Friday, January 28, 2011

Top 10 Jan 28

Cheers Patrick for endorsing my blog!
xxx

Mr. J

1. Tomohide Ikeya








Artist’s statement 
Tomohide Ikeya was born in Japan. He's met an underwater photographer having scuba diving as a hobby.  Meeting this photographer made him wanting to be a photographer.  Tomohide Ikeya started his career as a photographer assistant in 2000.  He has been working as a freelance photographer since 2002.  He creates artwork with the theme of control.  “Some things are beyond our control.”

See more work by Tomohide HERE

2. Armando Alvarez







Armando Alvarez is an artist who has been photographing his surroundings for as long as he can remember. His photographs have been described as greedy, sarcastic, and somewhat of the equivalent of a cross between Duke Ellington and Bad Brains. He makes no apologies for these descriptions. He prefers the slow, arduous process of shooting on "outdated" medium format film cameras over the immediacy of digital cameras and computer software.
He currently lives and works in South Texas where he spends all his free time with his wife and two beautiful children.

3. Specter







See more work by Specter HERE

4. Morgan Ashcom








See more work by Morgan Ashcom HERE

Thursday, January 27, 2011

5. Ray Caesar







Ray on Ray:
I was born in London, England on October 26 1958, the youngest of four and much to my parent's surprise, I was born a dog. This unfortunate turn of events was soon accepted within my family and was never again mentioned in the presence of polite company. I was a rambunctious youth as was natural to my breed but showed a fine interest in the arts as I drew pictures incessantly on anything including the walls and floors of every room of our tiny house. After some trouble with intolerant neighbors, my family was convinced to move to Canada and it was not long before the burgeoning town of Toronto became our new home.  Unfortunately the drawing continued to become somewhat atypical and aberrant and it was  impressed upon me that such images might not be suitable for public viewing. In the summer of 69, there was a valiant attempt to stop me from doodling infamous contemptible fascist dictators upside down on my stomach with a ballpoint pen. I was consoled however by the encouragement to continue penciling in faces of flamboyant cowboys such as Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, The Lone Ranger and Tonto on my toenails but was expressly forbidden to talk to them at night.  It can be said that there are defining moments in a dogs life that can only be described as pivotal. Mine came when I received a gift of a flesh toned 12 inch plastic movable human doll attired in cheaply made military fatigues called "GI Joseph". I however named him "Stanley Mulver" and immediately resigned his commission from the light infantry. My Mother helped in this by sewing small business suits and leisure wear out of leftover Christmas fabric embroidered with holly and snowmen, tinfoil shoes and one tasteful Safari suit made of tight fitting powder blue rayon that proudly shone cobalt in the summer sunlight. It wasn't long before I had begun making enlarged wigs out of gray plasticine. These wigs soon became huge pompadours for Stanley and looked even more grand when I meticulously imbedded small hairs from my daily body and face shavings. This hirsute practice along with walking upright allowed me to fit in with other children even though my father considered it a waste of time. In short, Stanley had become a visage of the Man I could never be, of that elusive self one sometimes glimpses down the tunnel of infinite reflected mirrors. Although ridiculed by my peers, I proudly wore Stanley around my neck at all times as if to say "SEE! This is the man I will be, a good man, a kind man". 

I have worked in many fields over the years, attended obedience classes and art colleges, jobs designing horrible buildings in architectural studios, medical art facilities, digital service bureaus, suspicious casino computer game companies, eventually working at computer modeling, digital animation and visual effects for television and film. Some award nominations have been attained and I have been driven in long black liquor filled limousines and walked on hind legs down red carpets in Pasadena while wearing strange smelling rented tuxedos. 

Things change and summer years come to an end. My change occurred one night when my Mother visited me, which was slightly unusual because she had passed away some months before, a victim to the cigarette habit she could never quite lick. Facing a wall and slowly turning I saw the right side of her face ablaze in light, her hand trying to cover the light as if she were apologetic for having it seep through. Words were said about following rabbits down holes and I was shown galleries of work which were to be my own. My Mother was not the first visitation I have had and it seems she will not be the last. 

I live in a brick house with my wonderful wife Jane and a coyote called Bonnie. I like eating avocados and I don't really mind being a dog. 

See more work by Ray HERE

6. The Chap - We'll See To Your Breakdown


From the album 'Well Done Europe' on Lo Recordings.

