What photographers see
Five noted photographers choose films they’ve been influenced by. Blue Velvet appears on more than one list.
Advertise here with Carbon Ads
This site is made possible by member support. ❤️
Big thanks to Arcustech for hosting the site and offering amazing tech support.
When you buy through links on kottke.org, I may earn an affiliate commission. Thanks for supporting the site!
kottke.org. home of fine hypertext products since 1998.
kottke.org posts about photography
The most interesting boring photos on Flickr
The most interesting boring photos on Flickr (i.e. the “boring” tag sorted by interestingness). Got this from ni9e, although he used a slightly different technique.
Self-stalking
Wired writer Sonja Zjawinski commissioned for-hire paparazzo Izaz Rony (previously) to follow her around for the day and take photos.
I leave the coffee shop with Rony trailing unobtrusively. I’m beginning to understand why celebrities go nuts, shave their heads, and bounce in and out of rehab; I would, too, if I had relentless photographers on my tail 24/7. When I stop to peruse a pair of shoes at an outdoor stall, Rony snaps away at me through a rack of dresses, startling a fellow shopper. “Sorry,” I sheepishly explain. “That’s, uh … my photographer.”
I don’t feel like a celebutante hounded by the media anymore; I feel like the lamest lame-o in Phonytown. And I’ve had enough of it. I call off the shoot.
(via fimoculous)
America the Gift Shop
More new work from the busy Phillip Toledano: America the Gift Shop.
If American foreign policy had a gift show, what would it sell?
I like the Cheney shredding secret documents snow globe.
Funhouse mosaic
If I’d been walking at the time — perhaps at my treadmill desk — this photo from Cornelia Hediger would have stopped me in my tracks.
It falls apart under scrutiny but each time I go back to it after a few minutes, my initial reaction is always, “wow, cool”. (via heading east)
17 years of daily self-portraits
Dan Hanna has made a rotating self-portrait video assembled from 17 years of daily photos, a la Noah Kalina’s Everyday video.
17 years worth of taking 2 photos a day as my head rotates in sync with the Earth around the Sun.
The split screen is a nice touch and I love watching the hair on his shaved head grow back like a Chia Pet every few months. Here’s a description of the rig he uses to take the photos. (via heading east)
19th century Arctic exploration photos
Photos from two Arctic expeditions, one in 1854 and the other in 1875-6.
This photo is part of the National Maritime Museum’s contribution to Flickr’s Commons project.
2008 Summer Paralympic Games photography
I don’t mean to link to every single thing on The Big Picture, but Alan’s knocked it out of the park again with these fantastic photos of the 2008 Summer Paralympic Games. These sports look more difficult than the ones at the regular Olympics. Take, for instance, goalball:
Participants compete in teams of three, and try to throw a ball that has bells embedded in it, into the opponents’ goal. They must use the sound of the bell to judge the position and movement of the ball. Games consist of two 10 minute halves. Blindfolds allow partially sighted players to compete on an equal footing with blind players.
The Games aren’t being broadcast on American TV but you can catch them on the web at Universal Sports.
Bridal preparations
T&A is not my usual schtick here, but I found these photos of brides in their underwear — most are pictured getting dressed for the ceremony — appealing for non-obvious reasons (the titillation factor here is almost zero unless you’re 12 years old). There’s something about the natural, unguarded informality of the preparation in comparison to the fussiness and solemnity of the ceremony itself…it makes the wedding part seem artificial. It’s also disturbing that all these intimate photos ended up online, likely without the consent of the undressed. Really NSFW.
Annie Leibovitz on photography
Annie Leibovitz talks about her photography and how her process has changed, from toting a single camera around to capture the rawness of the Rolling Stones to the tens (or even hundreds) of thousands of dollars that VF spends for Leibovitz to make a few photographs for the magazine.
I learned about power on that tour. About how people in an audience can lose a sense of themselves and melt into a frenzied, mindless mass. Mick and Keith had tremendous power both on and offstage. They would walk into a room like young gods. I found that my proximity to them lent me power also. A new kind of status. It didn’t have anything to do with my work. It was power by association.
I’ve been on many tour buses and at many concerts, but the best photographs I’ve made of musicians at work were done during that Rolling Stones tour. I probably spent more time on it than on any other subject. For me, the story about the pictures is about almost losing myself, and coming back, and what it means to be deeply involved in a subject. You can get amazing work, but you’ve got to be careful. The thing that saved me was that I had my camera by my side. It was there to remind me who I was and what I did. It separated me from them.
