Saturday 24 November 2007

MAC vs. PC

Thought this was quite amusing.
So...
which is it to be?




Wednesday 7 November 2007

Henri Cartier-Bresson






"For me the camera is a sketch book, an instrument of intuition and spontaneity, the master of the instant which, in visual terms, questions and decides simultaneously. In order to “give a meaning” to the world, one has to feel involved in what one frames through the viewfinder. This attitude requires concentration, discipline of mind, sensitivity, and a sense of geometry. It is by economy of means that one arrives at simplicity of expression.

To take a photograph is to hold one’s breath when all faculties converge in a face of fleeing reality. It is at that moment that mastering an image becomes a great physical and intellectual joy.

To take a photograph means to recognize – simultaneously and within a fraction of a second– both the fact itself and the rigorous organisation of visually perceived forms that give it meaning.

It is putting one’s head, one’s eye, and one’s heart on the same axis."


Henri Cartier-Bresson was a french photographer. He is known for his candid style photographs. He is considered to be the father of modern photojournalism and helped develop the 'street photography' style.

He achieved his intimate photographs by wrapping black tape around his camera and hiding his camera with his handkerchief and pretending to blow his nose.

He also used fast black and white films and sharp lenses so he was able to photograph almost by stealth to capture the events.

I'm particularly interested in his work as I am looking at candid photography for my dissertation, investigating whether you can ever have a truly natural photograph.


Saturday 3 November 2007

The Mighty Boosh




This is a blog...

but is it really a blog?

If you haven't seen the Mighty Boosh, where have you been? I thought I would just add one of my favourite clips of this cult British comedy to my blog.

The Mighty Boosh is basically about two characters, Howard Moon and Vince Noir, jazz poet and electro mod, and their surreal, almost magical adventures. The show is extremely funny and well observed with continuous references to pop culture. It also fatures a range of different music styles with both Vince and Howard singing and playing instruments.

What I really like is the montage style of film with animation, which I think contributes to its cutting edge image. The whole image of the second series is quite magical, almost Tim Burton esque.

It's creative genius, highlighting aspects of everyday life.

Howard: I don't think lady fame would shop at Tesco, she'd shop at Mark if anything.
Vince: She goes to Marks for her bits. She doesn't do her main shop there, no one does.






The Lynx Effect, you never know when

This is quite an old advert for Lynx and I was reminded of it the other day when I went to the Media Museum in Bradford. It shows a couple lying in bed and going around the city picking up their clothes and putting them back on, as if they are going back on a journey they have just taken. The ad ends with the couple back where they started, meeting in a supermarket.

I think this advert is nicely presented and it helps that the couple are both truly gorgeous people. I've decided to include this in my blog as I feel it is a gentle, clever way to express the idea of the 'Lynx Effect'. Subtle.



More Trey Ratcliff Photographs




Thought I would just include some more photographs by Trey Ratcliff. I am particularly interested in how people are presented in photographs and how they react to the camera as this is what my dissertation and independent project is related to.

I love how Ratcliff has captured the character of these people and the high dynamic range style has created depth and detail as if we were looking directly at these people.

Coca Cola, Holidays are Coming

It loathes me to write about coca cola in a favorable light, but they're TV commercials (and their innovative bottle design of last year) are sometimes quite something.

Christmas is coming, well according to the advertising world it is, and already we are seeing awful Argos ads with "I wish it could be Christmas everyday" playing in the background. The question is, when will we see that famous Coca-cola advert, 'Holidays Are Coming'. That advert from that corporate brand that makes us feel all warm and fluffy and tells us Christmas is on it's way... strange really.

Sam Taylor-Wood, Soliloquy


I found this picture on a postcard at the Tate Modern years ago, when I went on a school trip when I was 16. I found it the other day so decided to do a bit of research and find out what it is all about. I’d always loved the style of this image, with the subject of the photography appearing as if asleep in a dark, dreamland.

Sam Taylor-Wood's video installations and photographs show human dramas and isolated emotional instances, showing tense social gatherings—people in solitary, awkward, or vulnerable moments. He often presents these psychologically charged narratives on a grand scale in room-encompassing video projections or 360-degree photographic panoramas accompanied by sound tracks.

This image is taken from The Soliloquy series with the photographs structured like Renaissance altarpieces, making specific art-historical references.
This image, Soliloquy I (1998), shows the languid pose of a sleeping man, representing the dying poet in Henry Wallis's The Death of Chatterton (1865).

