There is however much to celebrate. The integrity between the landscape and the architecture of this wooden world is as striking to us today as it was to Bilibin. The basic simplicity of the log cabin construction and the extravagant fantasies superimposed on it are just as startling. Although the churches that remain are in varying states of decay and despite their neglect and the wrecking of their interiors, these extraordinary structures have a spiritual presence which commands respect even in the absence of their gilded icons.
[...]
During our travels, the story of the hardships of the last century has been unavoidably felt – a story of Revolution, War, Communism and severe Northern winters. The photographs also tell of the lives of resilient people who have lived through extreme times in extreme places – a story of the Russian North.
The Archigram Archival Project brings back good memories from when I studied architecture at university. Back then we, architecture students, were stunned by the idea of Plug-in-City and The Walking City. (Do you ask what is Archigram?)
The Archigram Archival Project makes the work of the seminal architectural group Archigram available free online for public viewing and academic study. The project was run by EXP, an architectural research group at the University of Westminster. It was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council and made possible by the members of Archigram and their heirs, who retain copyright of all images.
I am working on a project called “The Oldest Living Things in the World.” I’m researching, working with biologists, and traveling all over the world to find and photograph continuously living organisms that are 2,000 years old and older. I started the project 5 years ago, and have since photographed nearly 25 different organisms, ranging from the Bristlecone Pine and Giant Sequoias that you’ve surely heard of, to some truly unusual and unique desert shrubs, bacteria, a predatory fungus, and a clonal colony of Aspen trees that’s male and, in theory, immortal.
On a conceptual level, I’m developing this unique index of living organisms with exceptional longevity at a critical juncture in our collective trajectory: how will the natural world fare in the face of climate change? Part art, part science, part philosophy, I hope to tease out themes of longevity, sustainability, the natural sublime and mortality through the work.
The project also comes with a location map and a blog to track her progress. Right now she’s trying to find several more organisms before turning the project into a book. Here’s some on her to-do list:
Searching the Antarctic Peninsula by boat for 5,000-year-old moss
Backpacking in Tasmania and mainland Australia in search of several clonal shrubs in ranging from 10,000 to 43,000 years old
Visiting a sacred site in Sri Lanka for a nearly 2,300-year-old Banyan Fig tree
SCUBA diving in Spain to find the 100,000-year-old clonal sea grass
“One day Eikoh Hosoe, the photographer of this book, was walking on a lonely beach in Japan, now and then taking pictures of the ocean, the beach, and of a small girl sitting on some rocks. He was startled by a Weimaraner dog which appeared unexpectedly from right out of the ground. Mr. Hosoe couldn’t believe what he saw, but before Runcible’s departure from Japan they had a long talk. Runcible told Mr. Hosoe about his adventure. Runcible was very proud to know an outstanding free-lance photographer who had received so many awards for his pictures. Mr. Hosoe gave Runcible copies of his three photo-essay books, Killed By Roses, Ondine and Why, Mother, Why! The two have been firm friends ever after.”
Winogrand’s is the work of a serious artist (though he’d cleanly deny it) dedicated to seeing his project through to completion, even if, in his own case, it wasn’t exactly clear what the project was, or how it might end. Hard work would figure it out. Hard work would leave behind the four foot high piles of prints, the hundreds of thousands of negatives.
Winogrand’s alertness, easily misread as impatience or distraction, was most likely a state of hyper awareness, in which any small flash of visual stimuli might lead to something both wonderful and surprising, and you better be ready to capture it so Let’s Do This. And yet, while Winogrand emerged from the darkroom with photographs that delineate the attentions of a man clearly focused on incongruities writ large; hypocrisies of a nation; the impossibilities of connection; illuminating the surface tension between us all that keeps us apart; it’s easy to imagine him saying, “yeah, but it’s just a picture of a guy on the street.”
Winogrand’s omnivorousness for the image is what drove his greatest successes, like the couple with the chimps. Which is not to say that anyone with eagerness and the right equipment will become a great photographer. But I think Winogrand’s spirit lies less with the academics, and more with the kid who just got his older brother’s hand-me-down Canon Rebel and is about to stumble across a copy of The Animals in the school library during study hall.
“Larry Sultan, a highly influential California photographer whose 1977 collaboration, “Evidence” — a book made up solely of pictures culled from vast industrial and government archives — became a watershed in the history of art photography, died on Sunday at his home in Greenbrae, Calif. He was 63.”
