve not worked together for the past five years so it’s a great reunion!

In her new role, Stephanie will serve as our client’s guide to unlocking the creative potential of MAP’s vast archives of exclusive stock imagery by doing custom searches. And she’ll will work closely with our superagents at Stockland Martel to support their sales efforts on our behalf. She’s also looking forward to hearing about what you’re working on. In fact, if you’re in New York and want to meet up for lunch, give Stephanie a call (212.336.1561) or email her (stephanie@menuez.com).

Stephanie Menuez joins Menuez Archive Projects as Director of New Business & Marketing « Stockland Martel

We’ve started to actually sell some of these off my www.menuez.com site and people stop me here in NYC on the street so I thought I’d put a spotlight on this particular shirt below. I started mumbling this to myself when I started having my various epiphanies about how to build a satisfying creative life for the long term. You have to deal with and let go of fear, first of all, and if you are a freelancer / artist then you’ll have plenty to deal with. No matter how successful, we truly never know when the next job is coming or if we’ll sell another print or whatever. There are no guarantees in life and for those not regularly employed and who rely solely on their talent and vision to feed themselves and families, well, it’s doubly true. This t-shirt is like a daily mantra to get over that wierd vagueness. Staying positive and believing in yourself no matter what happens or what the critics say. Or what the economy does! We will survive! Embrace the angst!

Available at www.menuez.com > commissions > information > store   or  Doug Menuez

Please check out my new book now on sale at Blurb– EVIDENCE OF LOVE ON PLANET EARTH: PHOTOGRAPHS 1978 – 2010 | By Doug Menuez | Category: Arts & Photography | Blurb – our first book from Menuez Archive Projects. An edit of the archive for a show we did to launch and is on the them of love. Don’t we all want to find true love? Edited by famed Picture Editor Karen Mullarkey (Newsweek, Sports Illustrated, Rolling Stone). Hope you enjoy. Artist’s statement below…

EVIDENCE OF LOVE ON PLANET EARTH: PHOTOGRAPHS 1978 – 2010

We all want to be loved––it’s built into our DNA. Along with the need for food and shelter, love, or the lack thereof, is clearly the main driving wheel of civilization and the arts. No matter how cool or important you are, how hip your clothing, friends or hang-outs, deep down you want to find and connect with that one person who will make life worth living. You just do.

Some say that every film is a variation on one of only six or seven themes from life. Most of these themes center on  love––the loss of love, the triumph of love, the betrayal and deceit of false lovers, and so on. We need love so badly that we often trivialize that need until it becomes a trite subject, masking the pain of such a profound and crucial component of our human psyches.

These images were pulled from my work going back 30 years and show moments that reflect a fundamental aspect of being alive: the act of loving another human being. Love and lust are intertwined, and there are consequences to both, of course. Selecting photographs around this theme from my archive was a wonderful revelation in that I found I’ve been particularly alert to love in its various manifestations over the years. I guess that makes me a voyeur.

The big news at Menuez Archive Projects this week is the announcement that Stockland Martel is now our exclusive sales agent in the US and worldwide (apart from Europe– stay tuned for more Euro news soon). They have just sent out the below email blast and we are extremely proud to formalize this arrangement. This deepens our already fruitful relationship as they represent me for assignment work as well. And our clients all know they can expect t us to leap through flaming hoops for them…

If you were at our February launch party or read about us on the blogs, you know our mission is to put the million-plus images from my archive at the fingertips of creatives everywhere. So we’re proud to report that in three short months, we’ve already expanded our inventory well into the thousands, refined our beta site and have thousands more being edited and scanned every month. But now I also understand why more photographers don’t go through this process– it’s seriously difficult and seriously expensive!  But we’ve got a great start and it’s a huge relief to be underway.

Those of you who’ve followed my rants and notes are probably wondering what the heck happened to me these past few months. I didn’t die, but I did kind of break all my rules for survival and for avoiding burnout by attempting an ambitious agenda. We have been working around the clock to launch our new boutique archive stock business, Menuez Archive Projects,  and that is going well despite all the challenges inherent in any new start up. The launch party was a huge success, but we then were faced with more grunt work then expected on the back end. We are on a learning curve and still working through a BETA phase. The good news is that we are now uploading our second batch of gorgeous scans (done by our partner National Geographic) and finishing the retouching and keywording on our third batch which will go up next month. We’ll have close to 7500 high res images online within a few weeks, not bad for six months work. I hope to have a big MAP announcement later this week.

On the assignment front, I’ve been enjoying a long term project that has taken me over the past few months from the Congo to Australia back to NY and last week to the Bahamas, shooting movie stars, scientists, chefs and rock and roll legends and I hope to be able to share that work soon. It’s one of those once in a lifetime dream assignments that is challenging and fulfilling.

