Andrew Zuckerman’s Birds. A book of stunning photos, and a website that has sounds and information on each different species. Nature is pretty amazing.
Archive for the 'Photography' Category
faces from the frontline
Meet Hamish Cairns. Hamish is a photographer. He recently returned to Brisbane from Pakistan and what he describes as World War III happening there right now. “This is worse than Vietnam, but there’s no information,” he says. As someone who witnessed the situation first-hand, he believes it should be headlining the news every day. “What’s happening there is going to change the world we live in,” he says. His photographic exhibition PAKISTAN - Faces From the Frontline will display shots of actual refugees who have fled the warzone.
Continue reading ‘faces from the frontline’
when you’re blue - 7 things to inspire you
1. eat gelati in the sunshine
2. stimulate your sight with colour (therapy) Continue reading ‘when you’re blue - 7 things to inspire you’
paris 48°5on 2°23e
If you’re heading to Paris soon and want a travel guide that’s a little different from what’s out there, artist Ami Sioux has the perfect solution for you. Ami asked 50 Paris locals to hand-draw a map to a place that was personally significant to them. She then followed their directions and took a photo of the destination. The result is Paris 48°50N 2°23E, a creative and unique insight into the everyday lives of Parisians and a great guide for those who wish to explore the less travelled roads and streets of Paris. Paris 48°50N 2°23E is part of the °Books series which also includes a guide to Reykjavik, Iceland. Image via Ami Sioux.
sergei mikhailovich prokudin-gorskii
Can you believe this photo is from 1909? It was taken by Sergei Mikhailovich Prokudin-Gorskii, a chemist, photographer and one of the first to pioneer colour photography. The image was part of Prokudin-Gorskii’s ambitious project to document the Russian Empire circa 1907 and 1915. Travelling around in a specially fitted darkroom railroad car, Prokudin-Gorskii documented the history and culture of the empire using his own method of colour photography. He took three consecutive photographs of his subjects with three separate filters – red, blue and green. The filters were then layered on top of each other and projected into full colour. The results are vivid, eerie and captivating. Using digital processing, the Library of Congress restored the images and is exhibiting the collection online. Image via the Library of Congress.
the sartorialist
Scott Schuman, no doubt one of the original street style bloggers, has turned his fashion blog The Sartorialist into book-form. The book, also titled The Sartorialist, is a collection of Schuman’s best and favourite photographs from his blog, which documents his encounters with the style-savvy around the world. While Schuman’s style preference has been poked fun at, his ability to find elegance and cool in everyday people (regardless of age, sex or race) and capture people’s confidence in their own style (no matter how unconventional their look is) is really what sets The Sartorialist apart from the many street style blogs out there. Due for an Australian release in late September, The Sartorialist is sure to be the most eclectic and inspiring book on your coffee table. Schuman was also recently in Australia to shoot a campaign for Saba denim with models hand-picked off the streets of Melbourne by the man himself. Image via The Sartorialist.
the selby does lanvin
Photographer Todd Selby, who has made an art of capturing the work and living spaces of some of the world’s most intriguing and creative people, has most recently set his sights on the studio of French fashion house Lanvin. With Lavin Homme head designer Lucas Ossendrijver as his primary subject, Todd’s latest collection of photos provides an interesting behind-the-scenes glimpse into the iconic fashion brand and its talented animateur.
dark zoo
Beneath Singapore’s glamour and modern façade, a quirky and interesting picture is painted by its countrymen. Deanna Ng, a freelance photographer specialising in documentary photography, portraiture and offbeat travel photos, begins to show the other side to Singapore. Diana always tries to find the other side of the story. Her travel series Phsat – Siem Reap profiles the people that make up this Cambodian town and what happens here apart from the many tourists visiting Angkor Wat. Deanna’s latest work on hospice patients endeavours to see the difference in normal situations too, but this series is much more confronting yet, strangely, still beautiful. Continue reading ‘deanna ng photography’
proving the world is a small is place
It’s often easy to lose perspective, but a visit to the World Press Photo Exhibition at the Powerhouse will serve as a profound and ultimately grounding experience. The 52nd annual event showcases the very best of photojournalism around the world, capturing the state of the world in 2008. The Beijing Olympics, crippling poverty, and the beauty of nature feature prominently, as does the state of the world economy, all played out as a visual tragedy. Flying the Aussie flag is Mark Dadswell, who won second prize in the Sports Action Singles category by capturing the agony and the ecstasy of Usain Bolt as he won the 200m men’s final at the Olympics. The calibre of the imagery and the confronting social issues make this exhibition one not to miss.
Did you ever wonder what happened after the final page of a fairytale? While most choose to maintain a more idealistic view that the protagonists really did live happily ever after, others beg to differ. Photographer Dina Goldstein, who admits she did not grown up being read fairtytales, offers her own insight into the fates she imagines might have have befallen Snow White, Cinderella and other favourite childhood characters.
Take a moment to go outside today and look at the sky. This shot was taken this morning on my way home from a shoot, the sky was so inspiring, I just had to stop and shoot. Clouds are so cool.
I would just like to express to everyone reading: back up your hard drives! I have just recently drained every bit of tears and time into trying to recover all of my files from a hard drive that decided to format. As traumatic as this process was, it made me remember how kind some people are to spend their spare time helping you fix your problems. From 120GB, 35GB was recovered. The above photo is one of the files recovered and is from a series of shots I took at the last Tame Impala concert.
