The Cooperative of Photography received a lot of attention recently for a video featuring seven easy photographic hacks using household items. Now they’ve released a follow up video with seven more neat tips and tricks. It might just help you kick of a fun weekend photo project. Learn more
Articles: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
[ By Steph in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]
Creatures large and small seem to have eaten their way out of the confinement of everyday items like rolling pins, axes, pianos and chairs in the hands of Montreal-based artist Maskull Lasserre. Previously known for his incredible skulls carved into the pages of books, Lasserre now reveals unexpected life (and death) within wooden objects.
Lasserre has carved crow skeletons, vulture skulls, rats, beetles and even a human ear out of found objects, often stacking more than one item together to produce the illusion that the sculpture is emerging from the wood. According to his CV, Lasserre’s sculptures “explore the unexpected potential of the everyday and its associated structures of authority, class, and value.”
“Elements of nostalgia, allegory, humor and the macabre are incorporated into works that induce strangeness in the familiar, and provoke uncertainty in the expected.”
In a two-part video interview with Liana Voia, Lasserre explains “When the remnants of life are imposed on an object, and that’s true especially with the carving work that I do, it infers a past history or a previous life that had been lived, so again where people see my work as macabre, I often see it as hopeful, as the remnants of a life.”
“Despite the fact that the life has ended, at least that life had a beginning and middle as well, so often by imparting these bodily elements to inanimate objects it reclaims or reanimates them in a virtual way.”
Artist Maskull Lasserre carves a skull from old software manuals, a snake skeleton from the handle of an axe and a child’s teeth from a wooden picture frame.
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Artist Nick Veasey uses powerful x-ray machines to reveal what lies under the surface of objects like teddy bears, light bulbs, even entire office buildings.
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Books are transformed into stunning landscape scenes of glaciers, mountains, lush green hills and ocean waves in sculptor Guy Laramee’s new series, Guan Yin.
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[ By Steph in Art & Sculpture & Craft. ]
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Last week was cars, the previous week – boats. So this week I’ve found 36 fabulous images of all sorts of objects in flight: airplanes, kits, birds, people?
Look up – look way up. It’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a kite, or person?
By Kuster & Wildhaber Photography
By Geoff Collins
By Andreas.
By Linh Nguyen
By Geoff Collins
By Kim Seng
By Eddy Van 3000
By Neil Howard
By Peter Roome
By ecatoncheires
By Doug
By Cornelia Kopp
By Clark & Kim Kays
By Ali Arsh
By Nick Kenrick
By Datmater
By Niels Linneberg
By Brett Davies
By Lotus Carroll
By Hartwig HKD
By Andreas Levers
By Bill Gracey
By blinking idiot
By Brian Wilson
By Tal777
By Dave Scriven
By Official U.S. Navy Page
By Michael Napoleon
By nigel
By mommamia
By Chris Smith
By TexasEagle
By Phil
By RayMorris1
By Joel Olives
By Lisa
The post In Flight – 36 Images of Identified Flying Objects by Darlene Hildebrandt appeared first on Digital Photography School.
In part 1, I spoke about 16 of my favorite everyday objects to include in photographs. These objects won’t always make a photo, but when included they will almost always make the scene more photogenic.
The purpose of these lists is to help add some inspiration for the next time you walk out the door to photograph. There is beauty to capture around every corner and sometimes it is the simple things that make the most interesting images.
What’s on your list of most photogenic everyday objects?
Find some roadwork and wait for magic to happen. This is an easy way to create an image with a cinematic feel.
Bike Messenger and Smoke
Many people get caught up in photographing their food and forget what is truly interesting, the restaurant itself. I find the long time, no-frill, and historical restaurants to be the most photogenic, but of course there are exceptions to every rule.
Big Nicks Diner
Big Nicks Diner
One of the most important aspects of photography is its ability to document and encapsulate the past. In addition to taking photos when you travel, use the camera to document and remember your life at home. Capture the simple things that you take for granted, because one day you will suddenly find them gone. The above photos are from my favorite restaurant growing up, Big Nicks, which went out of business in 2013.
If you are going to photograph your food, why don’t you capture your favorite meal from growing up? I present to you all the port cheddar burger and waffle fries with honey mustard from the late Big Nicks.
Graffiti from Manhattan Bridge
I prefer to capture people from the front whenever possible, but combining a unique hairstyle from the back with an interesting background behind it can create a very graphic image.
Loisaida Street Fair, Lower East Side NYC
Don’t let instagram filters fool you. Muted and subtle colors can be much more striking and beautiful than highly saturated images.