“Situated at the base of sacred Mount Fuji, the dark, grotesque and eerily silent forest of Aokigahara is the worlds leading suicide destination. Often depicted in Japanese literature as haunted and deathly, it was described in Waturu Tsurumi’s The Complete Manual of Suicide as ‘The Perfect Place To Die’.”
“When was the last time the biggest rock star (Bono) on the planet interrupted one of his signature songs in a stadium full of screaming people to give a shout out to a fine art photographer (Hiroshi Sugimoto)? There can’t be any equivalent moment in the entire history of photography.”
“October 5th, 2009 in shock and disbelief, using garbage pails for long exposures, I took these photos of the last days at Gourmet. Although at times it was hard for me to shoot the common places in the offices at Gourmet, I knew I needed to document where I loved working for the last 8 years.”
“These charts show movie character interactions. The horizontal axis is time. The vertical grouping of the lines indicates which characters are together at a given time.”
“Polaroid will re-launch the legendary Polaroid One Step Camera and is therefore commissioning The Impossible Project to develop and produce a limited edition of Polaroid® branded Instant Films in the middle of 2010.”
“The practice of photographing family members is not a new one, but its appreciation as an art form has never been greater.”
Excellent article with some insights and images from Phillip Toledano, Doug DuBois, Elizabeth Flemming, Jack Radcliffe, David Newsom, Timothy Archibald, Tierney Gearon, and Dona Schwartz.
“Sensationalism aside, it’s significant that the ever-increasing quality in type design these days — dubbed by some as the new “golden age” of type — has caused this year’s list to supersede previous lists in many ways.”
“Sketchbooks are not about being a good artist, they’re about being a good thinker.
Obviously, some people bring the practice of sketching to a higher art form, but to me it’s always been about visual brainstorming and record-keeping in a format with a ridiculously low barrier to entry. My drawings look like shit, but fidelity doesn’t matter as long as I can convey my ideas to others or to my future self.”
A good point that I have long forgotten. Now I’d like to search for some of my old sketchbooks, which I used to bring anywhere I go, and we’ll see what my past self was trying to say. If you have one, you might want to share one of your spread/page on Jason’s Flickr group.
JS: What has been the most successful way for you to get assignment work?
NK: The internet.
I have not gotten work any other way. The whole drop your portfolio thing off never worked for me. I found that approach to be the most frustrating and demeaning process there is. I have a portfolio but I never show it around. I really haven’t needed to.
I have also never sent out postcards or done any self promotion campaign.
I just put my work online, either my website, which I have had since 2000 (it looked way different back then) or on the photo sharing websites. I started with Fotolog after I left art school and then ended up on flickr. 90 percent of the work I get now is through flickr and other 10 percent is from personal connections I have made. I have had art directors and photo editors reach out to me after seeing my work on flickr. Then it snowballs. They publish you in a magazine, another magazine sees it, you get another job. That art director moves to another magazine and hires me at the new mag.
The work just came. I always figured I would just make and share the work I want to make and the rest would come. So far it has. Although, it never really feels like it’s enough. Maybe I should try that portfolio drop off thing again.
“He is not a celebrity architect, not one of the names that show up on shortlists for museums and concert hall projects or known beyond architecture circles. He hasn’t designed many buildings; the one he is best known for is a thermal spa in an Alpine commune. And he has toiled in relative obscurity for the last 30 years in a remote village in the Swiss mountains.
But on Monday the Swiss architect Peter Zumthor is to be named the winner of the 2009 Pritzker Prize, the highest recognition for architects.
“Mr. Zumthor said that his projects generally originated with materials. “I work a little bit like a sculptor,” he said. “When I start, my first idea for a building is with the material. I believe architecture is about that. It’s not about paper, it’s not about forms. It’s about space and material.”
“Mr. Zumthor said that his village had been an inspiration and a refuge. “It helps you concentrate,” he said. “And also collaborators coming here are not distracted by all the things of the big city. To come up with me, you’re in the Alps. It’s sort of a commitment. It’s a beautiful feeling. Of course you have to like the mountains.”
January 28, 2008—The International Center of Photography announced the discovery of a cache of over 3,500 negatives of the Spanish Civil War by Magnum Photographers and Founders, Robert Capa, David Seymour and Capa’s former partner Gerda Taro, three of the most significant war photographers of the twentieth century.
The negatives, created between 1936 and 1939, portray Spanish Republican soldiers, civilians in daily life and in battle and portraits of artists and writers such as Frederico Garcia Lorca and André Malraux.
