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Preview of Goldfish Memory

Tommy "Their room" Kha

News!!!!

I will be going under a website design change in the next few weeks gearing up with Premiere Week next week.

Live From Memphis and I are finishing up the New Stop Motion Project.

I will be scanning negatives and taking slides of my semesters work really soon so be on the look for new works.

Tommy "Midnighters" Kha

New Series

I'm in an Alternative Processing class, that is, anything non-silver.

Artist's Statements:
Goldfish Memory
Goldfish Memory will consist of portraits of musicians on their own beds or foreign ones.
There will be text accompanying the images including the time of the photograph, the band they are in, occupation and the location. These portraits will be taken prior or after a show, with little interference from the surroundings (e.g. instruments).
The phrase, “Goldfish Memory” is the concept of a goldfish having limited memory span and forgetting its past actions. This parallels to this body of work in which these musicians go into regular routines, often times overlooking these situations as these events are of the musicians’ second lives. They are not always musicians.

Shambhala
For this body of work, I want to revisit my last series, Shambhala, where it revolved around the idea of the waiting period and stations. Not many dwell on this waiting period because of its boredom, frustration and isolation, much like those who are waiting to board their train. The photography displays its characters in this waiting period before an event in their lives, metaphorically, in their own “stations” in life. The series makes use of “orbs” done through double exposures. “Orbs” are circular artifacts that appear unexpectedly in photographs, which many interpret them as “paranormal activity”. In this case, it may represent the characters’ feelings, auras, poltergeist or blank thoughts.
The term “Shambhala” means “a place of peace, of tranquility”. This is essentially lost to the photographs’ subjects or what they are looking for in their life.

Be on the look out for new work!

Tommy "Drifting" Kha

Midterms - Break in the Lighting Studio

It's Midterms Week in my world. But staying up twenty-four hours at school with a lighting studio is a good way to take a break.

Tommy "Lights" Kha

Drive Throughs part 2

This is revisiting an earlier project but knowing what I know now....

"Drive Throughs will comprise of photographs investigating the idea of the waiting period
through character studies. By continually working with a transience theme, waiting is a precursor to transience. These photographs consist of narratives, self-contained within the subjects’ isolation before or after a climatic event unknown to the viewer. Whether this isolation is in the subjects’ own mind, environment or pensive thought, these images question the language of waiting.

The inspiration for this series comes with personal connection to cinema, which is
synonymous to narrative photography. One photographer critic has explained, “The term ‘narrative’ suggests a story, and therefore movement.” Movement is always important in my overall work as it is our connection to one another but also paradoxically detaches us from interaction.

The images will be on Fujifilm Superia medium format C-41 film, printed on 13x19
Ilford Pearl Paper in 6x6 format. The series will be cross-processed with E-6 chemicals instead of C-41 chemicals in order to achieve the style of previous series. There will be fifteen images total."


Tommy "We all wait for a living" Kha

A Lighting Studio Fun

I got bored during my break so I decided to play in the lighting studio and photograph myself. It is hard to find models in Memphis for me because I am very specific with knowing my subjects in some way and having a connection while I am photographing them.

I quickly set up within five minutes and set my camera to self-timer, f/22 and bulb.

Benefit Show

I am putting on a benefit show to raise money for my college's Photo Department. I am not receiving any money out of this but I have chance to win equipment that I direly need.

A percentage will go to charity as well.

The run down so far is:
1. There will be photos from myself on sale.
2. Bands.
3. And other art that my artists friends are donating.

I am pretty sure it will be an auction/donation event. I do not have a date or place yet. More details along the way.

Tommy "I want it" Kha

Death to Tommy Kha

Earlier this week, Doug from Chess Club told me he saw this graffiti at the Memphis Pizza Café's men's restroom.

Personally, I think this is awesome and like to thank the one who wrote it.

Tommy "Five fingers of death, right?" Kha

製在孟菲斯…, 中国

Woman of the Bitter Oranges.


Ten Thousand Year Old Life.


Faithful Personality.

These are my favorites photographs from this project entitled: 取得孟菲斯…, 中国 (Made in Memphis..., China).

Shot on a Bronica, 120 Kodak TMAX 400.

麵包

I am writing a metafiction book about my family history. This is the first draft of maybe a prologue/chapter outline. Most of what I write is true.



For eighteen thousand years and eighteen thousand more, Pangu created the Earth. The Great Deluge formed from the Yellow River; it was Yu the Great who solved the problems of the flood. From there, the Descendants of the Dragons developed a nation they called 中國, or “China”, meaning “Central Nation” or traditionally “Middle Kingdom”.

China was the birthplace of my family; specifically Hainan Island, Hainan meaning “South of the Sea”. In 1938, my great grandparents fled the country because of the invading Japanese and to procure a better life. Their pilgrimage led them to French Indochina, which later became Vietnam in 1945. After the Vietnam War, my family fled again. My mother was the first to attempt and succeed at gaining her freedom at the cost of losing her brother. She attempted to live in Australia, then France before settling in Canada and ultimately in Memphis, Tennessee.

From a country they still feel connected to, their isolation kept their languages and timely traditions from any assimilation caused by decades of running. My family has taught me to never speak of our histories, as if they want their collective history forgotten.

In 1990, a year after the second Tiananmen Square Incident, I left the country. It was in a
different country where I first started to remember. I remember the smell of bread. Then, on the back of a bike clutching ever so tightly to the strange driver. There was the linoleum flooring as I crawled on the second floor, looking over a Buddhist altar in a village and I remember that smell. I always remember that smell.

“麵包!” my grandmother called out to me years later. “麵包” is the nickname my grandmother called me because she could not pronounce my English name. All her attempts to pronounce my name yielded the nickname, “麵包” or “bread” in Chinese. She smiled then.

In 1995, my grandfather, her husband, had died. I went to the hospital the day he died. I went to the cafeteria because hospital food was an amazing wonder. I purchased some bread and began my way up to see my grandfather on the fourth floor. It was this floor that I reached before the news dragged me across the hallway from my grandfather’s room. Frantic screams and yellings intermingled only resulted in silence as I ate my bread on an empty hospital room bed while the doctor’s attempt to save my grandfather became futile. It rained after his funeral, a substitution from my lack of emotion. My grandmother resented my lack of display for mourning. I was seven; I wanted to play, to forget. It was then her English began to improve and she started calling me “Tommy”. We stopped speaking by then. She stopped smiling as well.

In 2006, I discovered Downtown Memphis. I began making constant trips to Danny Thomas Boulevard when the skies become bright orange. I would drive for twenty minutes with the windows rolled down around the Wonderbread Factory and smell the aroma in the air.


Tommy "Will remember" Kha

The Times Now

I will be posting some new photographs soon, one from my film stills assignment, digital photos from the last two months and some cyanotypes.

Also, my friends Amy LaVere, Paul Taylor and Steve Selvidge will be performing tonight on Conan O'Brien at 11:35P CST! Definitely tune into that.

I will be in a silent auction at VINI. The show is Memphis Minis where you can get affordable artworks all under 10" (ten inches) by local and Memphis based artists!

I think I might draw Tommy Goes to Art School again with new adventures and my artist friends input. I will start a new character out of inspiration from superuseless superpowers with a character called "Chinaman". Superuseless Superpowers: Able to morphy his eyelids to look Caucasian. Haha.

Tommy "Chinaman" Kha