post and lintel

Via the always engaging Things Magazine, we quite enjoyed this profile and portfolio of architectural photographer Hélène Binet—now based in London. One of the most famous in her niche field which can nonetheless evoke the most stirring of abstracted landscapes to inhabit in angles, shadows and negative space, Binet is celebrated for her collaborative work especially with contemporary celebrity architects Daniel Libeskind, John Hejduk (Kreuzberg Tower and Wings, Turm mit Flügelbau pictured) Peter Zumthor and Zaha Hadid as well as appreciating past movements through her lens, like this study of the monastery of La Tourette designed by Le Corbusier. More to explore at the links above.

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pov: more superlative drone photography 

true facts: Ze Frank (previously) assays the mosquito 

awesome mix, vol 1 & 2: the video game adaption of Guardians of the Galaxy has a stellar soundtrack  

baby, you are so money and you don’t even known it: a quarter of a century on, in defence of Swingers, the Vince Vaughn and Jon Favreau vehicle that has more heart than one might have remembered  

social justice kittens: a 2022 calendar from Liartown, USA (previously)—via Web Curios  

the montauk project: spelunking in the mothballed secretive military base, Camp Hero, that inspired Stranger Things 

hop on, hop off: in honour of the Year of the European Rail, photographer Albert Dros documents his ten-day train journey across the continent

30 rock

Captured on this day in 1932 by the appointed Photographic Director for the documentation of the Rockefeller Center’s construction, Charles Clyde Ebbets (*1905 - †1978) framed Lunch atop a Skyscraper (who took this picture?), depicting eleven workers taking their break on a girder, feet dangling high above New York City streets, from the perspective of the sixty-ninth storey of the neighbouring RCA Building—itself still under construction. The following year Ebbets returned to his native Florida and worked with the Seminole tribe to champion the conservation of the Everglades and promote responsible tourism.

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moo-loo: calves are being toilet-trained to mitigate some of the greenhouse gasses the livestock produce

über die bestimmung des weibes zur höheren geistesbildung: a look at philosopher Amalia Holst, whose 1802 work is comparable to Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Woman  

ferryman: an interesting look at legally-mandated river-crossings in Manchester  

the colour of money: a mesmerising video to accompany the Blake Mills song  

microcosmos: outstanding photographs of the world not visible to the naked eye  

charismatic megafauna: a biotech firm is raising funds to de-extinct the woolly mammoth—see previously

bpoty

Whilst everything has taken on a sense of urgency and imbalance, admittedly our avian neighbours usually seem to escape these awful Earthly bonds and bother even though our actions and omissions are pulling them in peril too. The overall winner for this year’s Bird Photography of the Year, “Blocked,” by Alejandro Prieto and featuring a Roadrunner (Correcaminos, Geococcyx californianus) and the US-México border indeed highlighted how the subject can limn the greater environmental and humanitarian crises we are failing to address. More outstanding feathered friends at the links above.

wiki commons

The media repository for public-domain and free-use images (see also), text, audio and video that illustrate and inform all projects across the enterprise was launched on this day in 2004, championed by journalist and software developer Erik Möller. Though originally primarily developed as a way to reduce file redundancy across the platform, it has become a reference source and common good for contributors and users alike, garnering many enthuasiasts and even a photo of the year competition. The version of the logo to the side is composed of a mosaic of images to mark the milestone in November of 2006 when the site acquired its one-millionth media file. Currently there are over seventy million.

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this slaps: the Kiffness and friends (see previously) remixes the little melody of a harmonica playing rat—debuting here

à la recherché du temps perdu: wondering how Marcel Proust’s Instagram might look is a pathway into memory in the age of social media 

melts in your mouth: the long and cursed history of the sexy green M&M—via Things Magazine  

development hell: scores of unfinished films that we would watch  

sit a spell: a visual essay on the American porch 

latch-mediated spring actuation: scientists engineer a robot that packs the wallop of the powerful punch of the mantis shrimp

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slough off old skins: the rise and demise of an Internet Onion—via Kicks Condor  

posture pals: a gallery of awkward, outstanding stances  

gravy boat: kitschy vintage table settings  

a little pick-me-up: the lovely Flowers for Sick People project by Tucker Nichols—via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links  

news at eleven: screen grabs of 1990s reporting captions  

more like a simile: an experiment searching the web with AI contextualised natural language—via Web Curios

outside the lines

We very much appreciated the introduction to surrealist photographer Arthur Tress whose portfolio was informed by the pivotal year of 1964 in politics, segregation and civil rights via his series of antique colouring-book collages paired with complementary or juxtaposing found photography, likely sourced from the same flea markets. Tress’ sense for mismatch went on to aid him in delivering his commission for the US Environmental Protection Agency to document and publicise the social pressures and injustice underpinning lax ecological stewardship. More at Collectors’ Weekly at the link up top and at the artist’s website.