Listen to the whole album here:
lorecordings.com/​index.php?opener=197

The Chap - We'll See To Your Breakdown

lorecordings.com
thechap.org

Directed by Larry Seftel & David Day
Director of Photography: Theo Garland
Post-production: MPC

Only The Chap can sing ‘we hate you’ with such
appallingly good manners. Vicious, vindictive but always
well turned out The Chap are gloriously individualistic,
unerringly original and perhaps a little sick.

7. Michael Wriston






Michael on Michael:
Hi! I’m boyghost — a social landscape and once-in-a-while nature photographer. I view photography as a way of interacting with and learning about the people and places around me. It’s my intent to share that visceral experience with everyone, and to hopefully strip away the common preconceptions and stereotypes attributed to people and their environs and to reveal the true nature of the individual.

Or, failing all that I just like to take pictures of folks I meet.
I enjoy shooting with predominantly medium format film cameras, with a strong inclination towards twin lens reflex cameras. There’s a certain disarming element to the clunky apparati that makes photographing strangers less of a terrifying experience. If I’m not wielding some monstrous box camera, I’m more than likely to be skulking about with a 35mm rangefinder of some sorts.
I grew up in farm country. I fell in love with the city. I’m presently lost by the sea.
My favorite words in the English language are “Hey, how are ya?”

See more work HERE

8. The Sartorialist


For the launch of Intel’s new 2nd Generation Core processors, we created the Visual Life campaign. Opening with the Invitation Film, we encouraged viewers to upload and share their images and films on the main Visual Life website (intel.com/​visuallife).

As further inspiration, we are creating a series of documentaries about the lives of inspirational bloggers. Bloggers who live particularly visual lives. The first film explores the life of street style fashion blogger The Satorialist (Scott Schuman). Documenting his unique approach to photography and his keen eye for style, we give viewers a glimpse into the Visual Life of the man behind the lens.

9. Alexander Gronsky







Alexander Gronsky  Born in 1980 in Tallinn, Estonia.
Based in Riga, Latvia.  

Awards: 
2010 Foam Paul Huf Award
2010 Silver Camera Grand Prix, Moscow
2009 Critical Mass Top 50
2009 Aperture Portfolio Prize
2009 Linhof Young Photographer Award
2008 Kandinsky Prize finalist, Moscow
2004 Finalist for the Ian Parry Award, UK 

2003 Participant of the Joop Swart Masterclass, Netherlands
  

Exhibitions: 
Solo: "The Edge", Aperture Foundation, New York, 2010
"Alexander Gronsky", FOAM Museum, Amsterdam, 2010
"The Edge". Photographer.ru Gallery, Moscow, 2010
"Background". Photographer.ru Gallery, Moscow, 2008. 

Group:
"Eastside Story", Polka Gallery, Paris 2010
"InsideOutside". FotoWeekDC Festival, Washington DC, 2009
"Minus Ideology", Art+Art Gallery, Moscow, 2009

See more work by Alexander HERE

10. IFTTT

ifttt: The startup with the crazy name aims to automate the Internet  Have you ever wished that you could call in status updates to Facebook? How about getting an SMS notification when something you have been looking for posts to Craigslist? Want to post a Tweet every time that someone uploads a picture to a specific gallery on Flickr? You can do that as well. You can even daisy-chain tasks together to create a slew of actions from a single trigger.

All of these things, and more, can happen via an interesting site called ifttt.com — if this, then that. The site is set up to allow you to create different triggers that correspond to actions. For instance, let’s say that you’re bookmarking things via Delicious.

What’s most compelling about ifttt is the power that it holds. What’s most impressive, though is how easy it really is to use. I have a couple of tasks set up already and following the process is amazingly simple. You litterally click “this” in a statement of “if this happens”, then you click “that” in another statement. You can customize the variables to many of them, but what you’re left with is a hugely powerful system of automation.

I’d love to say that I’ve really dug into the service, but I’m afraid that I haven’t even scratched the surface of what it can do. However, here’s a quick video that will walk you through and show you how everything’s set up. Simplicity at its finest, really:


For now, the service is in a private beta. But not to leave you hanging, the ifttt team has been nice enough to provide me with 50 invitations that I can hand out at will. So, leave us a comment. Tell us what you’d like to do with ifttt. We’ll pick the best ones and toss an invitation your way. Oh, and you’ll likely get bonus points if you tweet this.  Just sayin’.  Oh, and a word of forewarning: If you’re outside of the US, the SMS functions won’t work just yet. The team is trying to get that sorted, but just be aware.

Visit Website: http://ifttt.com/

(stolen from: http://thenextweb.com )