The rolls were in small cardboard boxes, as well as some short strips of negatives. Some images are identified by photographer; other attributions are based on comparison to known works by the three photographers.
The negative archive (referred to as the “Mexican Suitcase,”) was left by Robert Capa when he fled Paris in 1939 to come to America, and was presumed lost until it mysteriously appeared in Mexico in 1995. Exactly how the negatives reached Mexico is not definitively known.
As soon as the newly discovered “Mexican Suitcase” work is available for reproduction, it will be added to Magnum Photos on-line archive. An announcement will be made on Magnum’s website (www.magnumphotos.com) when available for viewing and licensing.
When you photograph people in colour you photograph their clothes. But when you photograph people in B&W, you photograph their souls!
— Ted Grant
Every time someone tells me how sharp my photos are, I assume that it isn’t a very interesting photograph. If it were, they would have more to say.
— Author Unknown
There will be times when you will be in the field without a camera. And, you will see the most glorious sunset or the most beautiful scene that you have ever witnessed. Don’t be bitter because you can’t record it. Sit down, drink it in, and enjoy it for what it is!
— DeGriff
Buying a Nikon doesn’t make you a photographer. It makes you a Nikon owner.
— Author Unknown
If I could tell the story in words, I wouldn’t need to lug around a camera.
— Lewis Hine
Everyone has a photographic memory, but not everyone has film.
— Author Unknown
One photo out of focus is a mistake, ten photo out of focus are an experimentation, one hundred photo out of focus are a style.
— Author Unknown
Japan: The Ukita family of Kodaira City; Food expenditure for one week: 37,699 Yen or $317.25; Favorite foods: sashimi, fruit, cake, potato chips
Chad: The Aboubakar family of Breidjing Camp; Food expenditure for one week: 685 CFA Francs or $1.23; Favorite foods: soup with fresh sheep meat
What can you eat with $300 a week? You will have plenty of options. What can you eat with only $1 a week? In Indonesia, you can always go for the instant noodle or fasting two days in a week every Monday and Thursday.
So what can one do to stand out? What difference can you make (in 5 minutes and with a 35mm only)? Well not much really… Especially because you’re in a pool, so you HAVE to deliver or you will not be selected next time. The photographers outside are waiting to pick their choice in what’s going to be available on the ECCC computer and they’d be more than willing to take your place.
Basically I start by making sure there is at least ONE usable picture. No risk taking… Autofocus, straight flash, no fancy composition, the accused smack in the middle of the frame, 5 or six shots. That’s it… Switch to the M8, ambient light (the last firmware update finally delivers acceptable white balance results), 320 ISO (too much noise higher up), 2.8, 30th/ second and MOVE, change position, go to the back of the pack, slide to the right, push back into the pack again, move back and go to the left where the judges are, go straight back towards the accused, frame, focus and… finished. It’s over. The 5 minutes are gone. We’re politely asked by the security guards to leave the room… Hoping we didn’t screw up and that there is something a little different to show. There are about 60 frames on my cards, 40 of which are really useless.
Jonas Bendiksen writes about his experience as an intern in Magnum Photos before eventually become one of the member himself:
“I made coffee for thirsty staff members, filed away returns (this was in the pre-digital age), answered phone calls, made tea for staff members, filed away more pictures, and ran to the post office. [...]
Looking back, I always think that simply being around the office, absorbing the tremendous creative energy of this prolific group of photographers and personalities taught me more than I’d ever learn if I went and got a bachelors degree in photography.”
“A real master can use his camera to show you how he feels about a scene, not merely to show you what he happened to see… Photography (and all “art”) is nothing more than a different form of nonverbal communication. The trick is to have something brilliant to say with it.”
Nitsa wrote a nice article over on Photoblogs Magazine May 2006 issue titled “Alternative in Street Photography“. Love her prologue by the way. A good reminder for myself.
“If you’re stuck in a rut and there’s nothing to shoot. If you feel like you’ve been there done that and there’s nothing new under the sun. If your city looks a bit too familiar and the streets are dull. If you already know it’s not about doing it right but doing it your way. If you like trying new ideas and are not afraid of experimenting; you are probably ready to rest your sophisticated digital camera on the shelf and go for something new.”
If you love street photography, you should love the works of Matt Stuart. His photos somehow remind me of Elliott Erwitt. The ability to tell stories without text show the power of the images. The funny pictures, the timing, the framing, the decisive moment are amazing. My favourite is his b/w work.
