Creativity « 360Photography

RSS

Archive for the ‘Creativity’ Category

Gruel Britannia: 10 Abandoned Little Chef Restaurants

17 Aug

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

abandoned Little Chef restaurant Wansford 1a
Serving up American style with British flavor, hundreds of Little Chef roadside restaurants once warmed up the UK‘s motorways but less than 80 remain today.

abandoned Little Chef restaurant Wansford 1b

abandoned Little Chef restaurant Wansford 1c

abandoned Little Chef restaurant Wansford 1d

“Once a familiar site by the roadside for greasy grub and indifferent service!,” according to Flickr user mad jeff, Little Chef was to the British Isles what Howard Johnson’s was to the USA – less the hotel rooms, swimming pools and fried clams. Founded in 1958 by Sam Alper, an entrepreneur admittedly influenced by America’s diners in the golden age of postwar road travel, Little Chef ballooned to 439 locations by the turn of the century… and you know what happens to balloons. The store above, located off the A1 motorway near Wansford, was one of the first Little Chef locations and stands (barely) today as a symbol of the once-robust chain’s astonishing slide into dereliction.

Kent Found On Roadside Dead

abandoned Little Chef restaurant Kentford 1a

abandoned Little Chef restaurant Kentford 1b

abandoned Little Chef restaurant Kentford 1c

abandoned Little Chef restaurant Kentford 1d

abandoned Little Chef restaurant Kentford 1e

According to the brazenly optimistic Little Chef website, “we’ve grown to become one of the UK’s favourite roadside restaurants with 78 Little Chef restaurants from Scotland down to Cornwall.” 78 and counting… downward. Most pundits blame Little Chef’s inexorable death spiral on inconsistent ownership looking only to squeeze a few more pounds sterling out of the business before flipping it; a scenario that’s played out a jaw-dropping SEVEN times since the mid-1970s. The dreary images of an abandoned Little Chef located just off the A14 in Kentford, eastern England, come to us courtesy of Nosher.net who states, “discarded cassette tapes litter the area”. Nice.

Bypassed

abandoned Little Chef restaurant A46 Binley Woods 1a

abandoned Little Chef restaurant A46 Binley Woods 1b

abandoned Little Chef restaurant A46 Binley Woods 1c

Here’s a rather rough-looking abandoned Little Chef situated by the A46 Coventry by-pass near Binley Woods in Warwickshire. This store was one of a group of restaurants closed following the sale of the Little Chef chain to RCapital, a UK private equity group, in January of 2007. Kudos to Geograph member David Lally for documenting the state of the store in July of 2007 – one can only imagine what it looks like now assuming it hasn’t been bulldozed.

Sufferin’ In Suffolk

abandoned Little Chef restaurant Suffolk 1a

abandoned Little Chef restaurant Suffolk 1b

abandoned Little Chef restaurant Suffolk 1c

These evocative images of an abandoned Little Chef somewhere in Suffolk, eastern England were taken by Flickr user will2988 in May and June of 2013. Though originally modeled after classic diners and burger stands over the pond, Little Chef made efforts to appeal to the unique taste of domestic travelers with all-day breakfasts and traditional British fare such as bangers & beans with chips (fried potatoes) and even Ox Cheeks. Sorry, no Spam Eggs Sausage & Spam.

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Gruel Britannia 10 Abandoned Little Chef Restaurants

[ By Steve in Abandoned Places & Architecture. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]

WebUrbanist

Comments Off

Posted in Creativity

Chameleon Pen: Scan, Save & Draw Up to 16 Million Unique Hues

16 Aug

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

scribble surface scan grab

Five years ago it was an mind-boggling design concept, but today the idea color-changing pen has morphed into a working prototype that draws colors from objects and surfaces, natural or artificial, then lets you use them in all kinds of creative ways. This real-world version can make over 16,000,000 different tones and store over 100,000 unique colors in its memory.

scribble drawing color picked

scribble pen in case

scribble pen user interface

Imagine the possibilities of Scribble, both artistic and practical: instead of trying to mix just the right paints to capture a landscape or replicate a color scheme for your interior remodel, you can scan the actual colors of environments and use those. Users can then upload, store, tag and share their color picks for future applications.

original color scanning pen

see n scan pen

The Color Picker by Jinsun Park (shown below) was a purely conceptual design model at the time, but operated on the same principle (like the Photoshop eyedropper tool), made to contain a series of inks that (much like a printer) would mix in the appropriate amounts, reproducing colors scanned into it. This new variant on the device also converts the colors into other formats (like binary, decimal and hexadecimal) that can be saved and deployed for digital art. And with cartridge refills, you will never need to buy another color of pen.

scribble pen prototype

The applications are myriad: “For the colour blind, kids, interior decorators, homeowners, teachers, artists, photographers, designers and students, the Scribble colour picker pen will make copying an exact colour, any colour from any object, an absolute breeze. With Scribble you can scan, match or compare colours, draw on paper or your mobile device.” Of course, you don’t have to scan in a new color – you can always mix your own on the computer and input that preferred tone too.

scribble nature scanning tool

scribble child user example

scribble tablet device upload

Here is the executive summary from the company: “Scribble is the first coloring device of its kind that can take the world of color around you and transfer it directly to either paper or your favourite mobile device. Simple hold the Scribble’s scanner up to any color, like on a wall, a book or magazine, a painting or even a child’s toy and within a second or two that color is stored in Scribble’s internal memory. You can now instantly draw on paper with the Scribble Ink Pen or draw on a digital device like an iPad or Wacom Tablet with the Scribble Stylus Pen.”

[ By WebUrbanist in Design & Products & Packaging. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]

WebUrbanist

Comments Off

Posted in Creativity

Time in Color: Skatepark Graffiti Acts as a Working Sundial

16 Aug

[ By Steph in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

Skatepark Graffiti 1

Skaters at this park in Lugano, Switzerland don’t have to pull out their phones to check the time – they can just glance down at a series of colored lines painted right onto the concrete of the bowl as a modern sundial. A ribbon of rainbow hues curves up and down the undulating surface, the sun and shadows revealing the current hour.

Skatepark Graffiti 2

Skatepark Graffiti 3

A different line of color indicates each hour of the day, marked off as the sun passes overhead. Designed by Moscow group Zuk Club, the vibrant park is like an abstract modern mural customized specifically to the shape of the bowl and the surrounding area.

SKatepark Graffiti 4 Skatepark Graffiti 5

It’s an interesting and visually resting concept, though perhaps no match for the largest and most complex skate parks around the world. Skaters who find ordinary skate parks unimaginative should check out 13 examples of highly skateable architecture, ranging from the specially renovated interior of a hunting lodge to Zaha Hadid’s futuristic science center in Germany.

[ By Steph in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]

WebUrbanist

Comments Off

Posted in Creativity

Hyperphotos: Architectural Hybrids Remix Built Environments

15 Aug

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Photography & Video. ]

hyperphoto endless staircase image

There is something almost mystical (or mythical) about these photographic collages, at once apparently realistic in content and seemingly impossible in composition.

hyperphoto urban city montage

hyperphoto babylon

The Hyperphotos portfolio of Jean-Francois Rauzier, a French artist and photographer, represents years of captured images overlaid to create incredibly detailed composites. “In his monumental works he mixes the infinitely big and the infinitesimal, in a profusion of details so unusual as fascinating. The image thus recomposed numerically gives way to the dreamlike world of the artist.”

hyperphoto reflected mythical interior

Some seem to reflect the nature of their places of origin, from New York City and Paris to Istanbul and Barcelona, or the time period from which the architecture originates, from ancient cathedrals to modern brownstones.

hyperphoto stacked bridges

hyperphoto infinite future city

Others are works of almost pure fantasy, casting the viewer into imaginary futures or impossible pasts. While people, plants and animals are sometimes included, the focus of his fascination is almost always a built environment.

hyperphoto inside religious structure

About the artist: “Fascinated by photography from an early age, Jean-François Rauzier graduated from the School Louis Lumière in 1976. He has since been working as a professional photographer, while developing a personal creative work. In 2002, his artistic work takes an innovative and radical turn.” Now “he creates virtual images consisting of several hundreds of shots, taken with a telephoto lens and assembled by computer.”

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Photography & Video. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]

WebUrbanist

Comments Off

Posted in Creativity

Truck-A-Tecture: 2 Convertible Nomadic Dwellings on Wheels

14 Aug

[ By WebUrbanist in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

truckatecture scissor lifted shelter

With participating design studios from around America, this exhibition features a series of amazing mobile spaces that use technology and ingenuity to explore new possibilities for the modern nomad. Two of the four projects in particular are worth a closer look, whether or not you are able to visit and see them on display in Omaha, Nebraska this month (images by Tom Kessler via Kaneko).

truckatecture truck based architecture

The Office of Mobile Design contributed the Aero-Mobile to the Truck-A-Tecture collection, using a scissor lift system to raise up and deploy a pod that then extends over the cab of the vehicle.

trucktecture

truckatecture top fabric steel

Fold-down walls expand usable space while the elevated platform allows for a smaller footprint and thus more versatile parking options (not to mention some safety in areas with aggressive or curious wildlife).

truckatecture modular furniture shelter

truckatecture interior structure view

The Pneumad by Min|Day is an inflatable structure that takes up relatively little space but spreads out to create a geodesic shelter with modular furniture.

trucktectwo

truckatecture inflatable dome home

The idea is, in part, to reduce the spatial and energy requirements of a portable shelter, making it possible for smaller vehicles to tow a part-time dwelling.

truckatecture other mobile shelters

truck a tecture gallery

On display through for two more weeks, the exhibition was organized “to explore the potentials of mobile living and adaptable architecture [and] generate conversation on current-day trends toward nomadic lifestyles. [It] offers new perspectives on transformable spaces. the projects utilize various mechanical techniques to provide the itinerant individual, traveling by vehicle, the ability to spread out when temporarily stopped.”

“A mash-up of popular and elite cultures, Truck-A-Tecture will transcend the current definitions of ‘pre-fab’ and ‘mobile architecture.’ Topics of nomadism, transportation, trucking culture and the nature of ‘home’ are among the topics to be explored in this exhibition. Other issues to be considered in this dialogue are sustainability and technological advances that have led many to a leaner, more efficient lifestyle.”

[ By WebUrbanist in Technology & Vehicles & Mods. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]

WebUrbanist

Comments Off

Posted in Creativity

Frozen in Motion: 24 Stunning High Speed Photographs

14 Aug

[ By Steph in Art & Photography & Video. ]

High Speed Reugels 1
Spectacular forms that come together and dissipate far too quickly for human eyes to perceive are captured permanently using high-speed photography techniques. The elusive and temporary shapes created when liquid is thrown into the air or pellets are shot at strawberries become momentarily sculptural.

Floating Sculptures by Floto + Warner

High Speed Floating Sculptures 2

High Speed Floating Sculptures 3

Ephemeral sculptural forms that shift and change by the nanosecond are captured against stark landscapes in particular chaotic arrangements that will never be seen again. The final theatrical photographs in this series by Floto + Warner momentarily make elusive forms within colored liquid seem three-dimensional and static. Getting these dramatic images just right is no easy task; many attempts are made to toss the fluid into the air so that it looks just right against the hills and desert of northern Nevada.

Liquid Orchids: Paint Splash Flowers

High Speed Liquid Orchids 2

High Speed Liquid Orchids 3

Colorfully streaked, blossom-like forms come into being just for a split second when artist Fabian Oefner drops a sphere directly into a tank filed with layers of acrylic paint in various shades. The explosion that results from the impact of the object in the tank, which often happens too quickly for our eye sot properly take it in, is permanently preserved via high-speed photography.

Exploding Food by Alan Sailer

High Speed Exploding Food 2

High Speed Exploding Food 3

Avocados, popsicles, strawberries and chocolate bunnies are ripped apart in spectacular patterns and forms when photographed just at the instant of an impact from a pellet or marble. Photographer Alan Sailer uses a micro-second guided spark flash to get the images, and a PVC or copper cannon to launch the food-destroying objects.

Black Hole: A Visual Demonstration of Centripetal Force

High Speed Black Hole 2

High Speed Black Hole 3

High Speed Black Hole 4

Physics and art come together in another project by Swiss artist Fabian Oefner, appropriately titled ‘Black Hole’ for the visual effect that’s achieved. The images are created using a drill and a high-speed camera that can create flashes as brief as 1/400000 of a second; a sensor connected to the drill sends an impulse to the flashes to freeze the paint in motion.

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Frozen In Motion 24 Stunning High Speed Photographs

[ By Steph in Art & Photography & Video. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]

WebUrbanist

Comments Off

Posted in Creativity

Urban Camo: Body Paint Blends Humans into City Backdrops

14 Aug

[ By Steph in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

Urban Body Paint Camo 1

Human figures blend into iconic New York City scenes, from the Brooklyn Bridge to the Guggenheim Museum, in artist Trina Merry‘s tromp l’eoil urban camouflage works. Each subject is carefully posed against a backdrop and painted in place to virtually disappear.

Urban Body Paint Camo 2

Urban Body Paint Camo 3

The work is reminiscent of that of Liu Bolin, the Beijing-based artist known as the ‘Invisible Man,’ who spends hours studying his chosen locations and painting himself and other subjects. It’s also another amazing example of surreal and sometimes mind-bending works of art that use human bodies as canvas.

Urban Body Paint 4

Urban Body Paint 5

“My surface is living, breathing human beings making this a highly relevant & immediate medium,” says Merry. “The painting is temporary, like a Tibetan sand painting, beginning to change into another work as soon as I stop painting, changing texture & color.”

Urban Body Paint 6

“For this reason highly intentional photography has become an important part of documenting my work… likewise, I work with y human canvases on poses, creating new opportunities for line & Form. My work is sometimes experienced live as an installation, for example, at museums, or preserved through photographs as limited edition fine art prints.”

[ By Steph in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]

WebUrbanist

Comments Off

Posted in Creativity

Architectural Apocalypse: Famous Museums Seen After the Fall

13 Aug

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Photography & Video. ]

guggenheim half buried sand

Like that iconic scene in the original Planet of the Apes film, these artists have displaced great works of architecture in time and space to see what each museum might look like after the end of days, relocated in ominous environments and recast in black and white.

guggenheim museum after fall

Ukrainian photographers Vitaliy and Elena Vasilieva use surrealistic landscapes as the backdrop for these imaginative transformations, picturing structures like the Guggenheim in a sand-strewn context that looks like anything but modern-day Manhattan as we know it.

new museum in water

new museum at night

The New Museum is seen rising up from post-armageddon floodwaters, presumably after rising sees wash away the rest of New York City.

Niteroi Museum snow dunes

snow filled museum fall

The Niteroi Museum is perched precariously on a mound of snow, everything else perhaps buried in the frozen wastes around it.

pompidou center picture fall

pompidou center storm front

The Pompidou Center is set in a swirling dust storm, Paris long vanished and its inside-out appearance making it look all the more like a remnant than a finished structure.

guggenheim post apocalypse photo

guggenheim half buried sands

When the dust settles, the smoke clears and the world freezes over, what if only our artistic institutions were left? From the creators of the series: “It is difficult to escape the feeling that ‘Apocalypse in Art’ really shows the world, standing on the edge, barren, falling in decay like a story line of a picture that is breaking into fragments.”

[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Photography & Video. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]

WebUrbanist

Comments Off

Posted in Creativity

Endless City: Skyscraper Wraps Upward with Walkable Ramps

13 Aug

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

endless city vertical view

An urban pedestrian paradise, this conceptual design proposes to turn cities skyward with a system of flexible open spaces that gradually rise as floor plates curve up around its core.

endless city interior atrium

This winning entry to the SkyScrapers & SuperSkyscraper Competition by SURE Architecture, dubbed Endless City, is more than just visually compelling – it also creates an argument about urban pathways and civic connectivity.

endless city floor plates

endless city top level

Its design boasts a series of sustainable strategies deployed throughout the structure, including passive energy, heating, cooling and lighting systems as well as advanced waste and water management.

skycraper - diagramme- structure OK

The structure is framed around a series of vertical steel-tress columns that in turn support a pair of ramps connected periodically by bridges.

endless city ramped section

The program features a mix of commercial, residential and institutional functions, with larger community areas mixed periodically throughout.

$\SERVERwork 22013-033 Skycraper-London CompetitionCADLondon$

endless city top down

The core concept, though, is to commingle these programmatic elements with circulation, allowing visitors and occupants to mix on its various levels and traverse the structure vertically – skyways taken to a new extreme. Its modular construction also theoretically enables further additions, allowing it to grow upward with time.

[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Cities & Urbanism. ]

[ WebUrbanist | Archives | Galleries | Privacy | TOS ]

WebUrbanist

Comments Off

Posted in Creativity

Urban Surfing: City Dwellers Catch Radical Artificial Waves

12 Aug

[ By Steph in Travel & Urban Exploration. ]

Urban Surfing 1

Until recently, anyone who wanted to surf the artificial waves in a river in Munich’s English Garden had to do so under cover of night, with one eye on the shore watching out for police. But in the summer of 2010, Eisbach Munich was officially opened to qualified surfers, who must be pre-approved by the city before attempting to stay afloat in the often-freezing waters.

The need to test surfers’ abilities comes after an Australian student drowned while swimming in the river in 2007. While swimming is still forbidden, Eisbach has since become the world’s largest urban surfing spot among the world’s largest urban park.

Urban Surfing 2

Urban surfing 7

The wave that permanently crests year-round was created by accident in 1972 after concrete blocks were submerged underwater to disrupt the current. It measures 12 feet across and can only accommodate one surfer at a time.

Urban Surfing 3

Crowds gather to watch as the surfers attempt to stay on top of the wave, never getting the break that would come when a natural wave in the ocean crests upon the shore and retreats.

