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Adorama’s opens up ‘Perspective,’ the first of its new photo contest series for US residents

22 May

U.S. camera retailer Adorama has opened a competition as part of it’s ‘Create No Matter What’ campaign in which photographers based on the U.S can win a Canon EOS RP kit worth $ 3000. The theme for the contest is Perspective, but you’ll need to move quickly as the closing date is 27th May.

The store is running the campaign with an ongoing series of competitions to encourage creative people to remain active during the lockdown, and says it aims to inspire photographers, videographers, designers and audio artists while many may find it hard to work or enjoy their hobby.

The Perspective Challenge though is a photographic contest, and entrants are allowed to put forward up to five images. Judges will be looking for ‘adherence/appropriateness to the challenge theme, originality of expression, composition, lighting, and visual and emotional impact’.

The prize is a Canon EOS RP body and Canon RF 24-105mm f/4 L IS USM Lens along with a Manfrotto Befree Live aluminum tripod with fluid head, a Moment variable ND filter, a ProGrade Digital 256GB SD camera and a Peak Design backpack to put it all in.

For more information, and to enter, see the Create No Matter What page of the Adorama website.

Press release:

Adorama Announces #CreateNoMatterWhat Creative Challenge Series

First Challenge Theme: Perspective Offers Photographers a Chance to Win a Canon Camera Package

Adorama, the trusted source for market-leading photo, video, audio, and computer equipment and information, announced today the “Create No Matter What: Perspective Challenge” photography contest. Revealed by travel, outdoor and adventure photographer Nathan Lee Allen, the Perspective Challenge asks photographers to show how they create a different perspective of their art, for a chance to win a Canon EOS RP camera prize package worth more than $ 3,000.

“With more than 50 million impressions and even more engaged users, our #CreateNoMatterWhat campaign has really hit a high note within our community. To keep the positive momentum flowing, we are excited to launch a series of themed creative challenges and will be rewarding our community with really amazing prizes!” said Mary-Irene Marek, Director of Content and Social Media for Adorama. “Our first challenge is all about perspective within photography. Whether you’re capturing life from a different angle or using props to create a whole new environment, you’re using perspective to tell the story.”

Adorama’s #CreateNoMatterWhat campaign is a community-based hashtag to engage with and encourage creatives to create, learn, and think outside the box. Whether it’s photography, videography, audio, design or editing, #CreateNoMatterWhat challenges creators to keep their creativity flowing and to continue their passions while at home.

To enter the Perspective Challenge, photographers should submit a completed online entry form and up to five photographs that demonstrate their talents, skills and vision. Winners will be selected based on the following criteria: adherence/appropriateness to the challenge theme, originality of expression, composition, lighting, and visual and emotional impact.

The Perspective Challenge is open now through May 27th at 11:59 PM ET. The winner will be announced on May 29th at 12 p.m. ET.

To learn more about the Perspective Challenge and enter up to five images for a chance to win, visit www.adorama.com/cnmw.

Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)

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Build & Unbuild in 1 Day: Deconstructable Prefab House Moves with its Residents

17 Feb

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

mobile prefab

No stakes to pull up or new foundation to pour for owners of his prefabricated dwelling, an open-plan home designed to be built, taken apart, moved and reconstructed on demand. Its factory-made components can be shipped between sites, assembled in under eight hours and taken apart just as quickly. Disassemble, reassemble — it’s that easy.

detail prefab

Most campers and other mobile micro-homes come with a built-in problem: they can only be so large and still move easily from one site to the next. Designed by Kodasema, an Estonian collective, this house aims to bridge the gap between conventional domiciles and portable retreats.

prefab forest

The so-called KODA features a lofted bedroom, open-plan living space and requires only a 270-square-foot site for deployment. “When choosing where to live however,” note the architects, “we may take risks. It can be difficult to make major changes to a conventional home as inconvenient and extensive repairs are often involved, or even full demolition and reconstruction.” In short: their solution is efficient, economic and also ecological, optimizing use of time and materials while allowing for flexibility.

box home

“In our minds KODA can become whatever you want – a city-center home, a lakeside summer house, a cosy café, an office, workshop or studio or even a classroom.” Like any home, water, sewer, internet and electrical connections will depend on the site, though it can generate its own power through rooftop solar (and his minimal energy requirements thanks to quadruple-paned glass).

prefab front

The design puts communal spaces (living room and kitchen) out front and private areas (bathrooms and bedrooms) toward the back. It also can be tweaked to an individual needs.

