Sundance Channel

Why all articles about sex use a photo of feet sticking out from the covers

Em and Lo — Fri, 16 Dec 2011 18:00:59 +0000

While doing a little internet research, our intern Alyssa came across this article from the Telegraph UK entitled "Average Man Has 9 Sexual Partners in Lifetime, Women Have 4" accompanied by a photo like one of those above. Next to the link she sent, Alyssa wrote: "Random Side Note: Why do they always use photos of feet sticking out of a bed for these sex stories? Who has sex with cold feet like that? Doesn’t it make anyone else feel comfortable staring at these random people’s feet? Seriously!" It's a legitimate (and funny) question.

Confessions of a serial restaurant dater

Diana Hossfeld — Thu, 08 Dec 2011 15:28:37 +0000

"Do you need help?" My date asked. I shook my head. "No, I'm good – I do it all the time," I answered brightly. I leaned in closer, examining my target carefully as I adjusted the white balance on my camera. Holding my cell phone light in one hand and my camera in the other, I zoomed in on the shrimp-topped squid ink pasta noodles and carefully snapped my first shot. And then a second. And then another from a different angle. Finally, after several more shots, I set my camera down next to my wine glass and looked up with a smile.

Erik Kessels’ 24 hours of Flickr

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 30 Nov 2011 18:47:27 +0000

As part of its 10th anniversary celebration Foam, a photography museum in Amsterdam, is hosting "What's Next? The Future of the Photograph y Museum" an exhibition that investigates the direction of the physicality of photography in public spaces (as opposed to viewing it online). I'm especially impressed with Erik Kessels' contribution to the exhibit, which tackles the idea of "photography in abundance," and which (as you can see pictured above) might give a neat freak a heart attack. For his installation, Kessels printed out every single image posted on Flickr in a 24-hour period and then randomly distributed the million+ images throughout the museum space for a completely visually arresting experience (except for the person who has to clean all this up)...

“52 bunches of flowers I bought myself”

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 09 Nov 2011 18:15:07 +0000

Julia Schauenburg's photo series "52 bunches of flowers I bought myself" is one of the saddest art projects I've ever seen. This German-born, Australian-based photographer bought flowers for herself each week for an entire year and photographed them as they wilted and died. This project reminds me of something Liz Lemon might do if she was an artist instead of a lead writer for a fictional TV show. You can purchase these photos as a limited edition postcard set if you feel like sending your depressing thoughts around or, as an antidote, I recommend this photograph of a flower that might be the most joyous ever.

Otherworldly light paintings, sans digital manipulation

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 18:00:33 +0000

Over the past few years, with the widespread growth of both digital cameras and the blogosphere, there's been a rising trend among amateur and professional photographers experimenting with "light paintings" or rather, photographs in which a slow shutter speed captures a light source that is moved to create illuminated shapes and effects. Last year, I blogged here about Freddie Wong, an insanely popular YouTube filmmaker (his channel have over 2.4 million subscribers), who shot a crazy action sequence using this light painting technique...

Working Nikon camera aka best Halloween costume ever

Matthew Rodriguez — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 17:16:30 +0000

Making of the Camera Costume from Tyler Card on Vimeo.

Michigan-based photographer Tyler Card took his craft to the next (and very literal) level with a Halloween costume that should be submitted to Make's Halloween costume contest. With the help of Adam Barr, Tyler built this life-size costume of a Nikon D3 DSLR camera, which is impressive in and of itself, but what makes it mind-blowing is that it's a fully functional, working camera with a "LCD display, built-in flash, and shutter-release button."

Best of Kickstarter, 10/17

Blair Pfander — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 20:00:39 +0000

We scoured the pages of Kickstarter to bring you this week’s best projects. Have a great Kickstarter project of your own or see one you think deserves some extra attention? Let us know about it the comments and we may just feature it in our weekly roundup. FILM Last Bohemia: Those who saw last year's documentary on New York Times style photographer Bill Cunningham will remember the artist community living in lofts on top of Carnegie Hall, all of whom were evicted (Cunningham included) by the end of the film. A new documentary, LAST BOHEMIA, directed by Josef Astor - himself a former tenant of the Carnegie lofts - aims to document the community of actors, artists, dancers and musicians that were forced from their homes.

