Speaking of orange, here is one of those shimmering fascinating colour abstracts by Latvian/American artist Mark Rothko (1903-1970). The more I see his work, the more I appreciate it. More on Rothko in the wikipedia article linked to below.
Today is Queen's day in the Netherlands, and a large part of the country is turning orange (the national colour). For that occasion, an appropriate piece of photoshop brilliance taken from the advanced photoshop contest section of Worth1000. Here is a shot created by their member DocMinor for the Sliced 'n diced 3 contest - opening up familiar items to discover unfamiliar insides. This one is a very clever play on the title of the famous Kubrick movie.
American photo artist Kevin van Aelst creates fascinating images many of which appear fully natural. A case in point is this apple globe.
Another marvellous Vogue Magazine cover of years gone by - in this case the thirties. A beautiful sketch, very artistic and infinitely superior to magazine covers of today.
One of my favourite images of the past few months, even though Explore once more snubbed it. I shot this during an early morning walk with the dog in the park near our home, when the morning fog and the first rays of the sun combined for a perfect moment. It makes a great wallpaper as well.
More photoshop brilliance taken from the advanced photoshop contest section of Worth1000. Here is a shot created by their member resquin for the The best of worth A contest - simply the best around. A beautiful life-like rendition of a typical Magritte theme.
Apparently Dajiang are considered to be one of the best rock bands of China of the last ten years, and judging from their ninth album, which was released last week, quite deservedly so. You can't deny that this trio has a good sense of humour as well, given the title of this release. And it must be said, there is not a change of direction whatsoever here, based on snippets of their earlier work on YouTube. Straightforward rock, guitar dominated songs of under 4 minutes, sung in accent-free English. Not very original maybe, but a great listen and definitely preferable to a lot of garbage that scores higher on the charts in the West. Try them.
Three dimensional creative ads do not come much better (or larger) than this - awesome vision to put this into reality. A suggestion by Jenny Downing.
Although peggyhr has been a Flickr friend for quite some time, there was a lot of her stream I had never seen with plenty of great shots. I simply love this one, a study of seeds unlike any other.
Not surprisingly, I discovered a number of new faves going back through the stream of my flickr friend aftab, and this was one of the best. Wonderful primary colours, amazing depth of field and stunning contrast between stone and nature.
Here is a shot by my Flickr friend andy_57 that I had seen before but now faved in hindsight. Even in his fabulous series of model shoots, this girl stands out - whereas she actually is not even a model: she is a make-up artist involved in his shoots and fortunately was also willing to appear in front of the camera.
Moving on to another of those fascinating abstracts by kate mellersh. For me the clincher whether an abstract photograph is successful is whether I could see it hanging in a museum - and this one I definitely could. Sheer brilliance that spot of blue.
A special edition of Flickr Favourites Sunday. Lately I created a series of galleries on Flickr as tributes to some of my Flickr friends: 18 of their best shots collected on one page. In doing so, I went back though their streams and encountered a few jewels I had not faved before. We start with jenny downing, dear Flickr friend and blog contributor. I love the contrast of the razor sharp rose bud and that gorgeous soft warm-toned bokeh.
One of the favourite movies of my wife, and one that I am reminded of every day when I check the activity on my Flickr account. My photograph with the same title (incidentally one of my own favourites from my stream) gets a few views every day from people googling for this movie title. As a matter of fact, image googling for "In the mood for love" yields my photograph already at page 2. Wonderfully atmospheric poster as well.
Currently ranked as the best logo on a dedicated site (see link) - and it is hard to disagree with that. Absolutely fascinating the way the golfer and the Spartan are visualized in one drawing. Sheer magic by designer Richard Fonteneau.
One of the earliest Art Deco posters, dated 1927. Lisa Duncan was one of the most famous modern dancers of the late twenties (outshone perhaps only by her sister Isodora). After her sister's death, she continued with her dance ensemble, and had a poster designed by Paul Colin. This poster was designed to shock, with its clashing colours, aggressive geometry, and sexual energy - much like the dances it advertised.
The Swan Bells Tower in Perth (Australia) is an 82 m high campanile constructed in 2001 to house the 18 Swan bells, one of the largest sets of change ringing bells in the world. The elegant copper and glass tower was designed by the local architect bureau Hames Sharley.
Thanks once again to Jenny Downing for the link. These sculptures by Bruno Catalano, depicting travellers, are very original and quite effective in the way they leave lots to the imagination.
And now eyes wide open.... the lovely Isabelle Adjani, French movie icon of the past decades, as photographed by Brigitte Lacombe (born 1958), famous French celebrity and film photographer. Her work has been published in magazines like Vanity Fair, Glamour, and The New York Times Magazine, and recently she gained more prominence by a number of famous photographs of politicians, including Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.
Listening to the new Stacey Kent right now, I decided to feature one of her earlier albums in this series. This beautiful New York lady is my favourite soft jazz singer, and we have all her albums. Close your eyes is her 1997 debut album, and the cover is very interesting, focusing on her eyes only in an effective grainy setting.
Last year I had dozens of my photographs ending up in Flickr Explore, the 500 most interesting shots of the day, this year I am stuck at two so far. Even this one, which recived 2-3 times more faves in a short period than many that got explored last year did not make it. Never mind, I still like it. It is a shot of a new high-rise office building in my home town, where the slant and zoom creates an abstract feeling, one of my candidates for the 12 best shots of the year end of December.
A fascinating overview of similarities, intentional or unintentional, in designs of posters and the like. To quote the collector (B. Caruthers): Albert Einstein once said, “The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources.” The pairs of images in this "Similarities" set are similar visually in one way or another. They are presented without judgement as to the motives of their creators. The viewers of the pieces can form their own opinion(s) about what they see. Some are "accidents": The creator of the similar piece had no knowledge of the original. Some are "re-contextualized": Obscure imagery from long forgotten sources was used from vintage printed ephemera. Some are "inspired": They are either obviously or vaguely similar to one another. Some are "homages": In order to pay homage to an existing piece, the original design should be widely known. Some are "appropriated": They contain—as the primary image on their piece—the original (and usually, but not always, uncredited) visual source. Not sure under which heading this combination of a Sundsbo photograph and Ladytron concert poster would fall, but it is a fascinating collection to browse through.
She has been absent from my blog for a while, but here is a fantastic masterpiece by my dear Flickr friend Ambreen (story.teller). Brilliant composition and viewpoint, wonderful dof, and the texture on the lower bell is the icing on the cake.
A fascinating piece of art perfectly photographed by my Flickr friend SteffenTuck. Being a chemist by training, this piece has additional interest for me, as it depicts chemical molecules.
A regular feature in these Flickr Favourite post series is my Flickr friend kate mellersh, and here is yet another one of her abstract masterpieces. She has such an amazing eye for opportunities.
Yet another masterpiece by my Flickr friend yushimoto_02 [christian]. Taken in the Munich subway, a dazzling composition of leading lines, wonderful colours and an isolated human interest.
A Flickr set collecting my 100 best.