Hurricane photos
Absolutely scrumtrilescent photos of hurricanes from space. The Big Picture once again. I feel as though Alan is reaching directly into my brain and asking, “hey, what photos do you want to see next to flood you with high levels of dopamine?”
Watch politicians age
Video compilations of several months of photos of John McCain, Barack Obama, and George W. Bush. Completely mesmerizing, especially the Bush one. See also: Noah Kalina Everyday and Paris Hilton doesn’t change facial expressions on YTMND.
Digital Journalist photo blog
The Digital Journalist has launched a photo blog modeled after The Big Picture. Well done. I’ve followed this site on and off for years but always found it too difficult to navigate through to find the photography, which is shot by top-notch photojournalists and is amazing. Nice to see the photography put front and center. Case in point: this wonderful selection of sports photos by Walter Iooss Jr., punctuated by stories of the athletes he was photographing (Tiger Woods, Muhammad Ali, Michael Jordan, etc.). Here’s Iooss’ account of photographing Jordan at the 1988 dunk contest:
The problem with shooting the NBA slam-dunk contest was that you never knew how the players were going to dunk, especially Jordan. In 1997 [sic, it was actually 1987] he had twirled and dunked with his back to me. But by this time I knew him a little better. As he sat in the stands three hours before the contest, I said, “Michael, can you tell me which way you’re going to go, so I can move and get your face in the picture?” He looked at me as if I were crazy but then said, “Sure. Before I go out to dunk I’ll put my index finger on my knee and point which way I’m going.” I said, “You’re going to remember that?” And he said, “Sure.” So later, when they announced his name, I looked over to him on the bench and there was his finger pointing left. I got up and moved to the right side of the basket so I could see his face. He went left every time he dunked. On his last two dunks he ran the length of the court, took off from the foul line and slammed the ball through. On the next-to-last one he landed in my lap. On the last one I set up in the same spot. He looked at me as if to say, “Go left a little, give me some room this time.” And that was it, the picture was made: 1000th of a second frozen in time.
BTW, I’ve heard that The Big Picture has spawned a number of copycats around the web, including this one from the WSJ.
Best photos of the Beijing Olympics
Three galleries of the best photos taken at the Olympics. Part 2 and part 3. NSFW.
Update: Caveat to the links above: all the photos above are lifted from elsewhere. You may prefer the collection at Big Picture instead. I’ve got mixed feelings about sites that take photos from other sites without proper attribution. On one hand, the photographers are not getting their due credit and payment for those photos but on the other, the act of collecting and curating adds something new to the work and results in something worthwhile. I wish there were a way for sites to make groups of photos like these without the hefty licensing expenses…the photographers get more of their photos out there and we get all sorts of neat views through the lenses of the photographers and talented curators. (thx, josh)
Water Cube panorama
Awesome panorama of the Water Cube in Beijing from the top of the 10 meter platform. Looks way higher than on TV.
Juergen Teller, photographer, isn’t sexy
I found this New York magazine profile of fashion photographer Juergen Teller pretty fascinating. For one thing, none of Teller’s photos are retouched.
But perhaps most rare for fashion photography, Teller’s pictures are absolutely never retouched. “I’m interested in the person I photograph,” he says. “The world is so beautiful as it is, there’s so much going on which is sort of interesting. It’s just so crazy, so why do I have to put some retouching on it? It’s just pointless to me.”
And then there’s this anecdote. After a bad encounter with a subject who didn’t like how old she looked in Teller’s photographs, he went to see his friend Charlotte Rampling.
Despondent, Teller called his friend Rampling, who offered to cook him dinner. They talked about how it feels to be photographed, and how it feels to age. “I just thought, Fuck this, I’m going to photograph myself,” he says. And then there the two of them were, in the Louis XV suite of the Hotel de Crillon, with Teller way too fat to fit into any of the Marc Jacobs samples save one terribly shiny pair of silver shorts.
“I thought, Fuck,” Teller says, “I don’t even fucking fit into these clothes. I’m really fucking stuck now.”
So he pulled on the shorts in the bathroom. “I came out and I had my socks on and I had these shorts on and no top, and I just said, ‘Ta-da!’ And she said, ‘Oh my God. What are we going to do?’ And I said, ‘Well, I don’t know. But really, honestly’-and I could hardly bring it out of my mouth-I said, ‘I just want to kiss you and fondle your breasts.’ And she didn’t say a word. She just leaned back in her armchair and went into her handbag and got a cigarillo out and lit it and the air was thick and I was mortified. And then she sort of dragged on her cigarette and said, ‘Okay. Let’s start. I’ll tell you when to stop.’”
Here are some of the images that resulted from that shoot (NSFW).