Gowanus Wall
The number three is the most glorious number in photography. Objects and people in threes always seem to look good in an image. Why? I think it comes down to the triangle. Three objects will create a triangle shape within an image, which gives the eyes a clear route to move around the image, making it feel more balanced.
As a sidenote, the number three also works when displaying your images. Three images with similar content placed next to each other will help to enhance each individual image. For street photography, a single candid image of a stranger on your wall can look out of place, while three of these images next to each other can work very well.
Chinatown Chefs
East Village Bikes, NYC
If your images do not feel graphic enough, then get in closer. It’s surprising how many stories can be told through the tiniest of details.
Prospect Park, Summer
Shop windows might seem boring now, but they will age the quickest as fashions and times change. Sometimes the images that seem the least interesting now will be the most interesting in the future. Look at the images of Walker Evans of Eugène Atget for reference.
SoHo Shop Window
Massage Parlor, Chinatown
When possible, try to put together a scene and capture the background in addition to the car.
And tattoo parlors. Don’t be afraid, go in there!
Tattoo Parlor
Man’s best friend, except in this case.
Black Sunshine and Dog
Even burly truck drivers like dogs.
Truck Driver and Dog
This one is meant to stir the pot a little bit. No, this is probably not going on my wall (my wife won’t let me), but that does not mean it is not interesting and photogenic. It is colorful, graphic, diverse and poignant. There are a litany of brands represented: Arizona Iced Tea, Snapple, Starbucks, American Eagle, Marlboro, Guess, and Armani, among others. Just because it’s not the type of image that is fit for a wall does not mean it can’t be beautiful. Also, in 50 years this image might have some historical interest when many of these brands are out of business.
SoHo Trash
The beauty of walking the same areas over and over with a camera is that you are more aware of and able to witness things as they change. Just as you want to photograph things that are disappearing, you also want to capture what is replacing them. New fashion trends are the most obvious ways of capturing times changing.
This last summer in SoHo saw the rise of people wearing shirts with animals that looked exactly like them. So yeah… that’s a strange new trend that makes for a very fun photo series.
Urban Tiger, SoHo
Urban Tiger, SoHo
Rottweiler Shirt, SoHo
Urban Tiger, 2 Train
What things that are “ordinary” do you like to photograph?
More ideas for photography close to home:
The post The 16 Most Photogenic Everyday Objects, Part Two by James Maher appeared first on Digital Photography School.
[ By Steph in Technology & Vintage & Retro. ]
As if going to the dentist wasn’t scary enough already, you can now augment your odontophobia with a series of nightmare-inducing dental training devices, antique drills and tooth-related objects. Artificial mouths with frighteningly flappy lips and gums, robotic dental mannequins that blink and choke, and dentures you can wear around your wrist are among the horrors found here.
If you enjoy having nightmares, hang this calendar in a prominent place where you’ll see it right before you go to bed. Made by Practicon, which produces the dental mannequins whose faces are Photoshopped over those of actual human models, the calendar was originally intended only for dental offices and purchasers of their products. But it went viral in late 2012, causing Practicon to release it to the general public.
Robotic dental patient Showa Hanako 2 has been described as ‘remarkably lifelike,’ which is true if you’re used to looking at people with dead eyes and terrifyingly elastic mouths. She can blink, sneeze, cough and even choke, mimicking many of the natural movements dentists and dental hygienists will have to get used to in real live patients. Showa Hanako 1 was only a little bit less frightening.
This thing looks more like some kind of medieval torture device than a dental learning aid. Antique dental models like this one can be found in shops and on eBay, and they’re all totally unique thanks to the work that’s been done on their teeth, like excisions and gold fillings.
Let’s say you find this yellowed dental school teaching device in an antique store, and figure it would be a cool thing to display on your shelf. Just don’t be surprised when it starts mysteriously moving itself around your home at night, and then appears on the pillow next to you one morning, its teeth chattering like those of that one zombie in the only truly creepy scene of World War Z.
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Panning in photography is the act of capturing objects on the move. It’s like in sports or action photography. Your target is moving at the moment of exposure. As a result, you get a picture with a subject clearly caught on camera. However, the rest remains blurred in the background. To be honest, panning is nothing new. Panning has been Continue Reading
The post Capture Objects on the Move: 77 Awesome Panning Photography Ideas appeared first on Photodoto.
