Wednesday, 16 May 2012

Street Photography Now

Collecting photography books is a great hobby, they are interesting to look through and inspirational. The book that I look through the most is Street Photography Now, The book consists of 240 pages with photos taken from 46 contemporary image makers. The photographers have taken images all around the world allowing a board and diverse set of photos and styles coming through. The photos from Paul Russel have a large amount of humour behind them, but the images from Richard Wentworth are a documentation of random objects on the street left behind by people. The diverse way of shooting allows the photographers to each have individuality within the book, none of the photographers work clash on a visual level or on a meaning/representation level. Overall this is a highly recommend piece of work for anyone who is slightly interested in street photography or documentary photography, the book is most defiantly "Everyday life at 1/125 of a second" - quote from http://www.thamesandhudson.com/streetphotography.html


Paul Russell's photos here as a taster of what is inside of the book....

For more imformation on street photography click this link - http://www.lfph.org/what-is-street-photography




Having fun with light!

Long exposures at night time are usually used to capture traffic driving past, and you will get a streak of light coming from the headlamps of the car. But you can do so much more with light at night time! These are a few examples of experimentation with light at night.

Firstly we have the same principal of a standard long exposure but doing it over a large amount of time, and in a strange location instead of a road in a city centre. The photo is actually capturing rally cars going down a hill.


Stencils have been used in graffiti for many years, and considering long exposures/light painting have the nickname light graffiti it would make great sense to use the same technique. The photo here has taken inspiration from Studio Ghibli film Princess Mononoke, a great Japanese animation movie. Watch Trailer here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkWWWKKA8jY


The last and most complicated of all is star trails, these take a huge amount of time and practise, but are the most spectacular when achieved. As it is such a long process I have found another blog that has a step by step guide on how to shoot star trails - http://www.liquidinplastic.com/2008/06/startrails/ lets go streaking will tell u everything u need to no.


Tuesday, 15 May 2012

David Cotterrell: Monsters Of The Id


Monster of the id at the John Hansard gallery part of the university of Southampton is on til march 2012. When i went to see the exhibition I was lucky enough to hear David Cotterrell talk about his work and walk around the gallery just with my fellow students and spend alot of time looking at the work which was a great opportunity.


   As far as exhibitions go I've never been to one where the works on show are effected so much by the factor of human presence. As you walk into the gallery on your left you are faced with a large projection and if you stand there for long enough human figures start to appear on the projection, this is done by sensors taken from the XBOX Kinect David later told us. This first piece effects the second one around the corner where you can see tiny figures walking across what look like mountains, and the more people by the first piece of work the more tiny people walk across these white mountains made of chalk. The final photo shows a room which you come into which is set up like a army room where they would be able to control these flying drones.
   This exhibition is based around David Cotterrells trip to Afghanistan where he went not as a journalist photographer but was put with the medical part of the army to allow him to take photos and then the second time he went he went alone to explore Afghanistan without a constant military presence. His experiences from these trips and the thoughts he had about the country either political or cultural are manifested in this show.

Saturday, 12 May 2012

Ikea Digital Camera

Swedish furniture store IKEA takes on the photography with their first ever camera, but i doubt Canon and Nikon are going to be worrying about a drop in their sales due to it. Ikea seem to have gone for a green and hip feel with this camera and fits in with the instagram craze at the moment. It is made from cardboard and runs off two AA batteries and holds around 40 photos, but at the moment there is no price on this different little camera, lets just hope its waterproof. Its a great idea if the price is right as it may be the modern age disposable camera, allowing you to take it everywhere without worry perfect for festivals! Watch the video to see more capabilties of the camera and check it out for yourself.


Shepard Fairey (OBEY) X Fashion

Shepard Fairey is alot of things to people, a ggraffiti artist, street artist, graphic designer and illustrator. His work of Andre the Giant or Obey has become a worldwide street campaign which meanings simply are question everything according Fairey. As one of the big hitters in the street art world, similar to Banksy and others it is left to on lookers to question how far these artist can now go as their work is so well known and now might have lost any meaning or underlying message that it did have before everyone knew about it.
  Fairey's Obey brand has spread world wide and now he profits off many T-Shirts designs coming out each month selling from £25-£35, the fact that Fairey is all for revolution against governments and ran a campaign called "anti-war anti-bush" maybe making all these clothes dilutes this message that he wants to put across and now has simply become a brand for consumers to buy from major high street stores.


Does his brand of clothing allow him to spread his work further than walls on the street and now uses people as canvas's walking around with his propaganda message on their chest? I'd like to think its this and not that he has lost direct with his art and ended up another faceless organisation churning out clothes to sell to a market already swamped by brands who simply want your cash.