The uncanny world of Philipp Igumnov

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 20:15:03 +0000

I want to highlight Russian artist Philipp Igumnov and his intriguing collection of collages. His dream-like landscapes are oddly familiar; He takes an image as common as a family posing in a field and imbues it with a certain uncanny quality. My favorite is the one pictured above of a child leaping out of the back of a C-130 transport plane. It captures what it feels like to be a child joyously jumping into a pool, but Igumnov ups the stakes by launching the kid out the back of a plane.

Visiting North Korea with a Polaroid

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 12 Oct 2011 17:17:44 +0000

I have to admit the novelty of seeing photos snapped by Western photographers visiting North Korea, one of the world's most isolated locales, has worn off. I would argue that some photographers now almost fetishize the society's strict, barren and guarded nature. All those visits are tightly controlled by the state and its minders who restrict not only where the photographers can go, see, and who they talk to, but also the specific angle at which they take a photo. If taking a photo of Kim Jong Il, for example, you must do so standing directly in front of him. But Reuters photographer Carlos Barria traveled to North Korea and broke this mold...

Men-ups!

Em and Lo — Fri, 07 Oct 2011 17:05:58 +0000

We once did a photo shoot for The Sun, the super trashy but widely popular UK newspaper (you know, the one with the "Page 3 girl"). We were promoting the British edition of our book, The Big Bang. We were young and naive, the photographer was old and pushy, and as he gradually encouraged us to get into sillier and sillier poses, our publicist was there pressing us on. We felt like Coco in the original "Fame." Don't get us wrong: we were dressed. But at one point we reluctantly ended up on a bed with one of us holding the other's bare leg straight up in the air like a lightening rod. It was not what we'd consider sexy, feminine, or us. Fortunately, our inner horror must have radiated out of every pore, because they ultimately ran the article without the pics. (There was a God that day.)

Cirque du Soleil performers: before-and-after

Matthew Rodriguez — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 21:36:07 +0000

Los Angeles Times photographer Jay L. Clendenin took these portraits of the talented performers in the new LA-based Cirque du Soleil show "Iris," before and after their make-up and costume transformations (like Caroline Lauzon, pictured above). There's something so consistently fascinating about before-and-after photograph (which is probably why it's a staple in the direct marketers' tool bag, as in all those weight loss, anti-acne and hair loss infomercials). While we understand that there's a technical explanation for how the transformation took place, we're still always amazed at the makeover. On a slight tangent, but related to hair loss, one of my favorite jokes on this topic was delivered by comic Sheng Wang: "I'm a positive person. To me going bald isn't about hair loss. It's about FACE GAIN. It's exciting."

Famous photographs with Instagram filters

Matthew Rodriguez — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 19:48:04 +0000

In a fusion of the old and new, analog and digital, Mastergram is a relatively new Tumblr that takes iconic photographs and applies filters from the popular iPhone social app, Instagram. There's an irony in this exercise, which I find practically blasphemous, because many of the Instagram filters attempt to mimic a pre-digital quality and add a false sense of depth and artistry to often prosaic photos. I was pleased though to see on the site that my all-time favorite photographer Weegee is included. As I previously wrote here, I consider Weegee to be "the godfather of the 21st-century urban blogger."

How to dork out at your wedding without losing your cool

Em and Lo — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 17:00:20 +0000

These days it seems like there are more "unique" weddings than there are traditional ones -- nobody wants to get married like their parents did anymore. And thanks to the Internets, those of us who are less creative can take inspiration from others and steal the best ideas -- or just laugh at them in a gently condescending manner. (Like the insta-viral wedding entrance dance routines that you can't decide whether to love or hate.) But here's a set of actually unique wedding photos that we just plain love - because they're funny and dorky yet also artsy and beautiful (and how awesome is it that the bride gets to carry the shovel and deal the fatal blow?). We can just imagine this couple totally dorking out together over their shared zombie obsession. And what's more romantic than that? Here are some of our favorites (you can see more here).

Woody Allen having fun at The Met

Matthew Rodriguez — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 09:41:25 +0000

I absolutely love this photograph taken of Woody Allen at The Metropolitan Museum of Art by Ruth Orkin in 1963 for so many reasons. How do I love thee? Let me blog the ways.