Like a day turning almost imperceptibly into night, Polaroid film is slowly fading into oblivion. It was a sad day for photography enthusiasts across the world when, in early 2008, Polaroid announced a landmark decision – it was no longer going to produce Polaroid instant film. With rumours that there is enough film left in the world to last until the dying light of 2009, people have been buying up big in an attempt to stockpile and save the precious film. Following the announcement, and subsequent public outpouring of disbelief and outrage, there has been a resurgence of love and dedication towards the iconic film. One such source of love has come in the form of For The Love of Light blog. Continue reading ‘long live polaroid’
The winners have been announced for the largest international photographic competition, the Sony World Photography Awards (SWPA). With 8 categories for both professional and amateur photographers’ world wide, the SWPA aims to bring motivation for the entire photographic community. Among these winners are two Australian Professional photographers, Lisa Marie Williams and Steve Morenos, awarded first and second place respectively in the Fine Art- Natural History category. Each category winner will have the opportunity to be apart of the SWPA Global Tour and have their artwork showcased on the SWPA website for the year of 2009. From all winners collectively one grand prize winner will be selected, from both the amateur and professional competitions, to be named The Sony World Photography Awards Amateur/ Professional Photographer of the Year. The Photographers of the Year will be flown to Cannes, France to attend the gala awards ceremony on the 16th of April 2009. A prize most definitely earned. Good luck Lisa!
independent artists the roots of brisbane
Tucked away in the back of a cafe in colourful West End hangs a retrospective collection belonging to, what seems to be, an unnamed artist. An array of portraits complimented with a selection of landscape images are hung, documenting the people of South America. Also in the collection are project based photographs of the people of Windsor’s Chapel Street in Melbourne and the industrial port in Newcastle, NSW which has become an area of cafes and restaurants. The man behind the camera is Ian Walton. Inspired by the want to tell a story through photography, Ian successfully captures the history of towns and the subconscious of his portraiture subjects. Adding to this, Ian “likes the viewer to create the story rather than be told through a title or description.” He feels that everyone’s different perspectives on the image adds a twist to the tale. Looking up to challenging artists such as Helmut Newton, Bill Henson and Francesca Woodman, Ian sets out to understand and experience his own and other emotions. To view the collection and support the ever emerging talent of Brisbane, make your way to Cibo, West End to view Ian’s artwork. (Image: Central Station by Ian Walton).
Johnny Miller is an American photographer who has earned some impressive big-name advertising clients, such as Kate Spade and Real Simple Magazine, with his perfect studio shots and wonderful attention to light and colour. His past work has been exhibited in George Eastman House and The Museum of Contemporary Photography, among other places. But his most remarkable work is his personal portfolio of shots, which include a simple and touching documentation of his parent’s love letters to each other during the Vietnam War. On the verge of adulthood, the pair swapped intense declarations of love and longing for each other, while Johnny’s father completed his tour of duty. Forty years later, Johnny’s parents are divorced. Upon his discovery of the love letters recently, Johnny says, ‘I cannot remember now where I first discovered their love letters and tapes, but it was probably from my father’s kit bag from Vietnam. Recently, I asked my mom to ship some of them out to me. She sat down, reread the letters and cried for two hours. She called my father and asked him, “What happened to these two people?”.
In one way or another, murmurs about the Ten Days on the Island festival in Tassie from 27 March keep reverberating around me and inspiring me in different ways so I thought I’d share the chatter. I was one of the lucky ones to be in the audience at Metro Arts’ forum last week where Scott Rankin, director of big hART, and Donna Jackson of hubcap productions spoke under the banner, “Artists as Social Entrepreneurs”. Both Scott and Donna do AMAZING things to instigate social change through high quality art across all forms, guiding receptive communities to tell their stories for the benefit of healing social angst and forging new futures. There isn’t space here to explain the immense scope, intimate research and deep intuition with which they approach their respective projects so check out their websites if you’re intrigued to learn more. big hART’s Junk Theory is just one example of the work they do in social change and it will kick-start the Ten Days festival on 27 March, which is apparently the country’s largest state-wide biennial international arts festival with more than 200 ticketed art, theatre, literature, film, music and the art of conversation events. Through Junk Theory , big hART worked with Cronulla’s Sutherland Shire after the riots in 2005 when the community was thrown onto the national map, looking all grubby and scuffed. big hART encouraged the young people to share their stories and listen to others as a progressive response to the shock and hurt in the community that aimed to prove it’s harder to hurt someone when you know their story. The young people were linked with photographers, composers, filmmakers, older residents, seafarers, local businesses and 35 local community organisations to create Junk Theory. Continue reading ‘‘junk theory’ in ten days on the island’
In Venezuela, the population of the country’s capital Caracas has grown more than four times in population in the last 50 years. About 50% of these people live in poor neighbourhoods lacking access to basic services such as waste collection, mail delivery, sewage systems and electricity. In Kibera in Nairobi, East Africa’s largest slum, about 700,000 people cram into a section of the city the size of New York’s Central Park. Kibera has never been recognised as a town and has therefore always been excluded form official urban plans. Most consider it as a stop for rural migrants fleeing impoverishment. In Mumbai, there are 30 people for every square metre. The suburb of Dharavi is Mumbai’s most popular slum. It’s expected to be redeveloped into middle-class apartments in the next 10 years. In the Indonesian capital of Jakarta, the population has swelled from 2 million to 13 million in just three generations. Unlike the previously mentioned cities, Jakarta’s poor, are scattered throughout the city. Continue reading ‘the places we live’
success in a bubble
With each opening of a new door, fresh and exciting opportunities appear. For Honia Lipinski, she may have just crashed through the door that contains her dreams. Recently winning the talent discovery, The Bubble presented by General Pants Co., Honia will now be commissioned to have her work published in well known magazines, displayed in the highly recognised clothing store, General Pants and have her very own exhibition supported by mentors of The Bubble. Having competed against hundreds of photographers, writers, artists in all mediums, filmmakers, musicians, designers and graphic designers, it is clear that Honia has the support of the artistic community to take her photography to the next level. Continue reading ’success in a bubble’
