Watermarking the classics
What if Andreas Gursky, Garry Winogrand, and Henri Cartier-Bresson put cheesy watermarks all over their photographs?
(via @jenbee)
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kottke.org posts about photography
Underwater photography that looks like painting
In Reckless Unbound, photographer Christy Rogers takes photographs of brightly-clothed people underwater resulting in photos that resemble Baroque paintings. GUP Magazine says:
Without the use of post-production manipulation, Rogers’ works are made in-camera, on the spot, in water and at night. She applies her technique to bodies submerged in water during tropical nights in Hawaii. Through a fragile process of experimentation, she builds elaborate scenes of coalesced colours and entangled bodies that exalt the human character as one of vigour and warmth, while also capturing the beauty and vulnerability of the tragic experience that is the human condition.
(via @robinsloan)
Photos of the Space Shuttle being driven through Los Angeles
On Saturday, the Space Shuttle Endeavour was driven 12 miles through the streets of Los Angeles on its way to the California Science Center. It was a tight fit at times.
Aerial nude photography
From New Zealand photographer John Crawford, a series called Aerial Nudes.
Technically not safe for work but your coworkers would need to be sitting at your desk with a magnifying glass to be offended so… (via @coudal)
The fancy gentlemen from the Congo
Gentlemen of Bacongo is a book of photography by Daniele Tamagni documenting a group of men from the Congo who dress in designer suits. Meet Le Sapeurs.
Photographer Daniele Tamagni’s new book Gentlemen of Bacongo captures the fascinating subculture of the Congo in which men (and a few women) dress in designer and handmade suits and other luxury items. The movement, called Le Sape, combines French styles from their colonial roots and the individual’s (often flamboyant) style. Le Sapeurs, as they’re called, wear pink suits and D&G belts while living in the slums of this coastal African region.
In interviews with some notable sapeurs, Tamagni unearths the complex and varied rules and standards of Le Sape, short for Société des Ambianceurs et des Personnes Élégantes, or the Society of Tastemakers and Elegant People. Sapeur Michel comments on the strange combination of poverty and fashion, “A Congolese sapeur is a happy man even if he does not eat, because wearing proper clothes feeds the soul and gives pleasure to the body.”
Solange Knowles recently shot Losing You in South Africa and it features many gentlemen of Le Sape. Tamagni went along as an advisor and photographed Solange along the way. (via @youngna)
People vs. Places
Photographers Stephanie Bassos and Timothy Burkhart are working together on a project called People vs. Places.
This double exposure project allows us to step back from having full control of the image making process and trust in one another while allowing coincidences to happen naturally on film. Stephanie exposes a full roll of 35mm film of only “people,” and Timothy reloads the film again into the same camera, to imprint only “places” and locations to the same roll. These images are all the end result of our ongoing series and are unedited negatives straight from the camera.
Many of the images are unremarkable but every once in awhile, boom:
(via co.design)
Manga Camera
Manga Camera is an iPhone app that allows you to convert regular photos to Manga style comics. It’s fairly simple, and provides several different backgrounds, but I don’t think you can convert existing photos. Despite the cat picture rule, below are a few quick examples of Manga Camera in action. Some better examples here.
(via @heyitsgarrett)
Entries from the 2012 National Geographic photo contest
In Focus has a selection of entries from this year’s installment of the National Geographic Photo Contest.
(via @dunstan)
Unlikely aquatic sculptor
Freelance underwater photographer Yoji Ookata recently discovered a curious underwater pattern not unlike a crop circle:
When I first saw the pictures, this seemed like a hoax on the part of Ookata (which it might still be, I guess) or the work of someone who enjoys making sand art where no one will ever see it. But Ookata convinced a camera crew to check it out and the mystery circle’s artist turns out to be a fish!
The unlikely artist — best known in Japan as a delicacy, albeit a potentially poisonous one — even takes small shells, cracks them, and lines the inner grooves of his sculpture as if decorating his piece. Further observation revealed that this “mysterious circle” was not just there to make the ocean floor look pretty. Attracted by the grooves and ridges, female puffer fish would find their way along the dark seabed to the male puffer fish where they would mate and lay eggs in the center of the circle. In fact, the scientists observed that the more ridges the circle contained, the more likely it was that the female would mate with the male. The little sea shells weren’t just in vain either. The observers believe that they serve as vital nutrients to the eggs as they hatch, and to the newborns.
Amazing. (via colossal)
The Jony Ive Leica
Leica announced a new version of their M series camera on Monday and the “one more thing” concerned a Jonathan Ive-designed special edition of the Leica M.
This camera will be the mother of all limited editions based on one simple fact: only a single unit of the camera will ever be produced. Aside from announcing this camera, not much else was revealed. It is, however, for more than just a publicity stunt: the camera will be auctioned off, and the proceeds will be donated to charity.
The regular M retails for almost $7000 so I imagine the iLeica will go for about eleventy gajillion. Also, designed? How much leeway will Ive have to really change the camera? He’ll just slap some new colorways on it, yes? (via df)
Average Noah Kalina
Than Tibbetts took all the frames from Noah Kalina’s Everyday video and averaged them into one photo.