He called the collection Soliloquy from the name of the theatrical monologue during which an actor disrupts the narrative to directly address the audience. This state of disengagement is implied by the combination of large photographs (representing the conscious state of the subject), while the strip of smaller images shows a filmic tableau of the subjects’ subconscious fantasies.

The Very Interesting Thoughts of Edward Monkton





Edward Monkton is a strange man. He is an illustrator who writes what seem random thoughts about anything from potatoes, shoes and ninja biscuits. I like them for their simple innocence and 'doodle', quick sketch style. Some really are quite funny.

The Penguin Of Death is really bizarre, reading:

Things you need to know:
1. He is strangely attractive because of his enigmatic smile.
2. He can kill you in any 1 of 412 different ways.

Wonderbra


I saw this on Nada's blog and just had to include it in mine.

This advert is fantastic and so simple. Set in the iconic Economist red and serif typeface, at first you think it is an advert for the publication.

It's one of those ads you see and you think, 'Damn, I wish I'd thought of that'. I think this is brilliant, so very simple, straight to the point, clever and a bit naughty. Just brilliant.

Get me a Wonderbra now!

Two Very Different Banking Adverts


Here are two very different examples of advert for two of the leading UK banks. Lloyds TSB and Halifax could not have a more different image when it comes to their advertising.

The TSB advert shows a sixty second animation, showing the story of a couple and their life's journey on a train called The Black Horse, relating cleverly to the Lloyds TSB iconic black horse identity. We see the couple fall in love, get married, move into their home, have a child who grows up and the whole cycle begins again, with the couple waving their daughter off from the platform as she too embarks on her journey on The Black Horse.

The idea is simple, TSB is with you for your whole life, constantly there to help you on your way. It won an award for best computer animation in the British Television Advertising Craft Awards 2007, and rightly so, as the look of the piece is beautiful with each scene flowing, folding and collapsing itself gracefully into the next.

Halifax, however, have a slightly different approach. Which involves a bald, be-speckled fellow called Howard. Why ever Halifax chose to promote their bank with this all singing, all dancing nerd is unknown to me and the cringe-worthy montage of popular songs and banking lyrics, I feel gives Halifax a rather childish, jokey image which I'm sure is not what people want from one of the most well known banks in the UK. This advertising campaign is awful and because of it, I have made a conscious effort never to use Halifax as my bank.

I thought it would be interesting to see the comparison.

Good Tutorials Website

http://www.good-tutorials.com/

This is a fantastic website for teaching yourself anything from illustrator and photoshop to flash and HTML. There's not really much on there that you'd want to make, but by doing a different tutorial every now and then, you pick up skills that you can use and adapt when doing final designs.

It's been extremely helpful to me.

Trey Ratcliff, Photography






Everyone must see this website if they are interested in photography. http://stuckincustoms.com/ It shows the work of photographer Trey Ratcliff.

Ratcliff's photographs are all shot in high dynamic range. The effect of this form is quite dramatic, some photos appear exactly as we would see in real life, with the image practically bursting off the page, creating a sense of depth, whereas some appear artificially three dimensional and what can only be described as magical.


HDR is a set of techniques that allows a far greater dynamic range of exposure, where we see a large range of values between light and dark areas. The aim of this form of photography is to represent a more accurate range of intensity levels found in real life scenes.


Ratcliff's images are inspiring and well worth having a look. Since seeing his photographs it has encouraged me to try working in the HDR format. The result is photographs not as I have ever seen before, with the images looking almost like a mystical view of the scene. I'm not sure if I've quite got the hang of it yet but I will post some of my examples on my blog soon.

(Have a go at zooming into the photograph of the Bangkok aerial view at night, the amount of detail is incredible!)

Media Museum, Bradford

On Wednesday I went to the National Media Museum in Bradford (originally the National Photography Museum). The main reason for going was to do some research for my dissertation which is on photography, looking at how people react to having their photo taken, specifically looking at candid photography.

However, when I got there, I found much more to do than just wonder around the exhibition of Sarah Jones', apparently "intimate and contemplative" photographs that to me possibly seemed a bit cliche even though the images themselves were beautiful in their colour and composition.

The animation section and advertising section were of the most interest to me, and I found myself spending the whole day watching advert after advert and ancient examples of animation.

Remember this...