A picture tells a thousand puns

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 31 Aug 2011 18:39:51 +0000

As a lover of puns (an unfortunate quality of mine for my pun-hating friends), I love this entry at Lenscratch, which compiled this ode to puns, intentional and otherwise, snapped by various photographers with a sense of humor. I especially like the 50 Cent image (above), taken "on the mean streets of Portland by Neil DaCosta. The painting elevates it to the realm of "art," but it does remind me a lot of the "sleeveface" phenomenon a while ago, where people photographed themselves holding record cover sleeves in a similar manner.

Ulric Collette’s “Genetic Portraits” fuse family members’ faces

Blair Pfander — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 16:30:15 +0000

Genetics are some kind of crazy, aren't they? Somehow, filtered through infinite chains of protein codons, I wound up with my mom's eyes and my dad's stubbornly straight hair, a strong resemblance to either parent obscured by vague similarities to both. In his new photo series, "Genetic Portraits", Quebecois photographer, Ulric Collette, elucidates the jumbled likenesses - both obvious and subtle - between family members by splitting their faces and digitally fusing them together. Occasionally, it seems as if he's fashioned entirely new relatives, Frankenstein-style, in the process.

Butt up, legs out: the photographs of Guy Bourdin

Perrin Drumm — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 18:03:22 +0000

See more sexy after the jump.

Guy Bourdin (1928-91) is one of those rare fashion photographers who straddled the line between art and commerce, ultimately leaving his mark in both worlds. Bourdin got an unusual start, receiving his first formal photographic training while serving in the military in Senegal in the late 40s. A few years later, when he came back to Paris, his photographs were exhibited in a show for which Man Ray wrote the catalogue's introduction - a helluva start for a newbie. He was quickly whisked away to French Vogue, where his love of Man Ray's surrealism made a marked impact on his fashion editorials.

Weekly Kickstarter Picks, 8/15/11

Perrin Drumm — Mon, 15 Aug 2011 16:30:19 +0000

We're starting off the week with our second batch of donation-worthy Kickstarter projects. What's this all about, you ask? Well, it seems like everyone is pitching their idea to Kickstarter. We think that's great, but with great power comes great responsibility, and while the 23-person Kickstarter team does their best to filter out the winning projects from the thousands and thousands of proposals they receive, there are still literally tens of thousands of new projects that launch each week. That's a lot of ways to spend your hard-earned five bucks. Too many ways, actually. How can one person sort through it all? Relax, we'll do it all for you, starting right now with this week's Kickstarter Picks.

Ezra Shaw’s unique perspective on divers

Matthew Rodriguez — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 20:00:42 +0000

This photo series, published in The Wall Street Journal and snapped by Getty Images photographer Ezra Shaw at the 14th FINA World Championships, would be smack in the middle of a Venn diagram charting fans of sports, photography, and "LOLs." Shaw pointed his lens at the these graceful divers and presented viewers with a slightly different perspective on the sport with a hilarious (unintentional at least from the athletes' perspective) result. Of course we admire their talents and poise as they slip into the water, like (bad analogy alert) a knife through butter, but I dare you to look at these photographs of them underwater and not laugh.

“The New York Times Magazine Photographs” goes beyond celebrity

Perrin Drumm — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 19:00:00 +0000

Cropped from the original

Celebrity portraiture can seem like an easy way for a photographer to make a buck, and maybe that's what makes it so challenging - to do something new and exciting in such well-trodden territory. Kathy Ryan, the director of photography at The New York Times Magazine, is such an avid proponent of the "good" celebrity portrait that she wrote a book on the subject, "The New York Times Magazine Photographs," a "wonderfully heavy" tome out next month, the result of six years of research poring through 1,700 issues of the magazine.

#BikeNYC photo series

Matthew Rodriguez — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 21:43:30 +0000

Flickr's official blog highlighted Dmitry Gudkov's photo project titled "#BikeNYC" that was inspired by his own personal transformative experience with how he engaged with New York City after he purchased a bicycle. He became curious about his fellow bicyclists and reached out to them, first through Twitter (hence the hashtag origin of the photo series' name) and began snapping portraits of New Yorkers with their bikes along with an accompanying profile. He explains:

Passport photos and reality

Matthew Rodriguez — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 21:20:09 +0000

"Passport and Reality" is a photography project by Suren Manvelyan and Biayna Mahari "about how different a person can look in real life and his own passport photo." The contrast is made all the more striking when you consider that passports often don't expire for years. Case in point: I don't think the guy pictured above grew into his features too early (pun totally intended). It's probably because most of the subjects are smiling in their non-passport photo, but reality seems so much more pleasant. I finally had to renew my passport last year and gladly forked over the money to the US government because it meant I could finally update the photo of me with the buzzed look I thought was a really swell idea back in college.

