Thumbs and Ammo posits the idea: would it be funny to replace guns with thumbs up in stills from movies?
YES!
Melbourne in Tilt-shift Miniaturism
"A short tilt-shift time-lapse film featuring the city of Melbourne, Australia. This piece is 10 months in the making and features a range of different events and festivals held in the city throughout the year."
Mini Sculptures On Pencil Leads
Landscapes Made from Shredded Flowers by Gyun Hur
Atlanta-based installation artist Gyun Hur creates arrangements of materials.
She explains:
“Narratives of labor, loss, and place are vital elements in [these] constructions of a specific visual and psychological space. Through the menial process of making, selective collections of found objects transform into a poignant residuum of the past and the present. A sentimental installment of materials and insertion of a physical body facilitate an occupied territory as a platform for opened dialogues, both internal and external.”
Stuff You Can See On Earth
POV Camera from 2013 Coachella
From the video page:
Director Chris Crutchfield shows you the Coachella Music Festival like you've never experienced before. He's strapped a GoPro Hero 3 Black Edition camera to his head and headed into the desert for an insane weekend of energy and lights.
Thousands of Plastic Straws Create Evocative 3D Art
Italian artist Francesca Pasquali has created these evocative 3D forms with thousands of plastic straws, with the end result reminiscent of the Organic Forms in Glass we saw a few weeks ago.
The artist explains:
"Even if plastc is a new material, the tecnique of interlacing it in preconstituted nets is connected to the past. It makes it live again in the shape of sculpture, which spreads out towards the space around, creating various texturzsed effects. Observing nature itself, I transfer the essential being of it. The interlacing forms trasform the industrial material into soft and sensual shapes."
Documenting The Decline of the Newspaper Industry
The Philadelphia Inquirer, the nation's third oldest surviving newspaper, moved from its enormous 526,000 square-foot headquarters to a single floor of an office building, and American photographer Will Steacy, whose father had worked for the newspaper for nearly 30 years has created this series of photos from 2009 to 2013 that captures its ebbing in clear visual detail.
Mechanical Buddhas
Vertical Horizon: Looking Up in Hong Kong with Romain Jacquet-Lagreze
French photographer Romain Jacquet-Lagreze created Vertical Horizon, a project of gazing up in the megapolis of Hong Kong, "the geometry of the urban environment and the vivid lives it shelters."
"... a deep immersion into the city's thick atmospheres and a visual record of its wildly diverse built environment. This book is like a contemplative dive into the raw nature of Hong Kong and an expression of its vertical élan."
Stylish Illustrations from the story of Moby Dick and other monsters
I was put onto Tom Neely, a painter and cartoonist living in Los Angeles, by Adam Albright-Hanna (@adamah). Neely's imaginary creatures reminded him of the fantastical Photoshop Bestiary from a few days ago.
Neely is best known for the cult-hit indie comic book Henry & Glenn Forever, which he created with his artist collective The Igloo Tornado whom were voted LA Weekly's "Best People in LA 2011."
From the book description:
"Starring super-notorious musclebound punk/metaldudes Glenn Danzig and Henry Rollins..."
It is his brief series of illustrations from the story of Moby Dick (which, honest to God, I love and keep re-reading now. I hated it in high school and college, but came to it again in grad school and gave myself permission to think of Melville's voice as sly and funny amidst the mythological and timeless), that have really caught my imagination.
Shooting Toys in the Real World
1:1 Toys is a photo series Ottawa-based photographer Daniel Picard.
"The road in front was going to be closed down in two days, for almost a year. So, with no time for a human model, I tried shooting it with a robot I had just bought, the first of my collection. I liked the result so much, that it was the beginning of not only my toy series but my interest in building a fun toy collection."
"[Shooting the toys in the real world] takes care of lighting and white balance and all that instead of shooting green screen in my studio and trying to match things hours, days, or even weeks later.
"The rest is all computer magic not unlike what Hollywood does with CG in films like District 9 and Lord of the Rings with Gollum. I just use already built, amazingly detailed toys instead of amazingly detailed 3D models."
MIDNIGHT BARCELONA
With a city as gorgeous and vibrant as Barcelona, it might be hard to make a timelapse that can live up to it.
This one, directed by Pau García Laita does for me at least.
Peering Inside an Active Volcano in Eastern Russia
Andrew and Luda, Kyrgyzstan-based photographers, post outstanding nature photography, including of active volcanoes on their joint Live Journal account.
They recently headed to the volcano complex known as Tolbachik, which was in active eruption on the Kamchatka Peninsula in eastern Russia. The video and the photos are really phenomenal.
Pendulum Waves
Who doesn't love a good pendulum wave video?
Church Tanks by Kris Kuksi
Kris Kuksi makes these startling sculptures, aptly named Church Tank, with the same macabre overabundance that has garnered such attention from the likes of Guillermo del Toro (Pan's Labirynth).
“A post-industrial Rococo master, Kris Kuksi obsessively arranges characters and architecture in asymmetric compositions with an exquisite sense of drama. Instead of stones and shells he uses screaming plastic soldiers, miniature engine blocks, towering spires and assorted debris to form his landscapes.The political, spiritual and material conflict within these shrines is enacted under the calm gaze of remote deities and august statuary. Kuksi manages to evoke, at once, a sanctum and a mausoleum for our suffocated spirit.”
Ice Climbing at Night
Photographer Ray Demski and climber Alex Luger shot a project called “Ice Nights” entirely at night with the use of powerful flash units and a medium format camera.
Insects Caught Mid-Air With Laserbeam HD Camera Rig
It is no small feat to snap crystal clear shots of the very rapid movements of insects and their wings.
Biochemist and photography enthusiast Linden Gledhill used a cross beam trigger system called StopShot manufactured by Cognisys.
Gledhill explains:
"The external shutter opens in about 10 milliseconds 10x faster than the DSLR can react and that is why its important to have access to a very fast acting external shutter. If the camera’s shutter was used the insect would be out of the field of view before its shutter could open. Because of this, high speed photographs are typically done in a darkened room to avoid this lag (ie on bulb mode). An external shutter allows insect to be captured in full sun. "
Stylish Kama Sutra Alphabet
Do I need to disclaim that anything about the Kama Sutra is sexual in nature? Well, consider yourself warned/enticed.
The Kama Sutra Project A-Z is an amazing project from London-based French designer Malika Favre.
Paragliding Lit to Paint with Light in the Sky
In a follow-up to Long Exposure of Lighted Wakeboards at Night from Red Bull, we have Motion to Light Paramotoring.