If you don't no of Fairey's work, take a look into it.... http://obeygiant.com/

Wednesday, 9 May 2012

Caine's Arcade



Caine's Arcade I think is a truly inspirational story of having a dream no matter what age, and using your creativity plus abit of hard work to make it happen. If every city had a Caine's arcade I'd surely go to it. Hope this video put a smile on your face as it did mine.

Cliche Resume

Cliche Resume is a skate photo book done by French skate brand CLICHE, composed of over 300 images it is a large hardback book that time lines the company from the early 90's through to 2008. The photos below are some of the pages that I got signed by the Pros from the team on their signature pages in the book.







Riot Girls

A great fashion shoot done for Vice magazine, shot by Muir Vidler.
During the student protests well over a year ago now, the photographer Muir Vidler took several girls to the protests and decided to shoot photos as the protest were going on, they ended up getting stuck with the protesters and not being able to leave for 8 hours.



Mozart Effect

The Mozart Effect can be described as a set of research that took place that indicated that listening to Mozart's music may temporarily improve the performance of certain mental tasks. Some even say that in general listening to Mozart makes you smarter.



This research into the Mozart effect was taken place in the 90's , since then no real research has taken place to look into seeing if other kinds of music could improve brain function or improve smartness. The type of music I am passionate about is mainly for the dancefloor and in clubs, but there is a small area of dubstep that is so minimal and progressive that I think it could have the same effect as a Mozart piece. Listen below to Burial and Four Tet's tracks which always help me to concentrate.



A Skateboarder's Mentality

People who have been in skateboarding for many years draw on their experiences from the extreme sport to put into life around them. These are two videos that feature a pro skateboarder and legend Mark Gonzales and another person who is deeply involved in the film making side of the sport Greg Hunt. Hunt in my mind perfectly describes the balance between how skateboarding is a sport and a lifestyle which absorbs so many different types of people into it. This array of people makes the sport what it is for sure.




Coventry X Skateboarding

Since the new year at university I have worked on a project called Representation and I ended up photographing a skateboarding community and the people within it. I tried to brake the stereotype of skateboarders being young teenagers with nothing better to do, so I focused on the older members of the group and photographed them. Now my project is finished I still have thoughts wether I can carry this project on in some way so I decided to look through so videos which myself and some friends made, filmed and edited of the skate community in Coventry.




Larry Clark - Tulsa

When working on a project for uni, I was looking at the idea of how cannabis effects people and the fact they are braking the law by smoking this drug. I was trying to find photographers who had included drugs in their work, and I found Larry Clark who didn't just document a social group taking drugs he was part of it!
  The book Tulsa by Larry Clark is a dark gritty insight into what he was doing in the late 60s and early 70s, it shows people taking drugs and playing with guns when high. It is a shocking book to look through but the people in it seem to have a emptiness to them and lost a grip on thing due to all the drugs.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Tulsa-Larry-Clark/dp/0802137482/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1336575109&sr=8-1


Thursday, 3 May 2012

The Hundreds

http://thehundreds.com/

To start off The Hundreds is a clothing label based in Los Angeles, it is classed as a streetwear brand and has been picked up my many different social groups such as skaters and hipsters. The Hundreds website though has a daily blog that is updated with videos on inspiration for designing clothes, photos from fashion shoots, general lifestyle of living in LA and even exhibition reviews.



A really interesting post on their blog was of Tim Biskup's work which I personally find very interesting, its on the verge of street art and Graffiti but has a vibrance and base colour of pop art. I thinks its really creative and you should also have a look at his website http://timbiskup.com/

Music And Art Go Hand In Hand

Boddika - Acid Jackon designed by ASHES57

Vinyl record label SWAMP81 which makes amazing heavy, deep, techy, minimal tunes, only releases limited numbers on vinyl per release and each vinyl comes with a sleeve that has been designed by a London based artist. Boddika is a artist that makes minimal tech music and his latest release on SWAMP81 came with a great vinyl sleeve designed by ASHES57 who collaborated with the artist to creative something really special and now ASHES57 is selling limited screen prints and lithographs of his work. Follow the link to look more closely at his work. . . . http://ashes57.com/limited_prints.html

WRITER - Blank Canvas Records

Here's some photos taken by myself (Garry Jones) of DJ and producer "Writer". Hailing from Coventry in the UK he is established as  a dubstep artist under the name of DubKid but has taken the move to minimal tech which is making a huge impact on the underground music scene at the moment. These are some promotional shots I did of the artist WRITER.