Matt Logue undertook a 4-year project to create a series of a people-less Los Angeles. Here is a photo showing the infamous 405 freeway and part of the 105 freeway. On Thursday afternoons, this route is a nightmare to take.
Masataka Nakano did a similar project featuring Tokyo, another one of my favorite cities.
Link: Empty LA
At the heart of the genre of portrait photography lies the particular challenge of expressing the personality of the portrayed by means of a mechanical medium… Portrait photography of famous people plays constantly with the viewer’s expectations, which are based on the celebrities’ status… [Sheryl] Nields’ portraits of Scarlett Johansson invite the viewer to be an accomplice in a coquettishly seductive moment in which the actress knowingly and ironically flaunts her sex appeal.
Links:
Lumas
Sheryl Nields Phtography
This is my favorite from this year’s National Geographic International Photography Contest.
Photo taken and captioned by Cesare Naldi
Nazroo, a mahout (elephant driver), poses for a portrait while taking his elephant, Rajan, out for a swim in front of Radha Nagar Beach in Havelock, Andaman Islands. Rajan is one of the few elephants in Havelock that can swim, so when he is not dragging timber in the forest he is used as a tourist attraction. The relationship between the mahout and his elephant usually lasts for their entire lives, creating an extremely strong tie between the animal and the human being.
Links:
Cesare Naldi
National Geographic International Photography Contest
Picked up another beautiful picture for my wall.
In August of 2008, as part of his Women project, JR went to Morro da Providêcia, one of the most dangerous favelas (shantytown) in Rio de Janeiro, and posted huge photos of faces and eyes of 20 women all over on the outside of 40 houses.
This series of works pay tribute to “those who play an essential role in society, but who are the primary victims of war, crime, rape or political and religious fanaticism.”
Recently, JR exhibited a selection of his Women Are Heroes work around Île Saint-Louis, in Paris, France. I told EM about it, since she’s there now for school. I’ll have to ask if she got the chance to visit.
Link: Women Are Heroes
i just picked up a print of one of JR’s seminal works to hang on my wall, The Holy Tryptich. It’s smart, it gels with my outlook on life, and it puts a smile on my face – i adore this kind of art.
The message is clear: Regardless of religious and political affiliation, we are all the same.
Try this on for size….
Since 1972, the Himalayan nation of Bhutan adopted an economic policy that stressed wellbeing and the quality of its citizens’ lives, termed Gross National Happiness (GNH), over material growth, or Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
The idea of General National Happiness rests on four pillars: economic self-reliance, a pristine environment, the preservation and promotion of Bhutan’s culture, and good governance in the form of a democracy.
Sounds pretty cool. I could get behind that.
Random Fact: The current King of Bhutan, Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuk, is the same age as me.
Links:
Ann Muller (where the photo in this post came from)
Gross National Happiness: Centre of Bhutan Studies
The Kingdon of Bhutan
This is No. 5 from the Liaison Erotiques Series, 2006/2007.
In this serie Liaisons Erotiques, shot for a calender for Lambertz, we encounter a Gabo combining style, fashion, self-confident women, eroticism, and sensuality. Remarkable are the interiors in which she places her models; it has absolutely nothing in common with the “typical German” coolness associated with German style. On the contrary, the scenery incorporates elements of an ornamental delight that appeared a few years ago in the scene of art photography as well. Gabo’s talent is to create scenes of intimacy. They inspire us to fantasize about what might have happened in the moments before the photograph was taken, and what might happen a moment later. Which “plot” came to life? How will the story continue? Gabo’s view is female and her view of passion, sensuality, and erotic self representation never turns into embarrassment, but rather everything seems to be staged by the women themselves and therefore natural and self – evident.
Link: Gabo
One day, I will need to visit.
Picture taken by David Hiepler and Fritz Brunier.
Just picked this up off of Amazon. As an unabashed people-watcher, I had to.
Scott Schuman just wanted to take photographs of people that he met on the streets of New York who he felt looked great.
His now-famous and much-loved blog, thesartorialist.com, is his showcase for the wonderful and varied sartorial tastes of real people across the globe. This book is a beautiful anthology of Scott’s favorite images, accompanied by his insightful commentary. It includes photographs of well-known fashion figures alongside people encountered on the street whose personal style and taste demand a closer look.
From the streets of New York to the parks of Florence, from Stockholm to Paris, from London to Moscow and Milan, these are the men and women who have inspired Scott and the many diverse and fashionable readers of his blog.
After fifteen years in the fashion business, Scott Schuman felt a growing disconnect between what he saw on the runways and in magazines, and what real people were wearing. The Sartorialist was his attempt to redress the balance. Since its beginning, the blog has become hugely admired and influential in the fashion industry and beyond. Thesartorialist.com is consistently named one of the top blogs in the world. A self-taught photographer, Schuman shoots for publications including French Vogue, American GQ, Fantastic Man and Elle, and a growing list of advertising clients. Scott has also shown his work at the New York photo gallery The Danziger Projects and appeared in the GAP Style Icon campaign in the fall of 2008. He has been named the number one fashion photography trend by American Photo magazine, as well as one of Time magazine’s top 100 design influencers.