Those are some of the yearly averages…you’ll have to click through to see the overall average.
The A train: the Amazon of New York City
In a photo slideshow with jazz accompaniment, narrator Adam Gopnik takes us on a short tour of NYC’s A train, which runs from the top of Manhattan all the way out to the beaches of Rockaway.
From Harlem and upper Manhattan to Brooklyn, Queens and the Atlantic Ocean - New York city’s A Line subway route covers over 30 miles, takes two hours to ride from end to end, and is the inspiration for one of jazz’s best known tunes.
Here — with archive images and vibrant present-day photographs from Melanie Burford — New Yorker columnist Adam Gopnik takes a ride on one of today’s A trains, and explores the communities living along the route.
(via @davehopton)
Anton Kusters’ Photos of the Yakuza
For his Yakuza project, photographer Anton Kusters spent two years documenting some members of the Japanese mafia.
A limited edition of a book containing the photos is available. Steward Mag recently did an interview with Kusters:
The values were almost comparable to general Japanese workplace values, actually. Most yakuza gangs actually have neighborhood offices, and the plaques they have on the door state core values like “respect your superiors,” “keep the office clean,” and so on.
One thing I noticed early on with gang life was how subtle everything was. Everything was unspoken, and will was expressed through group pressure. A pressure was constantly there. There was this innate understanding of form — if someone did something wrong, no one would say anything; he would simply be expected to apologize. And the fact everyone would be so silent about it made the pressure really intense.
(thx, david)
Noah takes a photo of himself every day for 12.5 years
Noah Kalina, one of my favorite photographers, has taken a self-portrait of himself every day for the past 12 and a half years. After six years, he released a video of the results, which video went crazy viral and brought the attention of the world to Kalina’s door. Now he’s released the 12.5 year version.
I hope I live to be 100 to see the 75th anniversary edition.
Water Wigs
Water Wigs is a project from LA artist Tim Tadder, introducing the heads of bald men to water balloons. The Water Wig Club for Men, I’m not only the president…
We just finished shooting a new project we call Water Wigs. The concept is simple and it is another visual exploration of something new and totally different. We found a bunch of awesome bald men and hurled water balloons at their heads, to capture the explosion of water at various intervals. The result a new head of of water hair! We used a laser and sound trigger to capture the right moments for each subject to create just the head of hair that fit best with the face.
(via dangerous minds)
Beautiful view of the Perseids meteor shower
There’s nothing like a composite photo of the Perseids meteor shower to hammer home the realization that the Earth is hurtling through space like the Millennium Falcon making the Kessel Run. Photo by David Kingham.
Photo of a massive Arctic cyclone
Where have I seen this before, a massive long-lasting Arctic storm that looks a lot like a hurricane? Oh right, The Day After Tomorrow.
The storm had an unusually low central pressure area. Paul A. Newman, chief scientist for Atmospheric Sciences at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., estimates that there have only been about eight storms of similar strength during the month of August in the last 34 years of satellite records. “It’s an uncommon event, especially because it’s occurring in the summer. Polar lows are more usual in the winter,” Newman said.
Arctic storms such as this one can have a large impact on the sea ice, causing it to melt rapidly through many mechanisms, such as tearing off large swaths of ice and pushing them to warmer sites, churning the ice and making it slushier, or lifting warmer waters from the depths of the Arctic Ocean.
I love The Day After Tomorrow. I know it’s a cheeseball disaster movie (which is pretty much why I love it) but it’s also looking more than a little prescient. Well, as prescient as a cheeseball disaster movie can be anyway. In the Washington Post the other day, prominent climatologist James Hansen wrote that human-driven climate change is responsible for an increase in extreme weather.
My projections about increasing global temperature have been proved true. But I failed to fully explore how quickly that average rise would drive an increase in extreme weather.
In a new analysis of the past six decades of global temperatures, which will be published Monday, my colleagues and I have revealed a stunning increase in the frequency of extremely hot summers, with deeply troubling ramifications for not only our future but also for our present.
This is not a climate model or a prediction but actual observations of weather events and temperatures that have happened. Our analysis shows that it is no longer enough to say that global warming will increase the likelihood of extreme weather and to repeat the caveat that no individual weather event can be directly linked to climate change. To the contrary, our analysis shows that, for the extreme hot weather of the recent past, there is virtually no explanation other than climate change.
In many ways, the phrase “global warming” is grossly misleading. “Oh,” we think, “it’s gonna be a couple degrees warmer in NYC in 20 years than it is now.” But the Earth’s climate is a chaotic non-linear system, which means that a sudden shift of a degree or two — and when you’re talking about something as big as the Earth, a degree over several decades is sudden — pushes things out of balance here and there in unpredictable ways. So it’s not just that it’s getting hotter, it’s that you’ve got droughts in places where you didn’t have them before, severe floods in other places, unusually hot summers, and even places that are cooler than normal, all of which disrupts the animal and plant life that won’t be able to acclimate to the new reality fast enough.
