When Condé Nast decided to cease publication of Gourmet Magazine my heart sunk a little bit. Though I rarely used a recipe from the book I often times found myself perusing the pages for inspiration. It was a quality magazine.
As the publishing world changes at a drastic pace it is interesting to watch what becomes of print media. For someone who escaped as a child into the pages of magazines, and who still does, it’s a bit saddening to see these guys become extinct.
On the website Last Days of Gourmet Kevin DeMaria wrote “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.”
The images captured will resonate with more than just those who work in print media. They capture the sorrow of many Americans who have lost their jobs.
Our society’s obsession with celebrity gossip has only become magnified and proliferated in the digital age as celebrity photos du jour appear seemingly simultaneously on countless gossip blogs and websites, where publication turnaround times often lap the mainstream gossip periodicals. Moreover, the rapid dissemination of a single photograph within this cultural echo chamber especially within the online landscape raises some questions of ownership for both the photographer and subject. Like pandora’s box, once the photo is published on a single website, it has essentially entered the public space whereby ownership is practically irrelevant. This is just the opinion of one humble blogging pop culture-ologist. Against this backdrop, the celebrity portraits, or what he calls “portroids” taken by Rick DeMint with his polaroid camera appear refreshingly “authentic.” Each single polaroid is signed by the subject as it develops which implies a certain cooperation and complicity by the Famous Person, unlike the paparrazi photographs we’ve all learned to love and hate. In conclusion, where did I come across Rick’s photographs? Via Kanye’s blog, natch.
This entry is apropos of nothing other than that I finally got around to reading The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay which I recently completed. I can’t emphasize how much I enjoyed the fictional novel, but this entry isn’t meant to be a book review. No one wants to read my pedantic explication of this (truly fantastic) novel. This isn’t a spoiler, but I enjoyed the cameo appearance of Salvador Dali in Michael Chabon’s literary tour de force, which perfectly segues into this image I came across on the Internet today. Look at this photograph of the surrealist nonchalantly taking an anteater out for a stroll. No matter how “weird” or “bizarre” or “crazy” your day might be, ask yourself, “Have I seen anyone take their anteater for a walk today?” If your answer is no, then your day has been quite normal and mundane. And oh yeah, go pick up Amazing Adventures and thank me later.
Tom is back with another breathtaking time-lapse video in his landscape series Timescapes. Using high definition equipment, he’s “dedicated to pushing the artistic boundries of timelapse and outdoor cinematography, with a particular emphasis on night timelapse.” His latest was shot in California’s White Mountains and Yosemite. It’s definitely one to watch in full screen. This makes me recall a recent fascinating National Geographic article, “Our Vanishing Night” which bemoans how the progress of human development resulted in pervasive light pollution that has robbed us of our night sky without some consequences as a result.
Light pollution is largely the result of bad lighting design, which allows artificial light to shine outward and upward into the sky, where it’s not wanted, instead of focusing it downward, where it is. Ill-designed lighting washes out the darkness of night and radically alters the light levels—and light rhythms—to which many forms of life, including ourselves, have adapted. Wherever human light spills into the natural world, some aspect of life—migration, reproduction, feeding—is affected.
The quality is pretty gritty, but I find them interesting, not the least because they are glimpses of these people without their artistic personas showing. Just another traveler submitting to the demands of the state.
We all must submit if we wish to travel to Cabo for spring break. Kidding.
Wallpaper magazine is celebrating Polaroid’s new lifeline. Polaroid not too long ago was about to go out of business. Inspired by quote from Edwin Land, Polaroid’s inventor, factory workers kept the production lines running and got the word out, hoping someone would save the iconic brand. That quote read “Don’t undertake a project unless it’s manifestly important and nearly impossible.” They called their mission “The Impossible Project” and did find a savior in Urban Outfitters, who now sells the film and cameras.
Wallpaper gave a roll of film and a camera to ten creatives and asked them to shoot what they wanted. The resulting image gallery honors all things impossible. Urban Outfitters has a great history of Polaroid here.
Matthew’s post the other day showed via time lapse photography the scale and terror of the wildfires ravaging Los Angeles right now. While those moving images are indeed impressive many stunning, horrifying, yet beautiful still images are being captured too. The Los Angeles Times has created a special spot on their website documenting the images. They have a section dedicated to High-res images and a general gallery featuring the fire, the city, the firefighters, and the people living in harm’s way. They’re mesmerizing.
Alta Media Productions casts the tilt-shift effect (previously) on Paris in this video. The title makes sense around the 1 minute mark as the tilt-shift trick gives the neat impression of marching toy soldiers coming alive.
Bookending the previous entry of Charlie McCarthy’s wondrous time-lapse photographs of the flight paths of insects around a light, Branislav Kropilak’s long-exposure photography series “Landings” captures the linear paths of planes on descent. And the lights look so purrrty.
Muhammad Ali defiantly standing with arrows piercing his pugilist torso. A pained Vietnamese girl, just nine years old, burnt and naked in the street following a South Vietnamese napalm bombing. An ethereal Marilyn Monroe. These iconic and widely familiar images have come to represent the epoch of our modern era for better or for worse, and yet those responsible for capturing these moments remain largely anonymous. In his extensive series “Behind Photographs”, Tim Mantoani casts his camera lens behind the scenes on the “talented men and women who have captured some of the most recognized photographic images of our time” by capturing the photographer posed with their respective memorable photo. For this project Mantoani utilized the mammoth 20×24 Polaroid Camera to produce a vintage archival effect.