[ By Steph in Gadgets & Geekery & Technology. ]
The world of desktop 3D printing has made factory-style fabrication possibilities available to artists and designers, who turn digital models into three-dimensional solid objects with successive layers of plastic or metal. Virtual computer-created blueprints are sliced into digital cross-sections for the machine, which lays down layers of liquid, powder or sheet material. Here are 14 fun examples of what people are coming up with, from practical objects like lamps and jar lids to toys and sculpture.
Designer Jessica Rosenkrantz of Nervous System created these 3D-printed forms resembling sea anemone, coral and barnacles, in neon shades of pink, blue, yellow and orange. ‘Each execution of the program, a new random double curved NURBS surface is created for the barnacles to grow on. Colours range from yellow to pink based on generation of the barnacle, yellow barnacles randomly subdivide into pinker and pinker ones. The pores will also be open to different degrees between the different executions of the program.’
Artist Josh Harker is known for intricate lacework skulls as well as realistic portraits and figures, and forensic art, all created using computer software and 3D printing technology. Harker holds the #1 and #4 most-funded sculpture projects in the history of crowdfunding site Kickstarter. “My intent is to explore and give form to the architecture of the imagination. By disengaging the conscious mind I am able to examine esoteric visions before they submit to a recognizable metaphor. I am then able to capture and refine them into the forms I command offering the opportunity to study their identity and structure.”
“Welcome to the future of toys,” say Go, Go Dynamo, the creators of the ModiBot, who provide plans for 3D printed toys like dinosaurs, knights and ninjas. “ModiBots are a creative framework for creating poseable characters, but it’s meant to be built upon like a skeleton,” toy designer Wayne Losey told Wired of the snap-to-build system. “We also want to put the ability to create ‘content’ into a user’s hands. ModiBot is ultimately a tool for that.”
These biologically-inspired robotic structures by Randy Sarafan attempt to blur the lines between artificial and organic creatures, made of rigid and flexible materials that mimic the properties of joints and musculature.
Turn your digital music file into physical records using a technique developed by Amanda Ghassei. “I printed these records on a UV-cured resin printer called the Objet Connex500. Like most 3D printers, the Objet creates an object by depositing material layer by layer until the final form is achieved. This printer has incredibly high resolution: 600dpi in the x and y axes and 16 microns in the z axis, some of the highest resolution possible with 3D printing at the moment. ”
All components of this incredible working horse marionette by artist Michaella Janse van Vuuren were 3D-printed. “The image of the horse itself was inspired by a drawing that I made during this time. The Horse Marionette has fully functional joints and movable wings. All the horse’s parts have been placed in the same digital file so no assembly is required afterwards. When strung up the horse comes to life.”
Tiny interlocking shapes make up larger shapes that you can manipulate (very carefully!) with your hands. The Dod’net is a network of 64 dodecahedra with edges just 1 millimeter thick. You can order these shapes and more at Shapeways.
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A few nice visual art images I found:
Perilous Night, 1982 encaustic on canvas with objects by Jasper Johns
Image by cliff1066™
Johns has long been concerned with the visual and conceptual act of decoding. His various manners of painting and drawing, for example, frequently result in a congested accumulation of marks or signs, while his materials include encaustic (a thick, quick-drying wax medium that allows for a visible layering of brushstrokes) as well as objects that have been mounted on the canvas in the manner of assemblage and collage. These elements make Johns’ work optically and physically dense; paintings acquire what the artist referred to as an "object quality," and the experience they elicit from the observer is slow and searching, as if form and meaning are at once tangible and obscure. In Perilous Night, such qualities are applied with unprecedented power and complexity to a new and unexpectedly expressive iconography.
Perilous Night is composed as a diptych. The right half of the composition contains objects and images that are variously representational: three fragmented casts of a human arm, hanging from the top of the canvas by individual hooks; a painter’s maulstick, which is attached to the right-hand edge; a handkerchief copied from Picasso’s images of the Weeping Woman, "attached" to the canvas by an illusionary nail; the silkscreened musical score of "Perilous Night," a song composed by John Cage; painted trompe l’oeil wood grain (a depiction of Johns’ own front door); a Johns crosshatch picture, painted to look like a collage element; and a traced detail from Matthias Grünewald’s Isenheim altarpiece showing the fallen soldier from the Resurrection panel, which has been transformed into a dark, illegible (or abstract) pattern. Enlarged and rotated, the Grünewald detail also occupies the entire left side of Perilous Night. The two-sided composition is, then, laden with the artifacts of artmaking–the tracing, the copy, the replica, the three-dimensional facsimile, and an actual tool of the trade.
