Despite being The Finger a creation of an Israeli typographic artist, logo and type designer, despite the fact it clearly corresponds with ancient Jewish culture - Rang magazine, an Iranian ezine for graphic designers, could not have avoid it and recently published a follow up story about it (screenshot below). Well, yes, art is meant to be borderless but not always is.
Homage to the Israeli poet Hezi Leskley
The Finger consists with a short formalistic movie - practically a slow and beautiful taken travel shot of what seems like a 3d model of the Hebrew word האצבע (Hebrew for "The Finger"). Directed by Oded Ezer the movie is accompanied by a poster (shown top on this article) which was designed and photographed by the artist. According to Ezer The Finger was created as a homage to the Israeli poet Hezi Leskley and is titled after Leskley first book, published in 1986. Leskley was also a talented choreographer, an art critic and one of the first homo-lesbian activists in Israel and had died of AIDS in 1994.
Ezer is a top line internationally known artist who's works have been covered by major media channels, described with nearly every possible superlative from "emotional and powerful" (Die Gestalten Verlag) to simply "fascinating" (The NY Times). He has won many local and international prizes, including the Gold Prize at the international design competition of the Nagoya Design Center, Japan (2000); Certificate of Excellence at the 4th annual competition of the New York Type Directors Club and Certificate of Excellence at the "Bukva raz", a type design competition, Moscow, Russia (both 2001), and the Israeli Education Ministry Prize for Design (2003). Above: "Implanting Hebrew letters into my body" (as was shown on the Berlin talk).
The Finger by Oded Ezer from www.odedezer.com on Vimeo.
See also: Oded Ezer - Stami Veklumi
The Finger: An Imaginary Landscape of Hebrew Letters
X-Ray Photography as Art: Hidden Faces of The Inner Space
It was the first day of the year 1896. "What's that large dark oval spot on her finger?" Professor Ludwig Zehnder of the Physik Institute at the University of Freiburg, Germany must have asked his teacher, observing the strange photograph of a woman's hand. Wilhelm Röntgen's answer must have been something along the lines of: "Well, it's the ring… my wife just never takes it off". The first ever X-Ray photograph of a human body part was taken on 22 December 1895, about one week prior to Röntgen's meeting with Zehnder. Hand mit Ringen (German for Hand with Ring, left below), had revolutionized the way medical prognosis is done, but Röntgen's photograph was not only a major milestone in the history of medicine. Hand mit Ringen was also the first step towards X-Ray as a unique genre of artistic photography.
The following is a selection of contemporary X-Ray photography artists who all make spectacular images from everyday objects. While each of them has its own unique language, style or preferred subjects, all of them are hunters in a fascinating, sometimes shocking, inner-space reality.
Nick Veasey: The inside becomes the outside
http://www.nickveasey.com
Published last month by Goodman Books, Nick Veasey's book titled X-Ray: See Through the World Around You is probably the most spectacular well-made work of X-Ray art the world has seen by now. For a bit less than $50 (Amazon) we can all enjoy the inner beauty of a female foot in a high-heeled shoe, an electric chair, hands typing on a laptop and other "insides becoming outsides" by this unique British artist.
According to the Daily Mail Veasey, who uses a converted radar station in Kent for a studio, "passes x-rays through the objects he is photographing to create images on special film" and then uses "a 13-foot scanner to turn them into a digital file." As described by Veasey in his book Intro: "Nothing gives me more pleasure than revealing the inner beauty of a subject. The unseen can be seen, the internal elements and workings revealed. The inside becomes the outside".
Veasey's animal photos such as the above (fish) or the below (dog) are especially fascinating. "When we see an x-ray of the human body" says Veasey in his website, "we react to that image with medical associations. Animal x-rays however have a brutal beauty."
Veasey also makes custom per-order X-Ray images for various commercial clients, leading global brands that already realize the amazing visual qualities of his work. One of the most famous ones, known to every graphic designer all over the world, is the glower images used on the Adobe CS2 Suite packaging.
Another one, made for Adidas, reveals a sensor inside the sole of a sport shoe.
