Hey Noodlers,
It’s been a while since I’ve posted something here, but I believe this will inspire and make us feel what the essence of photography really is. Well, at least it did to me.
This is a short video with Ben Lowy, a photojournalist who’s work is definitely something that is worth to spend some time on.
http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid271548326?bctid=1875337398
As I mentioned in my last post ( Tour Around Flickr: Art Deco ) Flickr is the biggest photo site, bar none. Due to the sheer masses of content on the site, there’s stacks of photos for pretty much every category. This time, we’re going back to the turn of the century, and checking out Art Nouveau.
This first post shows off a lot of the defining factors of the movement. Arched, glazed windows are a common trait of a a lot of classic buildings styled this way.
Flickr is my favorite site. I don’t spend that much time on it. I have an account, but I never really take the time to browse the masses of photos on there. So, tonight, I broke the trend and picked an art style and see what the masses of aspiring (and pro) photographers classed as ‘Art Deco’.
I’ve checked out the first few pages of search, sorted by ‘Interesting’. Here’s a few that jumped out at me :
Just thought about posting this video from Atlanta based editorial and commercial photographer Zack Arias, a bit out of topic here, but I found it exhilarating..
If you’re lucky enough, you’ve likely caught one of these videos kicking around on TV or the Web. They’re directed by the French animator So Me, whose fairly hard-to-find site/photoblog is here.
Besides a very un-google friendly psuedonym, So Me boasts some of the coolest animation-friendly art styles, which lends itself perfectly to music videos. Apart from the above Justice clip, there’s also a huge amount of his work here. The standout, for me, is this :
Hey Noodlers,
Today I would like to share with you the work of Scott Hansen (aka ISO50/Tycho) a San Francisco based musician, designer, photographer and blogger. His blog iso50.com inspired Noodle Creative for its concept of multiple field blog, and after the discussion with ell regarding creative individuals being able to spread among different fields I thought about sharing this extremely talented all around artist.
I found this last night. I was so excited I couldn’t even sleep until 3am because I was too busy meandering my way through the most incredible archive of typographic genius I’ve found in a long time! Such is life.
Collated by one Christian Annyas, the Movie Title Stills Collection is a comprehensive selection of beautiful graphic work that most likely goes unappreciated for the 5-or-less-seconds it appears. (And yet hardly any Saul Bass to be seen!)
Annyas claims he started the database for the benefit of future generations. So if you are lacking for inspiration, perhaps pay this lovely site a visit and validate all his hard work. Its joyful!
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Hey Noodlers, today I’d like to continue to investigate into a question which is damn important to all of us: quality.
In this previous post I put into comparison two fashion photographers, thier work and the quality of the final print. The image that you see at the beginning of the post is Simon Harsent’s, a photographer that I had the luck to meet few months ago and who really inspired me. Here’s another photograph which has been used for the last WWF campaign, and after that a Greenpeace advertisment dated mid ’90. I’ll leave considerations about impact of postproduction on picture quality to your personal judgment.
Hi there!
I’m Elizabeth, and I’m a visual fiend.
I consume visual material at an absurd rate, its what I collect, what inspires me, what I surround myself with everyday. I just really like looking at stuff, and as the proud possessor of 1000 pictures of various rocks & minerals (my best estimate), 500 of clouds, 600 of mountains or skyscrapers, and at least 1500 pictures of various bits of typography, I think my own resources of visual inspiration are beginning to rival even that of the digital cabinet of wonders, Ffffound. Or, if not quite at that point yet, they are at least the best and most eloquent expression of my personality that I could put in front of you. They are also something that I think of as an expression of my creativity, notwithstanding the fact that I didn’t ever create any of this imagery. Something of an articulation-through-collation.
It’s too easy to worry though, that a reliance on outside imagery, on other’s peoples creative visions, shows up a weak spot in my design ability. I get passionate about other peoples work, and try to channel that into what I’m interested in myself.. but maybe I should be having my ideas out of thin air.
Any design in the world is shot through with references, allusions, visual languages, in a huge mess of cultural echoes. It’s not surprising; graphic design, or for that matter any design in my opinion, seems to operate as a sort of visual “fluid”, linking together other cultural products, keeping them circulating, promoting them, challenging them, inspiring them. I read an interesting article by Jonathan Letham, The ecstasy of influence; A plagarism (it’s a long haul, but worth it. I’d reccommend skimming it, if nothing else), the most eye-catching sentence of which was for me; ”most artists are converted to art by art itself.” That is to say, looking at the work of others you admire serves to inspire you to greater heights. “Neurological study has lately shown that memory, imagination, and consciousness itself is stitched, quilted, pastiched. If we cut-and-paste our selves,” Letham goes on to ask, “might we not forgive it of our artworks?” So is digital sampling is an design technique in itself?
The sad side effect to the investment of time and effort that we spend pastiching ourselves up a unique style is the ease by which this style can be adapted by someone else. Which is not such a bad thing, unless your identity as a designer-author is irrevocably linked to that style, allowing your identity to be claimed by anyone who can be bothered.
But we can be better than that. By fearlessly trying out and appraising the more topical aspects of style, we can create an identity that is greater than the sum of the parts of our aesthetics. By skirting a single, driven aesthetic in favor of a more broad-spectrum approach, the bodies of work we create will reveal subtle but pivotal common threads, which will add up to a definite je ne sais quoi that over time will become plain to see.
It’s more so much more fun this way, anyway. Totally.
And, just for you, some of my absolute favourite sources of inspiration & visual silliness;
http://supermassiveblackhole.tumblr.com/
http://risingtensions.tumblr.com/
Hit the local supermarket carpark on Monday evening. Grabbed a speedlight, a cheap-as-hell Yongnuo and some friends. The idea was to keep the flashes as far behind the targets as possible, to light the edges of the peopel and to keep the flares out of frame. In the pullback above, you can see the setup is fairly straightforward.
© 2010 Noodle.
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