Random Excellence: Eddy Pula the Famous

Eddy Pula, Drunk Girls

For most of the past five years Eddy Pula has dressed up as one famous photographer or another to cover the Boston Marathon. This year—for the hottest of all 116—he went as Bruce Gilden. That's him as Weegee at the right. ("We all have to get used to wearing different hats," he says.)

The picture above isn't from the Marathon of course—I found it on his blog. Where I also ran across this:

The last post was the most popular ever and for a while I was obsessively checking the viewer count. I would yell out to Rosie, my sister and chief editor, 'We hit the big FIVE NINE!!!' to which she would reply 'Cat videos get 10 times that in a minute, loser' which is true of course, but its cool to think of 59 people reading the bullshit I scribble down.

To me his work seems promising but not fully formed; it seems like he needs to stay himself and keep doing the same thing but just get better. Wonder if he will? "Drunk Girls" is a nice shot but not quite a great shot, somehow. Those faces are sculptural though.

Speaking of which, does anyone remember a guy who published all the pictures on a single proof sheet—also medium format black and white—and we all thought it was great? I wonder what happened to him.

And speaking of Weegee, I've been reading this little book and really enjoying it. Makes me wonder if the other volumes in the series are as good. I can't recommend it yet because of the Pinker Rule, but I'll let you know once I'm done.

DD-B is right; when do people find time to watch TV?

Mike

Send this post to a friend

Please help support TOP by patronizing our sponsors B&H Photo and Amazon

Note: Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site. More...
Original contents copyright 2012 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved.

Comments

[Richard Sintchak]

Thanks for showing us a cool blog Mike.

[Eddy Pula]

What what!!! Hey Mike thanks so much... I read that book about weegee and it REALLY makes you think. There are pictures of him spot toning in more blood on some of his most famous crime pictures. Does it destroy him or make him more of a photo god? I haven't figured it out yet, but I'll try... PS what about the famous contact sheet of Arbus's boy with toy hand grenade? Makes you think don't it? PS this means Ctien is gonna hand print all my negs now right, or I guess Voja could try too ; )

[Kenneth Tanaka]

Err...ok. Well, I guess I can think of many worse (or at least more dangerous) role models for Eddy to mimic than Gary Winogrand or Weegee. Have a ball, Eddy.

But a word to the wise: Consider taking better care of yourself. There's no reason why you should also mimic Winogrand's relatively short 56 year lifespan.

[Jeff]

Getty's 'In Focus' books are a decent series of inexpensive little books on various photographers, including Weegee.

Each incorporates a commentary on a selection of images, and the panel discussion on each photographer's work - typically including folks like Weston Naef, Alan Trachtenberg, et. al. - is usually quite interesting.

[Eddy Pula]

PS I'm going to make a pilgrimage to the ICP next month, apparently the recreated the rooming house Weegee died in... heavy stuff, hopefully I'll be able to keep it together! Thanks again!

[Mark Levison]

Television what's that, I don't even watch TED videos online for the most part. My pile of research reading grows faster than I can read. I don't even time to comment on blogs :-)

[K. Praslowicz]

Nice. I've liked a lot of his work when I first found it many years ago on Flickr.

[Petru]

I had to shake my head at the title of this blog post. Eddy's last name is also the vulgar term for the male organ, in my native language (Romanian). So yes, he's "famous" in more than one way ...

[Miserere]

Well Mike, old Eddy might have a heart attack when he sees today's stats. At least his sister won't be able to call him a loser; not today. Today, Man triumphs over Cat.

[hernan zenteno]

I looove this photo. The three glances are a mystery, an open door to a tale. Congratulation Eddy, for this and your enthusiasm that I saw in the video. This make me think that I lose a bit of my energy. Don't bother about police, some times de better shoots are in the common places and not where the police make noise. All the best

[Eddy Pula]

Thanks for all the advice you people. I had a bit of an episode, and I started seeing arbus and weegee and shelley and all the good romantics in the mirror. Learn what you can from the old masters but you don't have to die in a garret to keep it real!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jo0oNRvdkPQ
Richman understood that so well, this song makes me cry everytime

[Bill Bresler]

Mike! Thanks for bringing Eddy to our attention. I've had so much fun looking at his work. We're now Flickr buddies, too.
Rave on, Eddy. Nice work.

[Eddy Pula]

Dear Mike I am my own worst enemy, I made a Beautiful Red Head angry with my arrogance, check out the flickr comments towards the end to see how I tried to make it whole, and deff post my apology to the comments if you think it will help people understand the complicated ownership debates over fine art. Art is ideas, and great Ideas have many fathers and mothers and its hard to pin down all the ego's sometimes, I think I figured it out. PS check out Joe Seawards MIT series!!! You'll get a kick out of it, or atleast Ctien will! http://joeseaward.com/The_Institute.html for MIT gossip and
http://www.flickr.com/photos/raijsi/2987105632/ for my apology!