Diane Covert: Inside Terrorism
http://www.x-rayproject.org
Inside Terrorism by Diane Covert is an X-Ray and CT documentary of terrorism survivors and a most powerful modern art piece following the footsteps of Mathew Brady, an American photographer who documented the Civil War with hundreds of death images. The idea for the Inside Terrorism project began in 2002 as a personal response to the massive terror wave that swiped Israel during the first two years of the Intifada. It was also meant to comment on "the way terrorism has been justified in some circles."
According to Covert the X-rays and CT scans in this exhibit should be observed as "figurative images and portraits" deriving from "the desire to observe and describe reality with the most modern techniques available" but also from the "need to think and talk about" the by-products of terrorism.
In Covert's words: "Terrorists pack their bombs with common objects - hex nuts, bolts, nails, watches - all meant for peaceful, utilitarian purposes. By blasting them into human beings, they create the madness of our times."
Bert Myers: Inner Beauty of Nature
http://www.bmyersphoto.com
If you happen to have an access to an X-Ray machine you might be interested with this 160 page 10 X 10.5” full color hard cover coffee table book. Dedicated to the use of ionizing radiation in producing art images Inner Beauty of Nature is, according to Myers, the first book to cover both the history of X-Ray photography as a form of art and the technical aspects of this craft with enough details to allow "anyone with access to an X-ray machine can duplicate the work." The book contains 30 color and 45 B&W X-Ray prints.
As a retired Professor of Surgery at LSUMC and academic physician Bert Myers has always been interested in photography as a medium of art. In the 1980's, while using an X-Ray machine to make images of the very small blood vessels growing into healing wounds (microangiography), Myers had noticed some of the images looked like abstract paintings. "I started to explore the uses of Xray as an art medium, thinking I was one of the first to use such methods. In reality I was not, as Goby, Hall Edward, Dain Tasker, Albert Richards, and William Conklin had preceded me, though I was not aware of that until years later.
Myers subjects include various animals, mostly snail shells and fish (top on this chapter, left to right: Nautilus, Martin's Tibia, Giant Whelk), vegetable photographs such as of leaves and flowers (above: Morning Glory, Phalenopsis Orchid, Japanese Iris), minerals, man made devices such as the above Fluorescent Light Bulb.
X-Ray images are all B&W but in the late 80's Myers began experimenting with X-Ray photo coloring techniques, using filters in the enlarger and Cibachrome paper. Most recently he has been digitizing the images and adding color in PhotoShop. The result, as can be seen in the below (left) "Three Lillies" and (right) Loquat Leaves Orange is astonishing to say the least.
Steven N. Meyers: Negatives, Positives, and Solarized
http://www.xray-art.com
Adobe's decision to use flowers as subjects for their X-Ray styled cover was probably not a coincidence. Flowers and other plants are of the most popular within this line of expertise. According to Steven N. Meyers a flower X-Ray photo specialist, the earliest floral radiographs were created over 70 years ago. Yet, even today there are only very few radiographic artists in the world.
"By using x-rays instead of light, an unusual innervision can be revealed and nature shows us textures, details, and shadows that would otherwise not be seen" writes Meyers in his website. "Visible light is just a small part the electromagnetic spectrum, and falls between x-rays and infrared. My x-ray images are a collection of negatives, positives, and solarized images, solarized being partly negative and partly positive at the same time." The above images were created by Meyers between the years 1998 and 2008.
Judith K. McMillan: Shifting between warm and cold tones
http://www.judithkmcmillan.com
Photographer Judith K. McMillan uses an X-ray machine as camera to reveal the "beauty of natural plant forms invisible to the human eye". Ephemeral, eerie and extremely aesthetic, McMillan’s images include gladioli, poppies, water lilies, orchids, locust seeds and ferns.
McMillan uses a special technique in which she lightly tones the prints created from the X-ray negatives. This chemical process produces a shift between warm and cold tones, creating a dimensionality in the overlapping layers. Thus, unseen microcosm emerges as "predictable, common and familiar is transformed into a world of newly discovered pleasures."
Shine in the Dark: From Light Graffiti and Light Writing to Bachelor Party Installations and Activist LED Signs
Compared to the traditional paint-and-stencil graffiti, light graffiti (also known as light art, light writing and light painting), may seem minor to some of you if not entirely esoteric. Yet, this emerging concept, described by the Guardian as a new wave of ephemeral street art, is a most fascinating zeitgeist phenomena. Light graffiti can also be described as an organic, environment-friendly yet non-vandalistic channel for self expression in public. In most cases, no public space is being "liberated" for more than 30 seconds. Here, wall paint is replaced with flash lights and laser pointers, street walls - with megapixels. Naturally and as expected, where creativity, innovation and buzzy weather meet major companies (and their finest creative teams and branding divisions) can also be found. They are here because their job is to tag along the hype but with their corporate media power they also fuel the trend and make it stronger. The result: a new colorful scale of innovative human expressions such as the following selection of seven light art projects.
