There was once a girl floating in the sea,
her family had been lost.

Perhaps dead,
perhaps terribly beaten,
lost in spinning waves,
sick,
despair,
knives in her toes,
twirled about,
insipid crawling.

She woke up to the vacant stare of reality,
sweaty, bloody,
stench so rotten,
fills her nostrils,
cut up bits,
torn parts.

It is clear she’s been through quite enough,
pieces eaten,
here,
there,
most everywhere,
dreaded sides of the same coin,
fluid,
sinking.

Cut to years later,
her eyes flush with water.

Tears.

Only in her panties, she crawls over to her closet suddenly frightened.

‘Why am I so damp?’ she wonders.

A chill runs over her body,
goosebumps tingle up her milky white thighs.

Deep cuts are visible on the upper reaches of her most erogenous of zones.

Screaming in the middle of the night, personalities that long since decided she did not deserve happiness have pushed her mind in many different directions.

This young 20 something female had her share of problems, inner torment had seized her whole. Divided her senses against themselves.

Horror that made the most simple of tasks simply debilitating.

Did she have the demons eating her alive, at night, when she closed her eyes?

Blunt force trauma destroyed much of her cognitive functions. She hasn’t much recovered and has left much of her off center.

That — and all of the drugs. Drugs were her source of alignment.

A being not properly tuned to this dimension suffers horribly at all of the distortion and perceptual static.

Such static causes a lack of focus with “reality”, as most “normal people” might otherwise be able to observe it.

Drugs and rare other conditions can sometimes help to calm the static. Help to align the perception to view reality as close to the others that inhabit this swallow reality as possible.

Though, the static will slow intensify, causing the user to increase their dosage. Such large dosages cause problems in their psychical body, causing a further disruption in the user’s ability to connect with reality. But this disruption is harder to notice and begins to be viewed as a normal part of the “normal” reality. Such detachment is viewable only from a third person’s perspective.

Over prolonged periods of time, this distance grows. From time to time, this allows the user’s perceptions to be cross-align with other realities. But using such a bastardized “hack” of one’s own mind causes these other realities to just be a jumble of images and not a clear existence that our current agreed upon reality appears to be.

Rain soaks through her skin,
teaches her a lesson about life,
teaches her about the beauty of death,
ridding herself of all the little insects.

Flesh so tearable, so mendable, so fuckable, so edible, needles, syringes, and power so filling.

Tiny little demons crawl about on the user’s skin, but they naturally tune them out. Their perception is not quite aligned to the point to properly observe them. Always the odd movement out of the corner of their eye.

Therein lies the problem, they think they have such a tight grip on what is real. But they are buried under the perceptual static of our reality, other realities, the billions of dead people who came before us who send out residuals of their own perceptions. Do you ever wonder why she always dreamt of people long dead and not her family?

Scratching at her heels.

Last fall I took this photograph of my friend Susie’s baby, Nathan. Looking back, even though it is radically different than the majority of the subject matter found in my other work, it has to be one of my favorite pieces ever. This was even further cemented when I got Daily Deviation over on Deviantart which can be seen here.

Amazingly enough, it was one of the simple photos I have ever taken in my life! I had only spent around 5 minutes taking around 50 shots of the baby and this one is the shining beacon out of all of them. It was probably the simplest setup of any shoot I’ve ever had in my life.

First, I took a futon mattress I had and slumped up against a wall and threw a black pillowcase pillow down. Still with me?
Then I took my Alienbees B400 with a fairly large softbox and placed it above where the infant’s head would be. It ended up creating such rich shadow and contrast to the skin that it just makes it feel like you’re looking at reality on your computer screen.

Such success with this infant photograph endears me to want to continue to photograph infants once in a while and just keep my online display of photographs a wee bit more varied. It makes me wonder if I have a parental instinct, afterall.

A few years ago, I stumbled across a strange fella by the name of Normal Bob Smith on the internet. At first, he was very strange artist that donned makeup to masquerade as Satan. After exploring his website, seeing him play around in Union Square (located in New York City) and in a section named “Amazing Strangers” which made me really discover the magic that is Normal Bob Smith’s website. He has very anti-religious views and has based his graphic artist career behind the mocking of primarily Christianity. But, his wit and creative artistry had me coming back.

In fact, NBS’s website was one of the first sites I ever felt the need to bookmark. Over the course of the next few years, I’ve explored the art, and later talked to Bob on Myspace. This lead up to Bob recently hiring me to photograph him while he flew in for ASU’s Freethought Society’s events.

I had the opportunity to use Boo’s Warehouse and really get some cool shots.

My friend Jordi offered to be the bride and she pulled it off well.

Probably my favorite of the bunch..

Then after the photo shoot was concluded, I decided to get an impromptu interview with Bob on my Mac Book Pro:

Thanks so much to Normal Bob Smith, Jordi, Levi, Amber, and Boo for all the help for making this shoot a rousing success! Until next time, this is Chaz.. poof!

He stated that he was really nervous but I didn’t let that hold me back. Most people that don’t “model” or appear in front of the camera often think they cannot be photographed. But this isn’t true, everyone has a good side, everyone has real emotions that are worth being captured. This is the joy of being able to make this a job, having fun while pulling some emotion that might be otherwise hidden away and putting it into a photograph.

While taking the photographs, I offered to make a short video of him painting and he went for it.. it turned out really well, he is really animated and fun! It should be noted too, that the background in both are entirely his paintings!

Barry Sparkman Paints from Chaz Carlson on Vimeo.

For all of your bridal needs:

Heather, who runs Eventfully Yours, Heather was the fabulous event coordinator and totally made sure things went smoothly. Very nice and very laid back/friendly.

Floral arrangements were provided by Terrace Floral Design Group in Scottsdale.

Brian with Ambiance Catering not only provided great food, he was very friendly and very delightful to work with!

Richard Steele was a great magician and was very entertaining for all the guests. Totally recommended for a fun way to spice up an event!

Some great wine/champagne was provided by Barefoot Wines! I, myself, had the Pinot Grigio and it was fantastic!

Something that EVERYONE seemed to love was the photo booth; provided by Foto Cabina! It was used almost 100% of the time! A great way to get instant gratification and provide added fun for guests!

Espresso Subito provided the espresso catering service, I enjoyed a lovely Caramel Macchiato(though someone cleaned it up while I was pulled to photograph some people.. I really wanted to finish! Argh!)

Last but not least: Let Them Eat Cake, Inc provided the delicious cupcakes!

To conclude: I’d like to wish Meghan and Jenny great luck with their bridal store! I very much appreciate them inviting me out to photograph, have a cupcake and use the photobooth 3 times in a row! They’re badass! :) Until next time.. this is Chaz signing off…

All the following designs are by Jenny Dizon Couture: