Optical manufacturer Sigma has expanded its portfolio of lens filters with the introduction of four new models, three of which feature water and oil repellent coatings. The new coatings have been applied to the company’s ultra violet and circular polariser filters, as well as a new clear-glass protector. Read more
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
[ By Steph in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]
This loaf of colored glass may not look like much from the outside, but slice into it and you’ll find an incredible recreation of Leonardo da Vinci’s painting Virgin on the Rocks. Self-taught glass master Loren Stump has adapted a 4,000-year-old Middle Eastern technique to produce detailed images that are only seen when the glass ‘cane’ is cut into cross-sections.
Murrine may be centuries old, but typically consists of abstract or floral patterns, which are much easier to create. Stump creates his intricate images by layering hundreds of tiny glass rods in various colors and thicknesses, resulting in a ‘loaf’ that can sell for $ 5,000 per slice.
The artist also creates individual smaller-sized faces that are sliced into pendants for jewelry and also manipulates two-dimensional murrine slices into three-dimensional forms. Watch a demonstration in the video above.
Technically a liquid, glass can make a unique artistic medium. From vintage to modern, glass art is always classy.
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Holograms suggest a depth and dimension that isn’t really there, an illusion of matter in space that can range from a low-tech flickering image in a …
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Slices of wood take the place of traditional vinyl in these beautiful hand-crafted, laser-cut records by designer Amanda Ghassaei.
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[ By Steph in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]
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Nikon’s 800mm F5.6 FL ED VR and 400mm F2.8 FL ED VR lenses earn the ‘FL’ in their names from the coating of fluorine applied to the lens elements. But what exactly is fluorine coating, and why is it important? In this video from Nikon Japan, the coating’s repellent properties are demonstrated as a variety of liquids are dripped, drawn and painted onto the lens surface. See video
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
Few compact cameras have garnered as much attention as the Sony Cyber-shot RX100 and RX100 II. Sony had managed to squeeze a much bigger sensor into cameras only a little larger than the Canon S-series enthusiast compacts. The RX100 III continues the tradition by adding a wider, faster 24-70mm F1.8-2.8 lens and a built-in, pop-up EVF. Along with a 20MP 1″-type sensor, does the RX100 III remain the ultimate compact for enthusiasts? Learn more in our First Impressions Review
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]
No smoke-and-mirrors or post-production here, just fleeting vignettes swiftly staged on steamed windows and set against natural outdoor backgrounds.
Jim Osborne is a self-taught landscape artist who typically works in watercolor, acrylic and oils. He describes himself as being inspired by his surroundings, light and the weather. Recently, however, he has begun working in a new direction with water condensation on glass window surfaces.
His Steamy Windows Collection represents a bit of a departure for him in terms of tools and approach – the work is necessarily fast, drawing on organic backdrops, lighting conditions and perceptual cues. Each piece is shot quickly as well, and prints can be found for sale on his website.
With the need for speed, every little gesture counts – the results are simultaneously planned but ultimately uncontrolled, a mixture of simple figures and hasty grounds that somehow manages to look like more than the sum of its parts. The approach seems like a a great way to train oneself to think in an agile fashion and be nimble in execution.
On an unusual kind of cross-country road trip, this couple visited garage sales, antique dealers and added these to other roadside finds, all toward the quest …
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Like photo-realistic art in reverse, these three-dimensional objects are carefully crafted to look like rough-edged, hand-sketched representations. If the …
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Most light photographers focus on making a shape in the foreground in a matter of seconds, then setting it against a dark static backdrop – this artist …
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[ By WebUrbanist in Art & Drawing & Digital. ]
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Artist Emma Jaubert Howell has combined her passions for glass blowing and photography by adopting the wet plate collodion process to expose images directly onto her artwork. The process alone is tricky, but to expose onto her three-dimensional glasswork Howell had to create a camera from scratch that was large enough to accommodate the hand-blown bowls. We spoke to Emma about her project. Learn more about her process and see some of her art in our gallery.
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]
In a surreal reversal of modern architectural convention, this Vertical Glass House trades a tradition of solid horizontals and clear verticals for an opaque shell and see-through walking surfaces.
The design by Atelier FCJZ draws on Modernism’s celebration of materials like concrete, glass and steel, but subverts them at the same time via a 90-degree twist. The result is a surprising inverse of celebrated Modernist residences, textbook-making works like Mies van der Rohe’s Farnsworth House or Phillip Johnson’s Glass House.
Despite its strategic departures, the unique home is still intended in a Modernist spirit – its simplicity is just turned inward, meant to engender and focus internal reflection. Set as it is in Shanghai, and designed by a Chinese firm, one could also argue it is an Eastern interpretation of a primarily Western movement.
The building was originally designed for a competition just over two decades ago, but recently realized as an actual structure thanks to the West Bund Biennale of Architecture and Contemporary Art, which has made it a permanent pavilion and opened it to guest artists and architects in residence.
From the designers: “Vertical Glass House is a urban housing prototype and discusses the notion of transparency in verticality while serving as a critic of Modernist transparency in horizontality or a glass house that always opens to landscape and provides no privacy.”
“With enclosed walls and transparent floors as well as roof, the house opens to the sky and the earth, positions the inhabitant right in the middle, and creates a place for meditation. Vertical transparency [also] visually connects all the utilities, ductworks, furniture pieces on different levels, as well as the staircase, into a [comprehensible] system of domesticity.”
While some of these glass houses seem impractical for everyday living, others serve a very real purpose – to capture and convert the power of the sun.
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On an unusual kind of cross-country road trip, this couple visited garage sales, antique dealers and added these to other roadside finds, all toward the quest …
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Would you give up all your privacy in order to live in a spectacular glass cylinder with a tree growing up the center? Perhaps the secluded forest location …
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[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]
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[ By Steph in Architecture & Offices & Commercial. ]
How much more creative could you be if you were working in a stunning faceted glass dome every day? Some lucky Amazon workers will get to find out, as the City of Seattle’s design panel has approved plans for new structures at the company’s headquarters. Designed by international firm NBBJ, the project will consist of three connected biospheres with a steel framework.
Each of the 25 to 35-meter-high biospheres will offer five floors of flexible work spaces along with about 65,000 square feet of open green space with both new and mature trees. The futuristic-looking design is meant to feel like a public park, and will be part of a larger green space known as ‘Block 19.’
The geometric pattern of the steel is is called a ‘Catalan Skin,’ based on a pattern of numbers in mathematics. The resulting shapes look a bit like sand dollars.
Not everyone is a fan of the planned additions. Curbed Seattle said “Our initial thought was that they resembled spores, slowly growing and spreading across the city until they encase all our trees.”
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[ By Steph in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]
Would you give up all your privacy in order to live in a spectacular glass cylinder with a tree growing up the center? Perhaps the secluded forest location will help make that decision for you. ‘Tree in the House’ by Masov Aibek is a stunning four-story modern treehouse in the woods of Almaty City, Kazakhstan with transparent walls and a spiraling staircase.
The staircase takes you from one floor to the next along the outer perimeter of the house, with an opening in the center of each floor that grows wider as the tree’s branches stretch out toward the top. Plasterboard inner walls provide a little bit of organization and section off areas for lounging and a bed.
Aibek set out to create a romantic retreat for couples that nurtures “spiritual and creative development.”
Real as it looks, this is currently just a concept – but it’s on its way to being built. Construction will begin in early 2014 at an estimated cost of U.S. $ 361,000, and the architect is currently taking orders for more.
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[ By WebUrbanist in Architecture & Houses & Residential. ]
On an unusual kind of cross-country road trip, this couple visited garage sales, antique dealers and added these to other roadside finds, all toward the quest of assembling an an eccentric collection of windows for a unique dream home.
Creators Lilah Horwitz and Nick Olson are, respectively, a designer and photographer, but with a common architectural vision of a home where one whole facade would be made of windows. The goal: let sunsets illuminate the structure’s entire interior space, creating a multitude of views, wood-framed through artfully arranged window openings.
The result sits on the sunny hills of West Virginia, a rustic-style cabin in which the front-facing fenestration is the dominant design feature. The assemblage reflects their personalities – the hands-on approach Olson takes with his camera and images, and the landscaping and fashion experience of Horwitz.
In turn, Matt Glass and Jordan Wayne Long interviewed the couple for a short seven-minute film on Half Cut Tea. The result shows the pair of creatives but also the context of their creation via shots of the surrounding landscape and entry path as well as the dwelling itself by daylight and at night.
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