Together these elements represent independent visual systems coexisting in a limbo state of unresolved relationships. Darkness ("perilous night") prevails throughout the work as a medium in which meaning is suspended. Nonetheless, Perilous Night possesses an iconographical complexity that was new to Johns’ work. It heralded the beginning of a phase in which symbolic images are posted across the surfaces of paintings and drawings, often looking like separate objects that have been taped, pasted, or pinned to the support. As a body of work, their shared subject is the artist’s studio as a hermetic space in which images, instruments, and props are charged with unexpected meaning. Thematically, they are also joined by references to mortality and death. In Perilous Night, the hanging arms, like a butcher’s display of body parts, are luridly clear; in contrast, the almost illegible Grünewald Resurrection detail (on both sides of the work) is shrouded in darkness rather than in an illusionistic, symbolic light. Indeed, the present work plainly traffics in the iconography of Crucifixion–helpless arms, wooden planks, nails, and the very phrase "perilous night"–as well as of redemption (the Resurrection). These elements are heightened by the diptych format, which allows Perilous Night to resemble an altarpiece.
Good to the last drop
Image by bettlebrox
Mass Art’s Spring 2009 Iron Pour.
www.eworksfestival.com/index.php?page=events/4_10
The Iron Pour has a strong history at Massachusetts College of Art, beginning as a fundraiser for the Metals Department, it has grown into a celebration of art, music, and performance. Recently, the Iron Corps., the group that organizes the event, has been working in conjunction with Eventworks, who will be kicking off their annual Art Festival. This spring, we will be invoking themes of outer space and the explosive demise of stars and planets . Aside from the spectacular sculptural performances by the Iron Corps. , activities will include face painting, fire dancing, visual shows, and four musical acts throughout the course of the night.
Do we value cameras for their form, or their function? An exhibition in Philadelphia which features hundreds of camera sculptures made from a range of different materials aims to examine this question. ‘Reach Ruin’, which is showing at The Fabric Workshop in Philadelphia includes several sculptures of cameras created from carved stone, glass, chalk and sand. According to the artist, Daniel Arsham, as well as being a photographic tool, ‘many of us that use photography have a relationship with the object. If you want, call it a fetish’. Click through for more information and images from the exhibition.
News: Digital Photography Review (dpreview.com)
In my last post, I talked about using a DIY blue gel to add interest to a portrait by lighting the background. This time I’ve added a DIY orange gel, and used the same Gary Fong Powersnoot for some product photography. This is a three-light setup.
Exposure: 1/200, f/14, ISO 100
Camera: Canon EOS 5D MkII
Lens: Canon EF24-70mm f/2.8L @ 60mm
When shooting a dark colored object against a dark background, one challenge is that the edges of the object tend to get lost in the background. Here are two ways to deal with this:
1. Light the background to add separation. This it the technique I used in my last post.
2. Use rim lighting to clearly define the edges of the object, as shown in the photo above.
The key to this kind of rim lighting is hard, directional light, so that the light goes exactly where you want it, and nowhere else. Good lighting is often about what not to light, as much as it is about what to light.
Main Light: Canon 430EX II @ 1/2 power into 70cm white bounce umbrella just outside the frame to camera left
Rim Lights: 2 x Canon 430EX II @ 1/2 power into Gary Fong Powersnoots with grids a back left and right
I triggered the flashes with the Canon ST-E2.
Background: Black curtain about 1.5 meters behind the camera. The distance is important. If the background is too close, it will pick up some light from the main source and not appear totally black. Get your background cloth as far away as possible if you’re going for a pure black background.
The camera is sitting on a small square of black plexiglass (aka perspex) that I picked up at a local home improvement store.
To get the orange and blue highlights and the reflection right, I started with the gridded snoots. I shot a few frames and made small adjustments until I was happy with the look. Then I added the main light. It helps to build your lighting set up piece by piece.
Once I was happy with the rim lighting, I added the main flash, in the 70cm umbrella. Here I was looking for two things. First I wanted a nice catchlight on the lens. Second, I wanted enough light on the 5D logo on the top right side of the camera body. The umbrella is located just outside the frame on the left side, a little above, and angled down toward the 5D MkIII.
You don’t need a lot of space for a shot like this – I made this photo in my living room. The perspex is sitting on the coffee table, and the black curtain is draped over our TV.
I hope this article has given you a few useful ideas for lighting black objects against black backgrounds. I’d love you hear your comments, and as always, feel free to contact me on Facebook or Google+.
Post originally from: Digital Photography Tips.
Check out our more Photography Tips at Photography Tips for Beginners, Portrait Photography Tips and Wedding Photography Tips.
How to shoot Black Objects on Black Backgrounds
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