But pretty Arctic cyclone though, right?
Why does Mars Curiosity have such a small camera?
The main imaging cameras on the Mars Curiosity rover have only 2-megapixel sensors with 8 GB of flash memory — compare that to a maxed-out iPhone 4S with an 8-megapixel sensor and 64 GB of flash memory (not to mention 30-fps 1080p video). Planning timeframes and communications bandwidth contributed to the chosen camera size.
‘There’s a popular belief that projects like this are going to be very advanced but there are things that mitigate against that. These designs were proposed in 2004, and you don’t get to propose one specification and then go off and develop something else. 2MP with 8GB of flash [memory] didn’t sound too bad in 2004. But it doesn’t compare well to what you get in an iPhone today.’
The cameras were also supposed to be outfitted with zoom lenses but that part of the project was scrapped.
What if every Olympic sport was photographed like beach volleyball?
Nate Jones was disappointed about how women’s Olympic beach volleyball has been photographed at the Olympics so he decided to show us what other sports look like through the lens of women’s Olympic beach volleyball photographer’s lens. The results are hilarious.
(via ★mathowie)
Bodybuilders’ World
Belgian photographer Kurt Stallaert’s “Bodybuilders’ World” is a project showing a world where children are more ripped than you. It’s creepy as hell imagining these kids lifting weights every day since they were born.
More examples here and here. (via ★scottwilliams)
Camille Seaman’s sky monsters and frozen seafarers
Yesterday In Focus featured new work from photographer Camille Seaman: storm clouds in the skies of the Midwest.
Nice cumulonimbus mammatus in #s 4, 14, and 16. And by coincidence, the NY Times Lens blog also featured Seaman’s work yesterday, an earlier project that entailed shooting portraits of icebergs.
I like Seaman’s portraiture approach to things like clouds and icebergs:
“They are like humans in that each one reacts to its environment and its circumstances in its own way,” Camille Seaman, 42, said. “I’ve come across icebergs that were very stalwart and just refused to dissolve or break up. And there were others — massive, massive icebergs — that were like ‘I can’t take it anymore’ and in front of my eyes would just dissolve into the sea. There’s so many unique personalities. There’s a sadness to them.”
Rocketless launches
I love McLean Fahnestock’s series of modified photos of rocket launches without the rockets:
Fahnestock also did the video of all 135 Space Shuttle launches at once.
Pantone colors of human flesh
Artist Angelica Dass pairs photographs of people with the Pantone colors of their skin colors.
More of the project can be found on her Tumblr. (via designboom)
Edward Burtynsky has a drone
In an interview with Nicola Twilley and Geoff Manaugh, photographer Edward Burtynsky talks about his use of film and drones, his current big project photographing water, and the challenges of finding ways to photograph the ubiquitous.
I’d say, actually, that I’ve been careful not to frame the work in an activist or political kind of way. That would be too restrictive in terms of how the work can be used in society and how it can be interpreted. I see the work as being a bit like a Rorschach test. If you see an oil field and you see industrial heroism, then perhaps you’re some kind of entrepreneur in the oil business and you’re thinking, “That’s great! That’s money being made there!” But, if you’re somebody from Greenpeace or whatever, you’re going to see it very differently. Humans can really reveal themselves through what they choose to see as the most important or meaningful detail in an image.
Burtynsky is a favorite around these parts.
Long-distance family portraits
Photographer John Clang is using projected Skype video to make portraits of Singaporean families whose members are scattered around the globe.
In Singapore, it is a common practice for entire families to gather on special occasions for a formal picture, often at a studio, with the resulting image framed and prominently displayed at home. The growing tendency of younger family members to take jobs abroad, however, has left many modern portraits missing a relation or two. So the Singaporean photographer John Clang devised a solution, piggybacking on the video-calling technology that already helps ease the dislocation of separated family members: Skype.
(via @bdeskin)
They grow up so fast…
If you make a series of horrifying photos of little girls dressed like Vegas cocktail waitresses, I will apparently always click through. First it was Susan Anderson’s High Glitz, a series of child beauty pageant contestants.
And then the last issue of the NY Times Magazine had a series of photos by Kenneth O Halloran of contestants at the World Irish Dancing Championships.
All I can think of when I see those spray tans is Homer’s makeup gun.
Behind the scenes at a McDonald’s food photo shoot
Why does McDonald’s food look so much better in the ads than at the restaurant? Watch as the director of marketing for McDonald’s Canada buys a Quarter Pounder at McDonald’s and compares that to a burger prepared by a food stylist and retouched in post by an image editor.
Short answer: the burger at the restaurant is optimized for eating and the photo burger is optimized for looking delicious. (via ★interesting)
Unusual photos of 19th century baseball players
From the NYPL’s digital collection, a selection of odd photos of baseball players from the 19th century.
Baseball gloves used to be a lot smaller:
BTW, the site I got this from is fascinating…on the front page right now are posts about patent drawings of mazes and puzzles, slave bells, and a shoe-leather map of a cow’s hide.
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