Exercise makes you ugly, and other important lessons from photographer Sacha Goldberger

Perrin Drumm — Tue, 02 Aug 2011 20:53:07 +0000

French photographer Sacha Goldberger assembled an indoor studio at the Bois de Bologne in Paris, a park two-and-a-half times the size of Central Park, where he stopped joggers mid-workout and asked them do a sprint and then pose for a portrait immediately afterwards. The result? We look wretched when we work out, a fact anyone whose eyes have ever wandered in the gym can attest to. But that wasn't the only point Goldberger wanted to make. After immortalizing his subjects' blotchy, red-faced, sweat-soaked visages on film, he asked them to come to his studio the following week, where, using the same lighting, the same pose and similarly-colored clothing he took another portrait.

Wedding photos from New York’s first day of legal gay marriage

Em and Lo — Fri, 29 Jul 2011 17:00:05 +0000

Our photographer friend David Jacobs (he took our deceptively flattering bio pic) was hired by Human Rights Campaign, a gay rights organization, to document New York's first day of legal gay marriage this past Monday at Manhattan's City Hall. HRC will soon have more on their site, but for now here's a round-up of the day's events by their National Field Director, Marty Rouse. And below is our friend Dave's take on events (he's not gay, but he's married and does rock the occasional pink shirt with flare), followed by more of his cool photos of the happy couples.

Caption this photo of a whale shark

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 20:56:41 +0000

Photographer Mauricio Handler snapped this remarkable photograph of a whale shark feeding near Isla Mujeres, Mexico for National Geographic piece on one of the largest swarms of whale sharks ever spotted in 2009. Lucky for the diver in this picture that they only feast on plankton and tiny fish eggs.

Tom Wolfe and Kurt Vonnegut chilling

Matthew Rodriguez — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 16:50:50 +0000

I figure this photo of authors Tom Wolfe and Kurt Vonnegut sharing a lifeguard seat is apropos selfishly for the fact that I’m at the beach today and soaking in this awesome 100 degree New York heat. The other thing I find interesting about this photo is that Tom Wolfe isn’t outfitted in his trademark [...]

Dear Photograph

Matthew Rodriguez — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 22:00:46 +0000

Dear Photograph is an evocative user submitted website that displays juxtaposed photographs overlaying the past and present with an often poignant impact, such as the example above.

Glamour of the Gods

Perrin Drumm — Thu, 14 Jul 2011 19:45:03 +0000

Back before tabloid photography played such a major role in shaping the reputations of the Hollywood set, actors relied on real photography (i.e. the posed, carefully lit, artfully angled, softly focused studio portrait) to promote themselves. Far more than just a headshot, these portraits had a major impact on an actor's career. Take Jean Harlow. She went from being an uncredited bit plater to a stunning leading lady opposite James Cagney in THE PUBLIC ENEMY - virtually overnight - as the result of a particularly good portrait. Harlow was just 20-years-old and fresh off the bus from Kansas City, but under the lens of master photographers like George Hurrell and Clarence Sinclair Bull, she was transformed into the blonde bombshell we know her as today.

Matthias Heiderich’s Berlin

Bradford Shellhammer — Wed, 13 Jul 2011 17:32:16 +0000

I am obsessed with Matthias Heiderich’s cropped square photos of Berlin’s buildings. Using color and composition, the photographer creates patterns and abstract images that may not obviously be architecture and the city’s skylines. Having just returned from Berlin last week it’s quite remarkable just how perfectly he captures the modern feel and cool, geometric shapes of [...]

