Among other things, with the explosion of digital photography, blogging, social networking, aging in general and my one time assistant running away to South America with my new muse, his Canon, selling it off like an old guitar to some beach bum in Argentina, I seem to have momentarily lost my voice.

But in my idle time of not photographing best friends, beautiful women and musicians I’ve become intrigued with this new trend in photographic self-promotion. I call this “Gen-N,” a generation of narcissists. Maybe that is too harsh.

I remember my most painful assignment for Photography 101 in college, the self-portrait. Was this a test to see if I could use the timer on my camera? To focus my camera without the subject actually in the frame? It pained me to turn the camera on myself.

This was back in the 90s before I knew about Cindy Sherman, before Friendster and the iPhone, before Sea of Shoes, Flickr and my most recent discovery, http://lookbook.nu

After wasting several rolls of TMAX 400, after wasting several hours and liters of chemicals in the darkroom I showed up to class with several failed “self-portraits.”

A few years later I realized that all of my photographs were self-portraits. There is something that I am desperate to communicate that can only be explained on the tip of Marilyn Manson’s tongue, in the intricate matching of the stripes at the crotch seam of Gwen Stefani’s pants, in the tired vacant stare of my best friend with her head on the floor, and in the colors of a plastic toy out of focus.

Every opening of the shutter feels like a confession. For most of us that is quite a release regardless of our intentions.

Self-portrait with Alyssa, 2008
© Amy V. Cooper

© Amy V. Cooper

From the series "Ghosts of Dates Past"

I had the pleasure of working with the band Shearwater last month on new publicity photos. Their music is really beautiful and unique, they are currently working on a new album. I finally got to shoot on location at Mohawk which I had been wanting to do since I moved to Austin. It's a really inspiring space and the people there could not have been more gracious, thank you Mohawk!

One of my favorite things to do in New York City when i lived there was to shoot the holiday windows. I'm handing over the archives to Rudy at http://www.anothernormal.com where hopefully they will get the attention they deserve, these windows are amazing works of art and i miss them so much.

You can revisit my 2007 Bergdorf Goodman windows here http://www.anothernormal.com/?p=1401

And hopefully more coming soon!

thanks Rudy!

Everything after Halloween seems to be a blur, the whole year kind of flew by. I was just browsing through my 958 iPhone photos that I took this year, trying to remember what happened which leads me to a thankful post. Thanksgiving might be my favorite holiday now that I'm in Texas and get to coagulate with scores of Coopers all in one place.

I must be really thankful for my sister's dogs, Tiger, Kizzie and Colby as they have inspired about half of the photos I've taken this year. I'm also really thankful for and excited to have collaborated with some very talented fashionables in Austin this year (models, makeup artists, muses).

I'm thankful that my sister Leslie and her family moved to Texas this fall, and that I got to spend almost every weekend with my twin.

I'm thankful that I finally found a great optometrist and rediscovered my dress project. I'm thankful that I finally got CS4, so much that i'm thinking about popping the question. I'm thankful for another peony season and having discovered the plumcot.

I'm thankful for one gigantic pink bouncy glitter ball and for Urban Decay's heavy metal glitter eyeliner shielding me from a small portion of the pain of working 9-5, 6, 7 and sometimes 8. Which leads me to my thankfulness for my health insurance making it possible for me to be thankful for my wonderful optometrist. I hope the Senate will do what they need to do this month so that all photographers who aren't so lucky as I can afford their own eye doctors in 2010.

I'm really thankful for laser hair removal! TMI??? And dancing and roller skates.

And my new sewing machine, my amazing new Zara jacket, pumpkin Domo, The Baroness and her unexpected lover, Sabretooth, my yellow phone, RockBand, Lady GaGa, my new hair stylist. My new stylist is Vanessa actually, not Lady GaGa.

I'm also thankful to all my new clients, Matador, Garbo, my agency Getty/Contour/Flickr, Joe and Twitter, my other agents.

I'm thankful for Austin, Texas.

But most of all, I think, I am thankful for my AMAZING girlfriends.

...and of course, my black boots.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Love,

Amy