1. Lichtfaktor
The German collective Lichtfaktor has been well known for pioneering lightart photography since 2006 after, according to Wired.com, Marcel Panne - a video mixer with a background in photography - was approached to produce new material for an event themed "Energy in Motion". In the past two years major brands such as Absolut Vodka, Mark Ecko, Audi, Phillips and PlayStation have already paid Panne and his partners David Lüpschen and Tim Fehske to participate in a few innovative print campaigns. The above image, for example, is of a set recently shot in London and Brighton for British TV channel current.
In March this year the first ever Lichtfaktor TV commercial was released and included some of the most high-budget light art images ever created. The commercial was made for the BEKO ALL-STAR brand in Istanbul and includes music by Jingle Jungle. See selected snapshots above or just watch the whole clip here:
2. Illum
Conceived in summer of 2007 Illum is the brainchild of Sean Nelson and Chuck Grimmett - senior high school students from Amherst, Ohio, USA with a strong passion for photography art experimentation. Focusing on long exposures and different kinds of light art, light graffiti and light writing the Illum portfolio includes astonishing nature shots, self-brand signatures such as above, winter images and more.
Nature and Light Art shot
Circles
Winter shot
Urban shot
3. The Path of Light
Another creative two-man project started in Aalborg, Denmark in summer 2007 is The Path of Light. Using "the cityscape as a playground and flashlights as toys" Long Shutter and his (unanimous) are officially inspired by the works of Lichtfaktor. With pieces such as Satan's car, Turning on the lights (above) and Thoughts away (below) The Path of Light let their imagination "fill the streets with flowers and creatures" giving life to static environments.
The following is a recent stop-motion clip released by The Path of Light:
4. robokon_gt
Also with his own personal vision for car photography robokon_gt's "Getting chased..." and "The chaser becomes the chased..." (above) are excellent examples of how composition and motion vectors can be used cleverly within this medium. Other sets from this artist such as Gabe vs Gabe! and Feb light graffiti 010 (below) show a sense of humor is also on the checklist.
5. MRI
Ryan Warnberg and Michelle McSwain from Queens Brooklyn, USA turned their light art fascination into a local New York metro area business branded MRI, also known as M::R::I. Other than peculiar brand signatures such as the above ("m r i i n m n") the couple go with the slogan "Long exposures. Bright lights." and make unique kaleidoscopic portraits with original look and their own slightly sexy style. Version and Saint (below) are two excellent examples.
Above: items from the Version set. Below: Saint
If you happen to plan an odd drunken bachelor party or are otherwise interested in your own personal light session you are welcome to pick up your favorite email application and contact Ryan (the weird one) or Michelle (the pretty one). Worried about technical aspects of the production? There’. According to the MRI fellows Cameras, lights, cables and other must have accessories are all included. All you have to bring for a successful light event is yourself and your wildest ideas. See also the MRI Light Painting blog.
6. Luke Doyle
Luck Doyle from Oxford, UK uses acid purple lights to manipulate human figures into glowing super high-res light art photos. The above, titled Light people in bed, is in my humble opinion a true light art masterpiece. Click for image for a higher-resolution version or here for huge super high-res one. Another interesting set by Doyle that utilizes his branded purple is Glowing guitar. Super high-res version here.
7. Graffiti Research Lab: Night Writer
Another emerging method of using light to make your voice heard is using low-power led technology. Graffiti Research Lab, a division of the Eyebeam R&D OpenLab run by a couple of NYC-based artists who like projecting light beams onto buildings, had developed the LED Throwies as an inexpensive way to create a less temporary draw in light.
Consisting of a lithium battery, a 10mm diffused led and a rare-earth magnet taped together, The Throwie's functionality was recently extended by the Night Writer – a cheap easy way to make 12-inch glowing letters setup. With Night Writer letters are placed up on an iron or steel surface forming the coolest low-budget neon-style sign or a shockingly prominent activist electronic billboard - make your own choice. Just two important notes before you consider setting your Night Writer up:
The first one is that according to the GRL folks it's hard to conceal a 10-foot pole.