And our fearless leader Dave Mendez filed for our non-profit status to start our foundation and production for the “Fearless Genius” project based on my work shot in Silicon Valley. Nothing worth doing is easy however and I think this is still going to be a two year project. Meanwhile, I’m back in NY and returning emails and enjoying our new studio. The “Love” show is still up so please stop by if you are in town to see the prints.

As for “YOUR DAILY MOOD REPORT” on twitter we are working with some software geniuses to update our algorithms. The idea is to gather individual moods from creatives– artists, writers, painters, photographers, art directors– around the world and aggregate one daily mood report, sort of like a weather report for your emotional equilibrium. It’s harder than we thought of course but stay tuned…

More soon!

After the last 48 hrs non-stop without sleep we launched this afternoon with about 2500 images in a BETA site. It’s still under development as we will be rolling out features and adding stories and images from the archive. Any feedback much appreciated. Now for vodka and deep sleep. Happy Valentine’s Day!

You can access through Doug Menuez and selecting STOCK or the site directly:

http://menuezarchiveprojects.com/

I make no apology for the lovefest review to follow. The tools we use make or break us, and I have been working with this digital stuff for a long time, always looking for ways to get back to the comfortable metaphors I grew up with in the wet darkroom and with film. Aperture 3.0 incorporates a lot of that tradition while providing all the latest technology to actually make me more efficient. Yes, they feature me in a nice video of how I use it, and that’s great, but seriously, my motivation for participating in beta testing and marketing is that I am just looking for the best tool to solve my problems. When I find something like Aperture I want it to succeed so I’m pushing hard for people to try it.

In all the years of working with software and hardware I’ve rarely if ever seen such a quantum leap in features in an upgrade. But these are not just features to add marketing punch, these are serious workflow improvements that take a program we love and use on a daily basis to a level pretty damn close to perfection. We asked them to merge libraries, so we could have a main archive in studio and bring the shoots back easily, we asked them for flags and labels, and unlike a lot of companies, Apple listened. And did it. And then they added tons of other cool and useful things such as Faces– face Rrecognition, and Places– geo taging, and more importantly, the shockingly productive new retouching tools. To me, what has been accomplished goes all the way back to some of the precepts Doug Engelbart spoke about in the 1950’s, about computers being able to leverage our brains. Because this is non-modular, I can work in a truly intuitive creative way on several levels as I’m editing and retouching. I can do several things at once throughout the program. This is a dream. You won’t believe it. Amazing. Check it out:

Apple – Aperture – In Action – Doug Menuez

Doug Menuez featured in Apple’s “Aperture in Action” video series « Stockland Martel

After several years of work, Menuez Archive Projects will open on February 14th, followed by a launch party on the 18th at our new studio in West Chelsea. Working virtually non-stop over the last four months since we got partners, we have been editing and vetting my archive of over a million images, and now scanning the selects. We’ll be making these images available to advertising, editorial and educational users through a new web site as well as through my agents at Stockland Martel. And we can now continue the preservation of my historic material shot in Silicon Valley that is housed at Stanford University Libraries.

I’ve been alluding to this upcoming launch and inviting folks to our blow-out party, but now that we’re in the homestretch I feel comfortable myself mentioning it here. MAP is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and chance to leverage all my years of work, and create a solid new platform to build on for the future phases of my career. The development of this project ties in with all the stuff I teach in my workshops in Santa Fe (March 7-13) and Woodstock (Aug. 7-8) and so I’m actually walking the talk. Not so easy, but what I do feel good about is that I’m proving this merger of art and commerce and getting paid to shoot what you love can be a reality; if I can do it, others can.  I think photographers all have to explore whatever they can in this harsh environment in terms of new business models, but the bottom line will always come back to what you see that no one else does and then supporting that vision with a solid business plan. Or marry well.

The most fun thing of the past few weeks though has been a chance to shoot a whole new library of images in Miami documenting various stories of real life—just as I would on my own—but the beauty part is these are all released.

Here’s a link to more info about our project on Stockland Martel’s blog, if you are interested in joining us for the party:  Party invitation: Come celebrate Menuez Archive Projects on Feb. 18 « Stockland MartelOf course, we are taking large risks, and no new venture is without risk. Over my career, I’ve experienced both successes and failures, and the clearest path to a more satisfying creative life goes straight through risk territory. What the hell, life is short.

Here’s the last shot I made at the end of our week in Miami. Through my talented nephew Max we found an intriguing electronic hip-hop band having a house party. As we were leaving, my young war photog friend Dan McCabe, who was helping out with video, alerted me that some of the kids from the party were hurling beer bottles at the train going through the yard across the street. By the time I got there,  the vibe and attention had shifted to more important matters:

House Party Kiss, Miami, 2010. ©Doug Menuez