Archive for the ‘Places’ Category

Wednesday, February 17th, 2010

The Nashville Portraits

Sam Bush by Jim McGuire (1981)

Sam Bush by Jim McGuire (1981)

Jim McGuire was photographer, country music fan and former protégé of Irving Penn. This is one from a great collection of photos of Nashville musicians.

Photography, Places

Friday, December 18th, 2009

Sunset on Mars

Mars Exploration Rover Spirit

Mars Exploration Rover Spirit

Someday in the distant future a human being will bore another with pictures of his recent holiday at the Gusev crater on Mars.   Until then we’ll have to rely on Spirit to show us what a Martian sunset looks like.

More information at the NASA site.

Photography, Places

Friday, December 18th, 2009

Lichenthropes

by Melissa Farlow

by Melissa Farlow

Donning grotesque masks and wearing suits made from lichen gathered in the woods and sewn onto clothing by women, a father and son become “Wild Ones” during a Pagan end-of-winter celebration known as Schleicherlaufen, held in the Tyrol of Austria since 1571.

Photograph by Melissa Farlow from The Alps.

Photography, Places

Tuesday, November 10th, 2009

Martian Landscapes

Martian Terrain - NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Martian Terrain - NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Martian Terrain - NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Martian Terrain - NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Martian Terrain - NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

Martian Terrain - NASA/JPL/University of Arizona

More here: http://hirise.lpl.arizona.edu/katalogos.php

Photography, Places

Friday, October 16th, 2009

1444 East Chestnut

1444 East Chestnut

1444 East Chestnut

That big gnarled Japanese Coral tree.  Landscape architects and gardeners would offer to buy it regularly but we never considered selling it. During the summer while in full bloom and covered in masses of vibrant red flowers the tree used to audibly hum with bees. Coming back from a summer swim I used to run up that path to the front door so I wouldn’t get stung. Running and bees don’t really mix but I couldn’t help it. Those same flowers once attracted an escaped juvenile African Grey parrot. I spent days scheming to capture that parrot by building ever more elaborate parrot catching devices in the garage. The final device involved an old badminton net, a retrieve your golf ball from the water extension pole thing, duct tape and some copper tubing. It didn’t work, the parrot figured out what I was up to and never returned.  Neither did the umbrella which I thought might float me gently down to earth a la Mary Poppins when I leapt from the roof. I’ll blame it on growing up under high-voltage power lines.

Photography, Places

Wednesday, May 13th, 2009

The Zombie Porn Factory

Tired of aspirational interiors magazines where a single piece of featured furniture costs more than an average yearly salary? Apartamento magazine has carved a niche of exposing the interiors of the everyday profiling folks that have actually built and received splinters from that wonky shelving unit featured in its pages. 

Apartamento editor Marco Velardi paid our jumbled abode a visit last summer before it turned into a winter ice skating rink and took some pictures. Welcome to the Zombie Porn Factory… 

 

Apartamento Magazine Issue #3 Cover

Apartamento Magazine Issue #3 Cover

 

Photographs by Marco Velard

Photographs by Marco Velard

Here is the text by David Piper:

Among the more odious habits of the gang that live here is showering naked. Fat Fingers Miller (not to be confused with Footwank Miller and his brother Asterix) in particular really goes for it with the soap, which tends to rile Demolition Dave something rotten. But it’s just one example of the many little idiosyncratic paths of behaviour that develop when people live in a place while they’re slowly building it. Putting blinds up in the bathroom wasn’t as important, at the time, as the electrics, say, so it never happened, and now they like to joke they’re just performing a service for the neighbours.

Similarly, a random accumulation of objects and amenities from a variety of extremely fascinating sources constantly hints at an imminent aesthetic disaster which somehow hasn’t quite materialised: you’ll find a giant mirrorball and huge green fist, rescued from a friend’s failed sustainable disco campsite venture. But just you wait ’til they build the trompe l’oeil maze…

They recently became the first house in Europe to adopt Digital Time, the revolutionary new system espoused (in his book Power of 10, currently out of print) by good friend and frequent guest of the house Stanley Mchale, the arch-guru of the new chronologists, entrepeneur, and motivational speaker extraordinaire. A typical day might be divided into the following digital hours:

1. Light weapons training
2. Swim/run/darts
3. Horticultural inventions
4. Poetry team
5. Rain/hail/sleet/snow
6. Advanced time-wasting
7. Brain freeze
8. Freakbeat/psych/mod

Current plots being hatched within the house include an exhibition of drawings of boobs, Dandy speed-dating, a 6-star luxury obstacle course, and a handful of miscellaneous jokes and chat-up lines - it is something of a hub for hopeful young men (and women!) keen to gain whatever advantage they can on the Sexy Battlefield. If you’re there you should check out the plumbing, which they did themselves - they have 24-hour hot and cold running sex on tap!

 

Photograph by Marco Velardi

Photographs by Marco Velardi

(more…)

Features, Places

Wednesday, April 22nd, 2009

MK II Studio

Mark and Marco have just opened their new photographic studio & gallery space in Clapton.  It’s a great space and I’ve got a serious case of warehouse envy as I’ve had my eye on it for years.  They’re offering cheap deals on studio hire at the moment and have already had a slew of great photographers through the doors.  

 

Photographic Studio

Photographic Studio

 

Gallery Space / Daylight Studio

Gallery Space / Daylight Studio

 

 

Gallery Space / Daylight Studio

Gallery Space / Daylight Studio

Photography, Places