In addition: please note the NYPD vans are ferromagnetic. The GRL are also a prominent player in the fields of architectural light graffiti and projection bombing - another two forms of lightart utilizing more advanced yet still pretty simple accessories. Here the creation takes the form of realtime or pre-planned sequences of light, feed through high-powered digital projectors and projected on public buildings and walls. Check out WebUrbanist for more architectural graffiti and projection bombing on urban surfaces.
What To Do If You Encounter A Mountain Lion
In continuation with our latest exploration into the subject of humans and lions sharing the same territory we stumbled upon the above photograph of a busted sign taken by Father Dan as he was hiking Coal Canyon November last year. The sign explains what should we do if encountering a mountain lion. We thought that's pretty coherent with the Lions Prefer Blondes photojournalism drama. People and lions just don't mix that well but they sure are able to provide excellent photo ops.
Lions Prefer Blondes: a Perfect Photojournalism Drama with a Happy End
Gentlemen Prefer Blondes, we know that since 1953. But did you know 180kg lions also like them very much? Well, at least according to this Daily telegraph story that might just be the case. It is not everyday that death grabs one's soul and hands it back while the entire process gets captured on camera in a perfect photojournalism drama with a heart and a happy end. Yet, for British primary school headmistress Kate Drew that is more or less how things turned out when a 180kg cat pounced on from behind and dragged her to the ground, sinking its teeth into the back of her neck.
Those amazing photos are signed with the watermark "Austral" but it is not clear who is the cool headed person who should be thanked for them.
Working as a volunteer teacher in Tanzania, Drew (28) was spending a few weeks "traveling across Africa on a bus with other backpackers". During this tour the group visited a reserve in Zimbabwe where lions are bred to be released back into the wild and tourists can pay $50 to "walk with several of the big cats" which are "considered tame enough to be allowed contact with humans". Here is what happened in Kate Drew's words:
"We were just leaving and everything seemed to have gone well - until one jumped at me from behind. I was scared enough when he pinned me to the ground, but when I looked up and saw the other two, I thought I'd had it.''
It may have been a miracle or just a random coincidence. Though the wounds on Drew's head left her with 13 stitches (below) they missed her brain stem and she was rescued by the brave reserve wardens (above) who "rushed in with sticks and wrestled the animal away."
According to the Daily Telegraph the lion was not on his way for it's lunch when it grabbed poor Drew but was apparently just playing around a little bit after being "attracted by her mane-like long blonde hair". There goes at least one advantage of being a blonde, ha?
Unfortunately, Drew's story is not always how things end in this genre. According to lairweb.org.nz, a website focusing on endangered large cats, only three out of every one thousand tigers will resort to attacking people, making their reputation as a man-eater "quite inaccurate". Yet, also according to this website, even this low number has been enough to make the tiger responsible for more human deaths than any other predator. Lions are cute but if you are still not sure they also kill people, here is a list of Mountain Lion Attacks On People in the U.S. and Canada since 1986.
International Street Artists Add (More) Multicultural Sauce to Israeli Society
"The only tyrant I accept in this world is the still voice within. Culture of the mind must be subservient to the heart so individual freedom will naturally grow from self-determined activity." (Idiot The Wise)
It appears that the paintings of world's hottest British art star Banksy on the Palestinian side of the separation wall in the West Bank in summer 2005 were just the tip of the iceberg. Street art and graffiti scenes gain strong International momentum in Israel recently. Much of this trend is attributed to talented immigrants from former U.S.S.R. countries while there are also many active street artists in Israel who immigrated from European countries and North America.
As opposed to the Banksy case (above) and perhaps to what you may expect from street art in Israel, most of the street art messages are not related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict but to internal society issues, while others refer to the conflict in a general, none-confronting approach. Some look at graffiti and street art as a form of vandalism. Others see it as a legitimate way of expression in a world where most public urban space belongs to commercial cooperates. This way or another, the new trend spices up the already heterogenic society in Israel with more multicultural sauce. Following are a few recent outstanding examples.