Photo series of people texting

Matthew Rodriguez — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 22:00:17 +0000

Joe Holmes snapped this amusing photo series succinctly titled “Texters,” which focuses its lens on various residents of New York City texting. [Via]

Ai Weiwei’s photos of New York City

Matthew Rodriguez — Fri, 08 Jul 2011 17:10:19 +0000

Currently on display at NYC’s Asia Society Museum are a selection of 227 photographs (curated from thousands) snapped by artist Ai Weiwei of daily life during his residency here in the Big Apple in the 1980s. This is the first exhibition of his NYC photographs outside of Beijing. “Mr. Ai worked as a street artist [...]

Hipster party, circa 1905

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 06 Jul 2011 17:21:37 +0000

Everything about this photo suggests it could have been taken at a gathering of hipster bros just last weekend in Bushwick: mustached, skinny jeans enjoying a pig roast and drinking PBR. Even the grainy quality of the picture gives it an Instagram-esque vibe that would fit in well at such a party (and quickly shared [...]

Recreated covers of romance novels

Matthew Rodriguez — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 16:25:36 +0000

With the assistance of photographer Oli Kellett behind the lens and her boyfriend Ross as a model, Alex Holder recreated a series of real life portraitures imitating the saccharine covers of romance novels published by Mills & Boon. I’m sure her boyfriend was absolutely thrilled to partake in her project. It reminds me a bit [...]

Photo series: Switcheroos

Matthew Rodriguez — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 16:48:45 +0000

I’m really liking Vancouver based photographer Hana’s ongoing photo series “Switcheroos” that juxtaposes identically posed photos of two people after they’ve swapped each other’s clothing. There’s a subtext here that seems to touch upon or critique issues of normative expectations of gender lines, but really I can’t get over how hilarious the dude looks in [...]

Scaffolding without the building

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 22:24:01 +0000

Living in a city where at times it seems half the buildings are hidden under gross scaffolding, I appreciate the alternative perspective presented by Vienna-based artist Liddy Scheffknecht in this photo series where “all architectural elements except the scaffolding were removed from the photograph of a building under renovation.”

Caleb Charland’s light photography

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 22 Jun 2011 15:30:16 +0000

Artist Caleb Charland creates some great light photography, such as the one above with lighters. His pictures are even more impressive considering that they are are created in-camera and without any other digital manipulation or touch-up. [Via]

My Daguerreotype Boyfriend

Em and Lo — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 17:00:20 +0000

We’ve been bemoaning the lackadaisical nature of blog creation these days: theme+culled images+captions=instablog! Just as there is a site for every sexual fetish (giantesses, anyone?), there is a site for every combination of mild interests and/or hobbies and/or pet peeves. Last week it was Awesome People Hanging Out Together; this week it’s My Daguerreotype Boyfriend [...]

Award-winning photograph of 6 year old swimming with his pet shark

Matthew Rodriguez — Thu, 09 Jun 2011 17:55:51 +0000

Photographer James Morgan snapped this remarkable photo of six-year-old Enal having a blast in the ocean waters below his family's "stilted house in Wangi, Indonesia" with his PET SHARK. If that isn't the look of pure childhood joy then I don't know what is.

Mind-blowing Tetris gameplay

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 15:53:17 +0000

I used to think I was pretty good at Tetris, but this gameplay video of grandmaster Jin8 playing an arcade version of this classic game let me know that I'm just a mere mortal with a pea-brain sized capacity for this game.

The Best Street Photographer You’ve Never Heard Of

Matthew Rodriguez — Thu, 02 Jun 2011 16:48:22 +0000

As an enormous fan of candid street photography (discovering Cartier-Bresson and Weegee née Arthur Fellig years ago was a revelation for me), I was blown away by both the background story and photographs of Vivian Maier or as Mother Jones described her: "the best street photographer you've never heard of." Maier lived a relatively obscure and anonymous life as a nanny in New York City and then Chicago from the 1950s through 1990s. Never married, her constant companion through her life was her Rolleiflex camera which she used frequently, but apparently she never shared her work with others. It wasn't until 2007 when John Maloof, 26, purchased a box of Maier's negatives at an auction house that they came to light. Taken with the quality, he sought out others and ended up collecting more than 100,000 negatives as well as a few thousand rolls of film.

Pictures by a Reuters photojournalist of a harrowing flight that nearly crashed

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 16:47:31 +0000

When the flight he was on with his wife and kids from Singapore to Jakarta experienced a scary malfunction that threatened to crash the plane, this Reuters photojournalist calmly documented the ordeal and shared the photos and experience on a Reuters blog. During my many years of assignments as a Reuters photojournalist, when flying I [...]