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wait for the beep: a growing collection of found-sounds in the form of answering machine narratives—via Memo of the Air  

potatopoty: superlative tubers  

yaxety sax: string ensemble performs the 1968 instrumental from Spider Rich and Boots Randolph 

the metz address: Philip K. Dick (previously) speaks to an audience in 1977 at a sci-fi convention in France 

say taliban, move your minivans: November 2001 Saturday Night Live sketch “Kandahar Dance Party” recirculating to mixed responses 

dateline: Merv Griffin’s short-lived 1985 game show Headline Chasers  

dear friends of mine, please write a line in this little wash tubbs book of mine—help me keep you in my mind: a comic scrapbook chronicling the Great Depression, via Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links (lots more to see there)

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lowering the bar: a trial lawyer’s endorsement in a whiskey ad illustrates by-gone regulatory period in the US 

blotter art: an LSD museum in San Francisco 

spraycation: Banksy works appear at UK seaside towns Great Yarmouth and Lowestoft  

middle-age spread: comprehensive study finds metabolism stable throughout life and crashes after sixty—via the New Shelton Wet / Dry  

bureau of land management: a celebration of the striking landscape photography of Bob Wick  

o’zbekiston line: a tour of Tashkent’s underground galleries—see also 

 kriegswaffenkontrollgesetz: gentleman outside of Kiel fined for unregistered Panzer

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clink clink: a snappy little animated short of guests at cocktail hour 

samarkand: an East German couple’s tour of Uzbekistan fifty years ago with photography from 1971 and 2021  

expectation management: a comprehensive look into how the Delta variant changes the pandemic endgame—via Kottke  

noah’s violin: the twelve metre long wooden stringed instrument is a floating stage, inaugurated along with Project Moses to protect Venice from flooding  

the rural juror: a spoof streaming service (see also)—via JWZ  

the effect is shattering: a vodka advertising campaign that became a snow clone

hendiatris

Discouraged from being shown openly and in general taboo in Japanese societies, stigmatised for their associations with organised crime (see also), tattoos—of the commemorative variety especially, were widely on display during the Olympics, the athletes’ bubble meant no mingling with the public. See a whole gallery from the Associated Press’ photo pool, via ibīdem. The motto of the Games, Citius, Altius, Fortius (Faster, Higher, Stronger) is a famous example of the above Greek figure of speech ἓν διὰ τρεῖς, “one through three,” a phrase where three words express one idea. This year the committee added a fourth term, “Communiter,” Latin for Together.

home on the range

Via Web Curios, we are directed to the rather outstanding and one-of-a-kind insight of the twentieth century American western frontier through the lens of Lora Webb Nichols (*1883 - †1962), postal worker, cook and journalist running her own local newspaper, The Echo, who took over twenty-four thousand photographs over the course of six decades, most

of the environs of a copper mining town in the state of Wyoming called Encampment. Nichols early in her career established a photo studio with a dark room to develop and finish film and would loan out equipment for other aspiring picture-takers. Her images, articles and diaries are curated by the state university library system for one to peruse.

fife and snare

Via the always brilliant Things Magazine, we are directed towards a digitisation of the complete—short but impactful—run of Avant Garde magazine, a project by Ralph Ginzburg and Herb Lubalin (previously here and here) that lived up to its title with articles on radical, pacifist politics and erotica.

The monogram included the nude lithographs of John Lennon and Yoko Ono plus a phantasmagorical version of Marilyn Monroe’s last photo session. The March 1969 cover featured here is the photographic composition of the award-winning professor and director Carl T. Fischer called The Spirit of 1976, the artist also known for his iconic celebrity portraits including Andy Warhol, Barbara Streisand, attorney F. Lee Bailey and boxer Muhammad Ali as Saint Sebastian.

we go undercover, wait out the sun

Rare and unseen, we are enjoying this preview of a retrospective exhibit of the portrait photographer Masayoshi Sukita going on display at Tokyo’s Blitz Gallery that includes a collection of previously uncirculated pictures of David Bowie, whom the artist first encountered in 1972 to see what all the fuss was about and remaining friends until the singer’s death in 2016. An iconic image (see also) with significantly more exposure, Sukita took the image that became the cover art for Bowie’s 1977 Heroes album. More at Wallpaper at the link up top.

bohuslän

Having secured a well-situated site to act as base camp at the marina of island of Vindön, we had the chance to leisurely explore the colourful and craggy harbors and fishing villages of the granite cliffs and fjords of Sweden‘s south central west coast, sharing the North Sea with Norway and Denmark—this rocky archipelago approaching ten thousand islands and skerries, though mostly linked by land bridges today. 

 

First we visited the larger port of Lysekil, a formerly important trading centre and a quarry but now focused on oil refining and tourism. 

Next we saw the cove of Kungshamn and Smögen with its ensemble of fisher huts. 

Not the Reeperbahn or St Pauli’s in miniature but picturesque and pleasant nonetheless, we saw Hamburgsund whose short-haul cable ferry takes passengers over the hundred-meter sound to the island of Hamburgö a hop away, and finally the beautiful Fjällbacka, built around a massive boulder in the centre of the village and holiday home to Ingrid Bergman.

diffraction, refraction

Via the ever intriguing Nag on the Lake’s Sunday Links, we enjoyed this gallery of furry and feathered companions distorted through the lens of various spectacles and glassware. We wonder how our aquarium-bound friends regard us in outer space. Much more ti explore at the links above.

läckö slott

Rounding out the southern aide of Lake Vänern, we ventured up the peninsula of the municipality of Lidköping and onto the picturesque island of Kållandsö, the second largest of the enormous lake and visited the medieval castle at land’s end. Originally a fortification of the local diocese, with the sweeping reforms of our Gustav I. Vasa, the nearly deposed, who made the monarchy heritable rather than elective of the landed gentry, converted the country to protestantism and appropriated church property and made Sweden a European power, it fell to various favourites of the court and caretakers who oversaw its expansion as an impressive receiving stage for visiting dignitaries.  Today it is a national monument and hosts a series of outdoor operas in the courtyard during the summer.

point of departure

Reusing this image of a row boat tethered to a launch in Gravedonna on the shores of Lake Como from a few summers ago after being reminded of the magic of docks and piers as a liminal, transitional space in an appreciative gallery of images courtesy of Nag on the Lake. Originally, we had used this picture to announce an upcoming break from business as usual—that is, negotium, with its Latin counterpoint otium, pursuits of leisure and a considered virtue in knowing when and how to disengage from work.