Posts tagged photography
Doctored photographs are the least of our worries. If you want to trick someone with a photograph, there are lots of easy ways to do it. You don’t need Photoshop. You don’t need sophisticated digital photo-manipulation. You don’t need a computer. All you need to do is change the caption.
—Errol Morris, documentary filmmaker, NYTimes.com
"Eiffel Tower, Paris," by Mojca Vilfan :: via Intelligent Travel
I like how this is an upside-down perspective, but also from above. And -- totally tangentially -- the patterns in the sand remind me of: the story of Jesus and the Woman Caught in Adultery; the propensity of elephants (at least bored zoo elephants) to pick up sticks with their trunks and doodle in the dust; and, bringing it back home, Andy's elegant description of the ever-widening circle of bare earth made by his kids' dragging feet beneath the swing in his yard.
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"Fruteria on the corner of Billinghurst and Mansilla" (Buenos Aires, Argentina), by Thomas Locke Hobbs, 1 August 2008
Of this photo, my friend Thomas writes: "Talk about a special pineapple! The straw that outlines the shape of this fruta elegida reminds me of a shimmering believer from some El Greco painting." Indeed. I love the amount of care that must go in to the daily arranging and rearranging of these displays -- click through to the original photo to see it in its full-sized glory.
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"Untitled" (Stedelijk Museum 1, 2008), by Pasquale Ottaiano :: via FILE Magazine
I'm not sure I'm as into this particular painting as this young woman in the photo, but I love the depiction of art-contemplation -- and the bodily symmetry: is the art falling into her, or is she falling into the art? I also appreciate the fact that she's away from the museum description on the wall, taking it in on her own (well, and the bench-placement-department's) terms.
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"Billboards no.02," giclee photo print on aluminum (2008), by Branislav Kropilak :: via Cool Hunting
I love Kropilak's beautiful (though admittedly severe) photos of the infrastructure of advertising, a reminder that bilboards aren't just about the surface.
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"Tarzan and Jan," Baden Württemberg, Germany, by Jan Von Holleben, from the series Dreams of Flying (2001-2007) :: via Flak Photo
I love this series of photos because even though it's a simple and obvious visual joke, it gets at one of the wonders of being a kid, the simultaneous limitation (after all, you're just a kid) and creative possibility.
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photo 
A sea of technology
A sea of technology
detail from a photo by Jae C. Hong (AP), from "Obama's Berlin speech appears to resonate with crowd," Los Angeles Times, 25 July 2008
Like most of you, I saw, and didn't give much thought to, the now-pretty-much-cliche'd photo-from-behind of Obama giving his speech to the crowd in Berlin this week. But when I went back to it and zoomed in, I had the following thoughts: 1) Hey laptop-guy, way to improvise! 2) I'll bet you 500 billion Zimbabwe dollars that this is the most front-page coverage Angola has gotten in the US since, ever; and 3) everybody's holding up a digital camera! I suppose that shouldn't be that surprising, but up close it's like this sea of technology superimposed on (or rather, above -- can you imagine this photo with old-style, press-to-face viewfinder cameras?) the expected sea of humanity.
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from The Prayer Book of Claude de France, illuminated pocket manuscript, c.1517, at The Morgan Library & Museum, New York City :: via BibliOdyssey
The hands in the photo seem to be mainly for demonstrative purposes but I love the gesture all the same.
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photo Underground beauty
Underground beauty
from "Tunnel of Beauty," by Jeff Shinabarger, 21 July 2008
Photo by Brian Murphy of a tunnel in Atlanta where graffiti artists have created what Jeff Shinabarger calls "a free haven of true and raw creative talent." Part of a collaboration between Brian and Jeff—and, in a real way, with the unseen graffiti artists themselves.
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NASA photo :: via the Boston Globe's The Big Picture blog.
A photo from the Apollo 16 mission, Charles Duke's family portrait. I love the juxtaposition of the iconic and the personal -- and the plastic bag protecting the photo.
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“Mona Lisa Fever”, by Rehan Shaikh, 2008 :: via FILE Magazine
A prime example of the way that digital cameras are changing the way we look at things—it isn't as real when you aren't watching it on a screen.
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"Sections of a Happy Moment," by David Claerbout, 2007, at Galerie Micheline Szwajcer, Antwerp and Yvon Lambert, Paris and New York :: via lens culture
I love how the game and social, inter-generational connection emerges in spite of a not-that-hospitable brutalist urban setting.
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"Billboard Homes," by Andrew Phelps, 2006, from the book Higley :: via lens culture
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"Carillon, Amsterdam, September 2006," by David Urbano, at Les Rencontres d'Arles Photographie :: via lens culture
I like the idea of looking at old/complex/quaint/obsolete from over the shoulders of a child -- and how she's returning the carillon's gesture, in a way.
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