prefab night

“Its clever design provides the inspiration to make best use of every square inch of space and envisage how the built-in components, even the walls, can be adjusted to meet their purpose most effectively.” (Photos is by Paul Kuimet)

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]

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Brutalist Reality: Tower Blocks Can Be Dystopia For Real-Life Residents

20 Sep

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

brutalism-laurent-1

Architecture enthusiasts might love the cold, harsh lines of Brutalist buildings, but for the people who actually live in the iconic London tower blocks and other modernist complexes for low-income residents, they can be – well – brutal. News that the tower blocks of Thamesmead in the city’s southeast quadrant are due for a pricey facelift drew a backlash from many Brutalist admirers, but it’s important to face the fact that these estates are far from the utopias they were promoted to be back in the ‘60s and ‘70s.

brutalism-laurent-2

For many of us, the stark, institutional qualities of Brutalist architecture are part of the appeal. It’s where it gets its name, after all. But the same endless planes of uninterrupted concrete, stilted proportions and labyrinthine layouts that make for a visually interesting museum, monument or even a luxury residence for a well-to-do enthusiast don’t necessarily translate well to low-income apartments. In these environments – as exploited in the recent film High-Rise starring Tom Hiddleston – the gloom of the architecture itself can become oppressive, especially when it’s not properly cared-for.

brutalism-laurent-3

In a recent editorial at The Guardian, Rhiannon Lucy Cosslet notes that the dream of modern “concrete utopias” for working-class people broke down quickly once people were actually living in complexes like the Alexandra Road Estate, the Barbican, Trellick Tower and Balfron Tower.

brutalism-laurent-4

brutalism-laurent-6

“The lifts broke down, the stairwells were awash in urine, there was poor lighting and scant green or communal space. A visitor to the Holly Street estate in east London, quoted by Dominic Sandbrook in State of Emergency, wrote of ‘dark passages, blind alleys, gloomy staircases,’ corridors that were a ‘thieve’s highway’ and people who would ‘stick to the lit areas and walk hurriedly.’ No kind of paradise, in other words, and hardly embodying the social progressivism claimed by postwar city planners.”

alexandra-road-estate

barbican-estate

But even beyond these issues, which could arguably be ascribed to just about any poorly managed low-income housing, are the sci-fi aesthetics when rendered all too real by daily life within. French photographer Laurent Kronental spent four years capturing the ‘grand ensembles’ housing projects in Paris, which are largely occupied by elderly residents, finding a fascinating juxtaposition of that crumbling modernist utopia and its marginalized occupants (top five images). “There is an unsettling paradox of life and void,” he says.

trellick-tower

balfron-tower

Could a middle ground be found with better planning, or converting some of the structures to new uses? It seems possible, but so far developers have been brutal (sorry) in flushing out existing residents to transform structures like Trellick Tower and Balfron Tower to posh residences for higher-income buyers. Both are set to become luxury housing developments, thereby eliminating the egalitarian intentions of their creators, rather than making them more livable for a broader swath of the population.

[ By SA Rogers in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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Relentless Residents: 10 More Households That Refuse to Move

04 Jun

[ By Delana in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

yichang nail house

When real estate developers come knocking, it seems that the majority of homeowners are willing to move out for the right price – but then there are some who take a stand and refuse to give up their homes no matter what. Called “holdouts” in some parts of the world and “nail houses” in others, these strong-willed folks decided that they weren’t going to move…so the developers had no choice but to build around them.

Dog Fight: Portland, Oregon

figo house portland

In 2005, attorney Randal Acker purchased a small Queen Anne Victorian home in downtown Portland, Oregon from which to operate his practice. The very next year, developers started buying up all of the property around the building. When they knocked on Acker’s door, they could never have guessed what was in store for them.

portland figo house

Acker calls the building The Figo House, named after his dog who is in turn named after Portuguese soccer player Luis Figo. Although the lawyer’s specialty is in commercial litigation, he resolved to commit as much time as necessary to eminent domain law to save this little piece of Portland history. In 2008, the developer resolved to leave Acker and the Figo house alone – but that didn’t mean they would scrap their construction project. They built a huge Portland State University residence hall around the Figo house – and amazingly, there seem to be no hard feelings on either side.

acker law figo house

The construction of the hall to the west of the Figo house was limited to two stories so it would not block the view of the sunset, and a large courtyard lies behind the house, giving the law office plenty of natural light. PSU officials and representatives from the construction company building the residence hall even stopped by with cookies for Acker on the day they broke ground on the project. In 2011, as a nod to the situation’s similarity to the movie Up, Acker proudly flew 400 helium balloons from his chimney, adding a cheery note to this charming story which could only happen in Portland.