The Legal Action Gallery and Cosco Urban Lab
There are clear signs that Israeli street art is going mainstream. Take the 2nd Annual Inspiration Art Exhibition opened today (March 6, 2008) in the Legal Action gallery for example. Featuring the work of 100 street artists from around the globe, this spectacular exhibition curated by The Inspire Collective takes place next to the Casco Urban Lab in Florentine - at the heart of the "Soho" quarter in Tel Aviv, Israel.
The Legal Action gallery was founded by artists Jamie Ame and Joy van Erven in October last year and features top street artists from Israel and other countries such as Klone, Know Hope, Zero Cents, Jove, Mi-Shee, Mimi the Clown, TigaPics, Azione, Booty, x10art, Sanko17, Sumone, Omino17, iamunknown and even the only street artist we know of in Iran (yes, Iran) who goes by the name of A1one. Check on this audio visual tour of the 1st annual Inspiration Art Exhibition that took place at Barbur Gallery in Jerusalem in the spring of 2007. Here are two "sneaky previews" from this year:
Ame (35) and van Erven are two living indications for the new trend. Ame, better known as Ame72, is a British origin street and graffiti artist who has been living in Israel in the past three years. He is known in Tel Aviv streets for his use of Lego stencils which "represent thought provoking and funny images of life in today's society". Ame's partner, Joy van Erven, is an experienced Dutch mixed media artist who initiated various crossover projects involving visual arts, architecture and urbanism. Before immigrating to Israel in 2004, he initiated a foundation for public space art in the Netherlands and was the curator of other art exhibitions and urban art projects.
van Erven is also the owner of the Casco Urban Lab in Tel Aviv (above), another alternative culture establishment that combines art, design and food. Casco (Dutch word for "undefined space") allows local artists, designers and performers representing their view of the city.
klone
Above: progress shots from a painting by klone (formerly known as street artist 'Make') made for a group exhibition opening next week March 10, 2008 at the Dweck gallery in Mishkanot Sheananim, Jerusalem. Below is a spectacular panoramic wall piece, collaborated by klone and jesus. Don't miss the click for the high-res on this one!
More from Klone at http://www.flickr.com/photos/klone
Inspire - Idiot the Wise
After finding himself alone and homeless in the cold streets of Chicago when he was just 16, Inspire (31) grew himself up to become an International known artist. He immigrated to Israel 5 years ago and his works are well known in Tel Aviv streets.
Other than being the curator of the 2nd Annual Inspiration Art Exhibition mentioned above, Idiot the Wise has been documenting public art and activism in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv for the last five years. Being an active cyberspace artist, though, his connections and collaborations go way beyond the borders of Israel. Idiot the Wise (aka SEVEN, INSPIRE, Exodus and TRY) is a "writer of divine names, painter of flowers, public artist and curator" who argues we have been force fed with "false hope and ideals" through "branded advertising that invades our private lives until the two become one".
His Flickr group ArtAttack "urges you to react to your environment" and "talk back" yet emphasizing this is not an act of "war on advertising" but more of an "inside joke" meant to "rattle things a bit" so that people can "start noticing things for themselves again". Idiot the Wise is also the founder of many other popular Flickr groups such as the INSPIRE Collective ("What inspires YOU?" 2,147 Members) and MiddleEastStreetArt (Middle Eastern Graffiti, Street Art, and Public Activism, 942 members).
For more about Inspire check on this interview by Mr. Z or any of the following:
http://www.flickr.com/people/idiotthewise
http://inspirecollective.blogspot.com
http://telavivstreetart.blogspot.com
http://poeticchemistry.blogspot.com
Zero Cents
This 22 years old dude immigrated to Israel from New Jersey, USA a few years ago and is already a prominent figure in Israel's street art scene.
Above: "Old woman feeding birds", one of 10 wood cutout installations in 2nd Annual Inspiration Art Exhibition. Below: "Face"
Above: Safta (Hebrew for "grandmother"), portrait of Zero Cent's grandmother (photo by nush). Below: banso: detail of a wall by Zero Cents, produced mid 2007. For more walls as well as installations, paintings stickers and paper pain art go to http://flickr.com/photos/zerocents
This is Limbo
Above: "Haven been overcome by tongue-tied times, minor orchestras mend together the tune and in a clumsy accent play: please believe", Cardboard and gauze bandages on cement, Bethlehem Separation Wall 2007. More from This is Limbo at http://www.flickr.com/people/thisislimbo
aifo2
A wall
More street art from aifo2 at http://flickr.com/people/aifo. For more information and articles about urban street art and graffiti around the world see WebUrbanist - the ultimate source for International urban culture.
