Fine art, painting, photography, mixed media, sculpture
Google takes its street view concept to the world’s top museums:
Cameras mounted on a special trolley travelled through empty galleries after the public had left, taking 360 degree images of selected rooms which were then stitched together. So far 385 rooms are navigable, and more will be added.
Rock Gods: Forty Years of Rock Photography by Robert M. Knight is a diverse collection of photos that span his entire career. He’s taken pictures of Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Rolling Stones, Jeff Beck and many more.
He focuses on lead guitarists, and his body of work shows that, especially with his live concert shots. Knight excels at the live concert photography. He says his approach is like a journalist or someone doing a documentary, where looking at the photos afterward they come to life in a more visceral way.
In Rock Gods, he tells stories about some of his memorable shoots. Greeting Led Zeppelin in Hawaii as they walk off they plane carrying the master reels to Led Zeppelin II. Meeting Jeff Beck for the first time, after years of trying. And as he’s known for, being the last photographer to shoot Stevie Ray Vaughn.
After paging through the book, I wanted more. More of his old concert shots, more of his more recent work. For photographers, viewing Knight’s work can tell a lot about composition and lighting–what worked, what moment created that visceral feeling you get from a concert photo.
Digital Masters: People Photography: Capturing Lifestyle for Art & Stock (A Lark Photography Book) by Nancy Brown is perfect for the Mom With A Camera crowd, who own a digital SLR and want to get into the portrait business. The tone of the book isn’t overly technical, and what technical aspects are mentioned are basic so that one can have a working understanding of equipment. Her tip of having a reflector for outdoor, sunny portraits will help a lot of people. For the most part, she focuses on the process and how to approach the shoots. The sample shots look like stock photos (which is one area she specializes in) of children or people in their 50s, 60s or 70s.
As I rise and stretch, I notice I’m sore. Not from tending the fields though. I have no fields. Some unseen person does all the field-tending for me. Sometimes I forget that there’s any field-tending going on at all.
Ballerinas are all the rage at the moment. Black Swan, New York Times critic Alastair Maccaulay stating that one dancer, Jenifer Ringer, “eaten one sugar plum too many” for a recent production of the Nutcracker. And now Joe McNally, famed photographer, comes to her defense.
Joe took portraits of Jenifer with a giant, 40×80 Polaroid camera on his own dime. He knew she possessed the poise and grace to keep her composure for the length of time needed to get a decent shot.
You also could not focus the camera. You had to focus your subject. Small shuffles back and forth would place them in that tiny zone of critical sharpness. Then they had to hold that position for about 30 seconds while the interior workings of the camera got spooled up, the lights got shut, and the flash fired. Not easy to do. Especially on point.
But Joe recognizes an artist whose body is their art.
It’s been equally wonderful to watch from afar as she has fought through personal struggles, dropped out of dance for a while, and then returned to the stage as a principal dancer. She has always talked straight up about the life of a ballerina, and her struggles with her weight. Her talent and candor, I feel, make her a beacon in the dance world, which prefers to keep the pain, the anorexia, the sweat and the tears behind the curtain. Ballerinas look amazing on stage. Offstage, their bodies can be just as beat up as an NFL offensive lineman.
An intimate portrait of the carousel horse. Vol. 1 — Southern California is a vintage, specialized photography book from 1982. John R. Cook photographed carousel horses. The copy I looked through contained no forward or afterward to detail what the intimate portraits were attempting to achieve.
Most of the photos appear to be snapshots and seemingly, there are such subtle differences that the horses are indistinguishable. Perhaps this book could serve as a reference for carousel horses, but these pictures appear about as intimate as the results you’d get from grandma at the family reunion learning how to use her disposable camera.
Denis Dutton gave a TED talk about beauty from the perspective of Darwin. In it, beauty is a representation of the best possible outcome, be it animals (rabbits), art, a soccer kick and on and on. We’re hardwired to recognize beauty, despite its subjectivity.
Logo Design Love: A Guide to Creating Iconic Brand Identities by David Airey is a conceptual how-to book on how to create logos and brand identities.
Numerous examples are provided from big names such as Kellogg and FedEx to small design shops or the Whaling Museum. The examples are explained clearly and concisely, deconstructing the visuals as to how and why they work. The third chapter is key to this approach, detailing the Elements of Iconic Design.
If you’re new to design or own your own company and need help getting a brand identity and logo, this would be a good place to start. The caveat is that it will help if you have an understanding of elements of design or art. E.g. color theory, line, proportion, what conveys what message. Nor is this a tool book. Photoshop and Illustrator are mentioned in passing.
This is an ideas book to showcase the process of taking art and design fundamentals and using them to create a visual identity.
Brian Barrel of Gizmodo spots Hipstamatic photos on the NY Times front page.
When NYT photog Damon Winter went to northern Afghanistan to catalog the efforts of the First Battalion, 87th Infantry of the 10th Mountain Division, he took all the fancy camera equipment you would expect. He’d shoot video of firefights with a Canon EOS 5D Mark II, sure. But he also grabbed still photos using Hipstamatic, an app that lets you choose among a huge selection of filters…
As he notes, this isn’t the first time a Hipstamatic photograph has been published by a major publication. The publishing of such photos is significant for the following reasons:
Chase Jarvis preaches that The Best Camera Is The One That’s With You. Sure, you can lug two Canon 5Ds, one with a 35mm prime and another with a 28-200mm 2.8 zoom, and with that weight you’re going to get quality shots. But the iPhone (and other cell phone cameras) with various apps for editing and processing photos, is making the investment in gear moot. In the case of war photography, the thought of a photographer following a platoon with only an iPhone seems comical, however, in a connected era, telling the story as it happens or as soon as it happens becomes paramount. The work flow–take picture, edit as needed, upload to photo desk–to do this now can happen in minutes. Photographers of the Civil War didn’t have that work flow capability.
The instant work flow, coupled with the photo editing apps in an iPhone, a photographer can file a photo that has a distinct, editorial feel. Photographers who know their craft can capture photos in camera without any editing, but normally, photos edited beyond basic cropping and dodging and burning receive the note “photo illustration.” So what’s being illustrated? The story or what photographer or the editor wants the story to be or the reader to feel? This is a tricky line, a line that photojournalism has always run against. Photography is an art to evoke feeling, and photojournalism is an art to capture events to evoke feeling. As one Gizmodo commenter, OrtizDupri, states,
I can guarantee you, nothing I saw in my 16 months in Iraq looked like the view through a Lomo or Holga camera. The reality of war isn’t meant to be vintage colors and soft edges.
Fine Art Photography: Water, Ice and Fog by Tony Sweet showcases photographs of of water in its three states. Yes, there are great shots, but this book is a how-to book. Sweet discusses the composition of the shot and the elements of photography that went into it. What lens was used, at what aperture, at what time of day with what filter. His writing style is direct and to the point and instructional. Novices and advanced photographers should be able to get something out of this book.