Middle-of-the-Motorway Nail Houses: Guangzhou, China

guangzhou houses surrounded by highway

When city planners wanted to connect the road network to a new tunnel under the Pearl River, they needed to make space by clearing some residences from the area. What those planners failed to plan for, however, were the three families who would refuse to leave their homes.

Guangzhou nail houses

As reported by China Daily, the plans for the four-lane flyover went ahead anyway – with the holdout households right in the middle. While we can’t imagine it’s pleasant for those families to live right in the middle of all that traffic noise, we definitely appreciate the gumption that it takes to stand your ground, even when bulldozers are right outside of your door.

The Little Jeweler That Wouldn’t Give Up: London

spiegelhalter's jewellers

Anyone who has passed the former Wickhams Department Store in London’s East End has probably noticed a rather odd feature: a tiny building that seems to be stuck into the big store’s facade. That little store has a fascinating past and might be one of the greatest real estate holdout stories ever. It was formerly Spiegelhalters Jewellers, a family business dating back to the early 19th century.

london holdout business spiegelhalter's

In 1892, Spiegelhalters acquiesced to Wickhams when the larger store wanted to expand; the jewelers moved their shop down the street. When Wickhams wanted to expand again in the 1920s and again asked Spiegelhalters to move, the store owners refused. Wickhams, not to be thwarted in their quest for domination of Mile End Road, adjusted the architecture of their gigantic building so that it would wrap around the little jeweler’s shop.

spiegelhalter's london

The result was somewhat humorous – the “central” tower had to be moved to one side of the little shop, and the hole in the facade threw off the symmetry of the building. But Spiegelhalters held tight and managed to outlast the Goliath that had overshadowed them for decades. Wickhams closed in the 1960s and Spiegelhalters remained in business until 1982. In early 2015, developers again wanted to knock down the little building but were thwarted by thousands of signatures on a petition to save the shop. Sadly, all that remained of it at that point is the facade – but even that little piece of the original Spiegelhalters is a cherished landmark that Londoners won’t soon let go of.

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Relentless Residents 10 More Households That Refuse To Move

[ By Delana in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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5,000 Residents Being Evicted from World’s Tallest Vertical Slum

29 Jul

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

tower david shelf wall

A forced relocation is underway as thousands of squatters are moved by authorities out of their homes and the city of Caracas, some of whom have called the infamous half-finished Tower of David home for as long as seven years.

tower of david view above

Rumors began a few weeks back as Chinese bankers expressed interest in purchasing the unfinished structure in Venezuela, with the intention of turning it back toward the (official and licensed) commercial and office uses for which it was originally intended. Currently, however, over 1,000 families live and work in the first few dozen floors of this 44-story skyscraper.

tower of david ground floor

With surprising speed over the past week, the government has already shifted over 100 of these to a settlement outside of town (three floors a time) and is set to displace everyone living in the building, primarily to Valles del Tuy in the state of Miranda.

tower david tall pic

The tower was originally abandoned mid-construction in 1990 and eventually taken over by informal inhabitants who created not just homes but stores, offices, gyms, groceries, tailors, factories, churches tattoo parlors and even internet cafes within its walls.

tower of david room tv

Without an elevator (and with missing windows on the top levels), its most prized spaces for occupants have been on the lower floors, with scooter taxis that ferry people up ramps to some levels adjacent to the parking structure. Like Kowloon Walled City, the place has its own rules and informal systems of bringing in and sharing resources, including limited water and power.

tower of david exterior view

The Urban Think Tank, which spent years studying the building (and writing Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities), has weighed in on the significance of the building and its occupants as well as its sudden shift in direction: “What we found was neither a den of criminality nor a romantic utopia. Torre David is a building that has the complexity of a city. It merges formal structure and informal adaptation to provide urgently needed solutions, and shows us how bottom-up resourcefulness has the ability to address prevailing urban scarcities.”

More from UTT: “When dealing with informal settlements, infusions of money for major public works and other approaches that involve large-scale rapid change – such as the razing of slums and relocation of poor populations – have generally failed in the complex setting of the city. The commercial housing market simply does not supply enough homes. There are too few units of social housing, and the majority of these are far beyond the reach of low-income families.”

“The dire asymmetries of capital in the global south do little to help; yet various forms of structural neglect have not always diminished great entrepreneurial vigor. Shunned by governments and the formal private sector, city dwellers, like those in Torre David, have devised and employed tactics to improvise shelter and housing.” Images via The Atlantic and Torre David: Informal Vertical Communities.