As written on the description of the site, WarShooter is a portal for photojournalists covering conflict, crisis, and disaster. Now, I don’t say that I want to be a war photographer, I’m not even sure if I want to be a photojournalist, but I am surely a big fan of photojournalism.
April 30, 2006 will be the Worldwide Pinhole Photography Day. Start making your own pinhole camera, shoot at that day, develop it, scan it, and you may post it on their site.
Seeing all the good photos, the winners of the 63rd Pictures of the Year International, can bring inspiration and encouragement to photographer wannabe and enthusiast like me.
Learning the art of photography, the Canon way. The camera used as examples are Canon, but the basic knowledge should also be useful for every photographers.
Perhaps this is nothing new for most photobloggers, but this is useful. For me at least. Here is Photo Friday tip to calibrate your monitor for the optimum pleasure in seeing photos on your monitor.
Today, perhaps Lomo has evolved more than just a camera, it’s a lifestyle of the photographer. Here’s the 10 golden rules of lomography. I love rule #10:
“Don’t worry about any rules. Forget the 10 golden rules – discover your very own lomography. Immerse yourself in what’s going on, do it and do what you want but do it now.”
Adsoftheworld.com: They have plenty of creative ads on the site. Although I don’t like ads but I’m always open for a good one. Plus this one has a blog too.
Best Rejected Advertising: Publishing ads that was turned down (banned or rejected). Aside from the pictures, they also provided the story of why it was turned down. Nice.
Stylegala published a nice article by Andy Rutledge, Design Psychology.
I think this is a useful and powerful article to read before you design a site. My favorite part is about the whitespace
“I seldom have to work to convince a client to choose a design that I suggest, but often have to work to convince them not to fill up every inch of page real estate with content.”
I’m an architect but, as a fellow designer, believe me it’s hard to not going futher than the focused purpose. I remember the saying “just because it can be done, doesn’t mean it have to be done“. But to stop the design process in the right time is a challenge for all designers, right? [via Lorelle]
Yes. No publishing work on weekends and holidays. Why?
“Those times are meant to be enjoyed so writers should get out of the house and spend time with loved ones. If they want to write they are more than welcome to, just don’t publish anything on the weekends or holidays. There are very, very few instances when something has to be pushed out on those days and traffic is higher during the week anyways.”
In short this is an implicit message to bloggers: get a life outside the internet.
Those are the numbers that appears on Lost, a TV series about the life of survivors of a crashed plane on an unknown island. Since the place is unknown, maybe this is ABC’s way to give a hint to audiences. Currently, there is even a blog about these numbers.
The rumor is that if you input that number into Google satellite map it will lead you to off the coast of Australia to a small island in Indonesia. Hm, interesting (I am Indonesian).
The first appearance was on 18 November 1985. Calvin caught Hobbes in a tiger trap with a tuna sandwich in the first strip.
He spent the next 10 years driving his parents crazy, annoying his crush, Susie Derkins, and playing make-believe as his alter egos Spaceman Spiff and Stupendous Man.
Watterson ended the strip on Dec. 31, 1995, with a statement: “I believe I’ve done what I can do within the constraints of daily deadlines and small panels. I am eager to work at a more thoughtful pace, with fewer artistic compromises.”
The last strip shows Calvin and Hobbes sledding off after a new fallen snow. “It’s a magical world, Hobbes, ol’ buddy … let’s go exploring!” Calvin says in the final two panels.
“As a computer programmer in a new apartment, I’ve taken the same approach to setting up my home as I would developing a software application: with a focus on usability.”
I think a computer programmer would make a good architect.
I love blogs and I love movie. That’s why I love this blog: Sinema Indonesia. It’s all about Indonesian movie review (it’s written in Indonesian). It’s fun and refreshing. [via Enda]
Tempo Photostock. It is believed to contain 2 millions (I didn’t count it myself) of photos about Indonesia starting from 1971. That’s huge and that’s old. But surely interesting. Link from JalanSutera.
“At the end, the lesson is one of a paradox. As the power shifts increasingly towards community, the corporation loses its grip on the traditional means of control. Yet, by letting go of control, the corporation creates an environment where the community willingly creates its own switching costs. Such changing market behavior, which is structural and permanent for any industry being usurped by the Internet, must be met with a corresponding shift in corporate mindset. Otherwise, a “generation gap” will exist between the members of management themselves (old vs. new media), as well as the company and its market.”