Urban Surfing 6

Urban surfing enthusiasts have created an online zine for the Eisbach community and other surfing events that take place in unusual settings, with lots of pictures.

360Photography

Archive for the ‘Creativity’ Category

Gruel Britannia: 10 Abandoned Little Chef Restaurants

Kent Found On Roadside Dead

Bypassed

Sufferin’ In Suffolk

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Gruel Britannia 10 Abandoned Little Chef Restaurants

Chameleon Pen: Scan, Save & Draw Up to 16 Million Unique Hues

Time in Color: Skatepark Graffiti Acts as a Working Sundial

Hyperphotos: Architectural Hybrids Remix Built Environments

Truck-A-Tecture: 2 Convertible Nomadic Dwellings on Wheels

Frozen in Motion: 24 Stunning High Speed Photographs

Floating Sculptures by Floto + Warner

Liquid Orchids: Paint Splash Flowers

Exploding Food by Alan Sailer

Black Hole: A Visual Demonstration of Centripetal Force

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Frozen In Motion 24 Stunning High Speed Photographs

Urban Camo: Body Paint Blends Humans into City Backdrops

Architectural Apocalypse: Famous Museums Seen After the Fall

Endless City: Skyscraper Wraps Upward with Walkable Ramps

Urban Surfing: City Dwellers Catch Radical Artificial Waves

Pages

Archives

Categories

Archive for the ‘Creativity’ Category

Kent Found On Roadside Dead

Bypassed

Sufferin’ In Suffolk

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Gruel Britannia 10 Abandoned Little Chef Restaurants

Want More? Click for Great Related Content on WebUrbanist:

Out of Gas: 24 Eerie Abandoned Vehicles & Transit Structures

Matthew Christopher: Photographer of Abandoned Places

Bucket List: 12 Battered & Abandoned KFC Stores

Want More? Click for Great Related Content on WebUrbanist:

Real 3D Sketches: 3 Furniture Sets that Draw on 2D Doodles

Gravity: Augmented Reality Tablet Lets You Draw Ideas in 3D

3D-Printing Pen: Draw Sculptures with this Magical Marker

Want More? Click for Great Related Content on WebUrbanist:

Ramp & Roll: 10 Amazing Skate Parks Around the World

Sensational Skate Park & Urban Climbing Wall in Spain

Skateable Sculpture in France Glows in the Dark

Want More? Click for Great Related Content on WebUrbanist:

Works of Impossible Architecture Built from Found Photos

Bones of War: Haunting Skeleton Weapon Photography

Art Remix: 26 Modern Takes on Famous Historical Paintings

Want More? Click for Great Related Content on WebUrbanist:

Nomadic Furniture: Backpack of Parts Creates Portable Seat

Bike Tire Tent: Compact Travel Shelter Wraps Inside Wheels

Art on Wheels: The Magnificent Truck Art of Pakistan

Floating Sculptures by Floto + Warner

Liquid Orchids: Paint Splash Flowers

Exploding Food by Alan Sailer

Black Hole: A Visual Demonstration of Centripetal Force

Next Page – Click Below to Read More: Frozen In Motion 24 Stunning High Speed Photographs

Want More? Click for Great Related Content on WebUrbanist:

Fast Photography: 7 Skilled High-Speed Photographers

20 Fantastic Physics-Defying Frozen-in-Time Photos

Moving Pictures: Stunning Photographs Brought to Life

Want More? Click for Great Related Content on WebUrbanist:

2D or Not 2D? Body Paint Illusion Makes Faces Look Flat

Body Paint Illusions Transform Human Models into Animals

Painted Alive: 15 Boldly Brilliant Body Art Paintings

Want More? Click for Great Related Content on WebUrbanist:

Snow-Globe Apocalypse: Mini Model Worlds on the Edge

Civic Cool: 12 Great Contemporary Museums & Galleries

Modern Gingerbread Museums: Realistic Edible Architecture

Want More? Click for Great Related Content on WebUrbanist:

Crowdfunded Skyscraper: Record-Breaking Tower in Bogotá

Mountain-Shaped Residences with Walkable Green Rooftops

City Cycle: Curved Urban Tread Wraps ‘Round Bike Tire

Want More? Click for Great Related Content on WebUrbanist:

Homeless & Nomad Culture: Car Living to Couch Surfing

Plant Paradise: Artificial Pavilion Extends Dutch City into Lake

Homeless Hotel: Radical Urban Retreat has No Rooms, Ever

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Gruel Britannia 10 Abandoned Little Chef Restaurants

Next Page – Click Below to Read More:
Frozen In Motion 24 Stunning High Speed Photographs