Disassembled household appliances
Photos of disassembled household appliances.
this was my senior thesis project at the hartford art school this past year…i took apart used cooking/cleaning appliances, and arranged their interior parts very systematically on a white sheet of bristol board. my intention was to explore the hidden “brains” of these appliances; allowing us to view these everyday objects from a new perspective.
Photographer Miroslav Tichy
This is Miroslav Tichy, a Czech photographer:
This is one of Tichy’s homemade cameras, fashioned from cardboard tubing, string, and thread spools:
Here’s a photo taken with one of his homemade cameras:
Of the apparent quality of his photography Tichy says:
Photography is painting with light! The blurs, the spots, those are errors! But the errors are part of it, they give it poetry and turn it into painting. And for that you need as bad a camera as possible! If you want to be famous, you have to do whatever you’re doing worse than anyone else in the whole world.
Awesome. (via this is that)
Chimping
Chimping is the practice of checking your just-taken photos on your DSLR’s LCD screen. (via textism)
Vincent Laforet’s Olympic photos
Photographer Vincent Laforet, formerly of the NY Times, is in Beijing making photos of the Olympics. Here’s a look at some of the stuff he’s been shooting and the process behind getting those wonderful overhead shots of his.
Getting a photograph of Phelps from above is priceless — so it’s all worth the hassle. Here he is winning gold in the 200 meter individual medley. This was shot with a 400mm 2.8 handheld—oh yeah, hand holding a 12 pound lens ain’t easy. Luckily it was strapped to me — and I to the catwalk with oodles of safety cables. We weren’t allowed to being extra CF Cards or even a paper start list, which is pretty extreme if you ask me. We were patted down before we went up by the photo escorts, and we all tried to get things in — even our credentials were left behind. While extreme, I agree with one of the photo escorts who said that if even one sheet of paper floated harmlessly down from the catwalk. it would be game over for everyone — no more catwalk access.
You can keep up with Laforet’s Olympic output at his blog. (thx, stacy)
Fake Louis Vuitton products
A collection of photos of custom and counterfeit Louis Vuitton products. Big omission: David LaChapelle’s photo of an LV’d Lil’ Kim. (via quips)
Library of Dust
BLDGBLOG tells us about Library of Dust, a book of photographs of an Oregon state psychiatric institution.
Esteemed photographer David Maisel has created a somber and beautiful series of images depicting canisters containing the cremated remains of the unclaimed dead from an Oregon psychiatric hospital. Dating back as far as the nineteenth century these canisters have undergone chemical reactions causing extravagant blooms of brilliant white green and blue corrosion revealing unexpected beauty in the most unlikely of places. This stately volume is both a quietly astonishing body of fine art from a preeminent contemporary photographer and an exceptionally poignant monument to the unknown deceased.
Vintage business signs
This is a fantastic set of photos of old business signs, many of them neon. As Ben says, “is it possible to favorite every photo in a set at once?”
Video game faces
If you can brave the Flashcrapular flippa-dee-do-da interface, Evan Baden’s Illuminati photos are worth a look. They depict people’s faces bathed in the light of their computer screens, iPods, and video games. See also Phillip Toledano’s Video Gamers series. Toledano is also behind the fantastic Days with My Father. (via conscientious)
Update: Also see also Dennis Chamberlin’s Screen Culture photos. (thx, blaine)
Stupid ideas captured
Maggie collects the top ten stupidest ideas depicted on Flickr. These are pretty amazing.
Large Hadron Collider photos
I’ve been waiting patiently for this one. Big Picture has 27 photos of the Large Hadron Collider and they’re stunning. The scale of this thing, it’s overwhelming.
Faces of Evil, Hans Weishaupl
For his Faces of Evil project, Hans Weishäupl made composite photographs of the world’s worst dictators by photographing hundreds of people in each dictator’s country and stitching them together. The results are a bit disturbing, particularly when viewing very large, clear, vibrant color photos of long-dead monsters like Stalin or Hitler. (via conscientious)
Quiet Paris
If Paris is getting quiet again, it must be the end of July, a nice set of photos from Rion Nakaya.
Diorama construction photos
The Natural History Museum in NYC has put a collection of historical photos online, including some fantastic images of the construction of some of their famous displays and dioramas. Pruned pulled out a few of the best for a recent post.
During the first decades of the 20th century, the AMNH posed its T. rex bones in an upright position, propped on its tail. Skeletons were broken, some bent and others removed altogether so that it looked like the “marauding predator” people thought they were. And also so that it didn’t look too diminutive in the large exhibition hall. Natural history as a function of architecture: it had to reach high up to the ceiling, fill up all that space, loom large over the crowds.
Stay Connected