Mailman photo project

Matthew Rodriguez — Tue, 31 May 2011 19:26:15 +0000

USPS mailman Ryan Bradford has been documenting and snapping photos of the various “friendly” neighborhood pet dogs he encounters during his routes. I doubt this will be optioned any time soon by Disney for a family friendly animated film. [Via]

Long exposure airplane photography

Matthew Rodriguez — Thu, 26 May 2011 21:38:37 +0000

Terence Chang has a great Flickr photoset of long exposure composite photographs he snapped of take-offs and landings at San Francisco airport from various vantage points around the city. Speaking of San Francisco: I’d pay a lot of money right now for a Mission district burrito, which incidentally has its own Wikipedia page. [Via]

Incredible Nat Geo photograph

Matthew Rodriguez — Thu, 19 May 2011 21:47:51 +0000

What you’re seeing above is not a painting – a fact my feeble mind can barely comprehend. It’s actually a photograph taken in Namibia by Frans Lanting for National Geographic: Tinted orange by the morning sun, a soaring dune is the backdrop for the hulks of camel thorn trees in Namib-Naukluft Park. [Hat tip @doctorklein]

Photographer Ellen Kooi at PPOW Gallery

Perrin Drumm — Thu, 12 May 2011 19:00:53 +0000

The work of Dutch photographer Ellen Kooi is as dramatic as it is mysterious. Like her previous work, Kooi's latest set of photographs, "Out of Sight," is set in a variety of natural landscapes in the Netherlands. These images are over-saturated and hyperreal, often highlighting the struggle between man and nature. A small group of people pick their way across bleak terrain or a solitary figure fights with or acquiesces to the mysterious forces of nature. She favors highly stylized scenes with a single child or adolescent, always in a desolate landscape - a forest, a swamp, a prairie.

Stitched Vogue covers

Matthew Rodriguez — Tue, 03 May 2011 20:34:41 +0000

Inge Jacobsen, a photography student at London’s Kingston University, has gained a lot of recent attention for her intricately cross-stitched Vogue covers. The artist explains: With the over saturation of images, my practice seeks to intervene in this overwhelming consumption from the mass produced and alter it to create something unique. By using intricate and, [...]

This is art: color-coded grocery shopping

Matthew Rodriguez — Mon, 02 May 2011 22:28:14 +0000

I love Marco Ugolini’s photo series “Per Color” (in collaboration with Pedro Motto) that highlights color-coded grocery shopping at a local supermarket in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. The artist explains: I see the supermarket space as a space of manipulation. The attempt, in this action, is to subvert this structure of power…None of the products have [...]

The difficulties of photographing Japan

Perrin Drumm — Mon, 18 Apr 2011 17:15:53 +0000

It's been more than one month since the 9.0 earthquake hit Japan, and the nuclear implications only seem to grow more harrowing by the day. Photographs documenting the disaster abound, and among the most striking are those by AP photographer David Guttenfelder, who lives in Japan with his family. He was away on an assignment when the earthquake hit but rushed back on the next flight he could get, not only to be with his family but to photograph the wreckage awaiting him at home.

Missing persons: the photography of Luca Zanier

Perrin Drumm — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 22:03:58 +0000

The space that started it all, Communist Party HQ in Paris.

It took just one look at the impressive interior of the Oscar Niemeyer-designed Communist Party headquarters for the so-called idea bulb to flash on in photographer Luca Zanier. Zanier, who just happened to be in Paris, decided to take a look inside the stunning building while it was empty. That's when "the idea started. Immediately." Spaces like the Communist Party HQ are imbued with meaning because of the building's purpose, the people who've spoken in its halls and the important decisions made there. But what happens when the conference is over, the people go home and a once vibrant room is left empty?

Our lives are spent trying to pixellate a fractal planet

Matthew Rodriguez — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 17:34:19 +0000

I love the caption one Tumblr wrote to accompany this picture from a breathtaking Guardian series of NASA satellite images that “reveal the diversity of agricultural patterns as seen from space.” It’ll be your moment of meaningfulness today. As this photograph of a Dubai golf course being reclaimed by the dessert demonstrates: despite or in [...]