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

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Giving Up the Ghost: Residents of Toxic Town Won’t Leave

10 May

[ By Steph in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

Picher Ghost Town 1

Hell no, the last residents of Picher, Oklahoma won’t go – even though their town is officially labeled a hazardous waste site, and there are only 10 of them still clinging to the remains of its past. Picher isn’t even considered a town anymore. It’s just a Superfund site dominated by mountains of mill sand and tailings from the old lead-zinc mining fields, with extensive subsurface excavation putting everything in danger of caving in. Municipal activities stopped in 2009, and the vast majority of its residents vacated the town by 2013.

Picher Ghost Town 2

(top image via randylane; above image via claycountypara)

At its prime in the 1920s, Picher had a population of over 20,000, with 14,000 people working in the mines. Between 1917 and 1947 the town produced over $ 20 billion worth of ore, including more than fifty percent of the lead and zinc used during World War I. But as mining activity slowed down, the population dwindled. Then, the extent of the contamination was discovered.

Picher Ghost Town 3

(image via: wikimedia commons)

Once the mining ceased, Picher essentially became a toxic waste dump for the contaminated water from 14,000 abandoned mine shafts as well as 70 million tons of mine tailings and 36 million tons of mill sand and sludge. At one point, the piles of debris were so high, they looked like mountains dominating the otherwise flat landscape. These piles of mining waste were located right beside neighborhoods, the wind blowing the particles all over everything and everyone. Kids played on those piles of waste, and went swimming in tailings ponds full of toxins. A 1996 study found lead poisoning in 34% of Picher’s children.

Picher Ghost Town 4

(image via: wikimedia commons)

The town was declared the Tar Creek Superfund Site, and in 2006, a mandatory evacuation was announced, with all residents bought out by the State of Oklahoma. The fact that all of that mining had seriously compromised the ground beneath the entire town made it even more dangerous – and then, in 2008, an F4 tornado came along and destroyed 150 homes. Picher is officially uninhabitable, but that hasn’t stopped about ten people from clinging to it anyway.

Picher Ghost Town 5

(image via: marada)

MSNBC reports that six homes and one business remain, even as everything around them is demolished, the final residents insisting that when the Superfund cleanup is complete, Picher will rise again. It’ll take at least thirty years for that to happen, however, since the Tar Creek Superfund Site is just one of four sub-sites within the Tri-State Mining District, all of which continues to contaminate towns throughout Kansas, Missouri and Oklahoma with toxic runoff.

Picher Ghost Town 6

(image via: marada)

Pharmacist Gary Linderman runs the sole remaining business in Picher, which acts as a social hub for former residents who still travel there to get their medicine despite relocating to other cities. “I think there’s going to be a resurgence in Picher – in time,” says Linderman.

360Photography

Posts Tagged ‘Residents’

Adorama’s opens up ‘Perspective,’ the first of its new photo contest series for US residents

Adorama Announces #CreateNoMatterWhat Creative Challenge Series

Build & Unbuild in 1 Day: Deconstructable Prefab House Moves with its Residents

Brutalist Reality: Tower Blocks Can Be Dystopia For Real-Life Residents

Relentless Residents: 10 More Households That Refuse to Move

Dog Fight: Portland, Oregon

Middle-of-the-Motorway Nail Houses: Guangzhou, China

The Little Jeweler That Wouldn’t Give Up: London

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Relentless Residents 10 More Households That Refuse To Move

5,000 Residents Being Evicted from World’s Tallest Vertical Slum

Giving Up the Ghost: Residents of Toxic Town Won’t Leave

(top image via randylane; above image via claycountypara)

(image via: wikimedia commons)

(image via: wikimedia commons)

(image via: marada)

(image via: marada)

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360Photography

Posts Tagged ‘Residents’

Adorama’s opens up ‘Perspective,’ the first of its new photo contest series for US residents

Adorama Announces #CreateNoMatterWhat Creative Challenge Series

Build & Unbuild in 1 Day: Deconstructable Prefab House Moves with its Residents

Brutalist Reality: Tower Blocks Can Be Dystopia For Real-Life Residents

Relentless Residents: 10 More Households That Refuse to Move

Dog Fight: Portland, Oregon

Middle-of-the-Motorway Nail Houses: Guangzhou, China

The Little Jeweler That Wouldn’t Give Up: London

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Relentless Residents 10 More Households That Refuse To Move

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Giving Up the Ghost: Residents of Toxic Town Won’t Leave

(top image via randylane; above image via claycountypara)

(image via: wikimedia commons)

(image via: wikimedia commons)

(image via: marada)

(image via: marada)

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