Challenging Neptune: 6 Underwater Cave Photographers
Cave diving photography is one of the most challenging and potentially dangerous kinds of all human activities. A lot of things can go wrong when you go into a deep cave. Many more can go wrong when the cave is also filled with water. This said, imagine doing the last two while at the same time being occupied with the right angle and perfect lighting of a beautiful underwater cave shot. Not the easiest job on earth, ha? Naturally, this kind of activity requires special training and equipment as well as state certification. Cave diving is not a game. According to American Caving Accidents, a special yearly report of The National Speleological Society tracking cave diving accidents, 50 American divers have died in 44 fatal cave diving accidents since the year 2000 and until end of 2007 and the numbers keep going up. So, just to make sure - if you are not certified and trained for cave diving, don't even think about trying it.
Gladly, in reality most underwater explorations end up with a satisfied diver and some very good stories, while some of them even have spectacular underwater photos to tell their stories for them. Following is a photo compilation from 6 cave diver-photographers who have followed the rules and came back to share their experience and photos with us. All images are copyrighted and are the property of the corresponding photographers. For more about Cave Diving see Wikipedia.
Wes Skiles
The underwater caving photographs of Wes Skiles are of the most well known and highly valued available nowadays anywhere in the world. Skiles is a professional high-definition nature photographer and film director and the CEO of Karst Productions, specializing in high-risk operations of nature exploration projects.
His clients include world leading media channels including the National Geographic with which he made quite a few amazing projects. During his career Skiles has won many awards including the HDFEST Deffie for Best Documentary Film (twice), Jackson Hole Wildlife Film Festival (finalist, 2003) Gold Aurora Award (2003), Crystal Reel Awards (2003) and Best Educational Film Cine Golden Eagle 2003.
http://www.wesskiles.com
Deighton
Deighton does not seem to be a professional cave diver yet he practices the combination of cave diving and photography and manages to obtain exceptional results with his photos. The above were taken during his cave diving journey in Mayan Riviera, Mexico on November 10-14, 2005. More photos from Deighton on this Picsa webAlbum.
Andreas W. Matthes
Andreas Matthes is a highly experienced Closed-Circuit Rebreathers Cave (CCR) Instructor living in Mexico who has been training CCR cave diving since 1997, conducting thousands of cave dives world wide. Matthes received the NSS-CDS International Cave Diving Safety Award as well as the NACD Wakulla Gold Award for 1000 completed cave dives, both in the year of 2001. For more about rebreathers technology see here.
Other than being a professional underwater cave diver and photographer Matthes is also an avid webmater. He runs a website dedicated to closed-circuit rebreathers (CCR) cave diving, a type of mixed-gas system, enabling descent to much greater depths than can be safely reached with oxygen rebreathers or normal compressed air equipment. For more about rebreathers technology see here. The above photos were taken in Mexico with an Olympus 3030 digital camera during a CCR exploration journey. The camera was placed into a Light and Motion Tetra housing featuring a screw-on wide angle lens converter.
http://www.andreaswmatthes.com
Allen Wooten
With a Master of Business Administration (MBA) Degree Allen Wooten spends most of his time doing Corporate Accounting for a Fortune 500 Company in South Georgia USA. On other times, just about every other weekend, Wooten likes diving to the North Florida caves.
Wooten is a certified member of the NSS-CDS and DAN and practice various technical diving activities including sidemount, drysuit and scooter/DPV diving, as well as cave diving photography. He has a low-volume garage factory for gas mixing of nitrox, trimix, and deco bottles at home and has previously adopted 50 ft of cave passage in the deep section (165 ft deep) of Lower Lower Orange Grove Sink.
http://www.cavedivingrocks.com
John Blausey
With 14 years of dive experience John Blausey has a record of thousands of dives all over the world. He is the principal instructor and manager of AcmeScuba, a company specializing in various adventurous dive training including night dives, deep dives, search and recovery and underwater photography.
As a Master SCUBA Diver Trainer, Blausey provides a complete diver training program set forth by the Professional Association of Diving Instructors. The above photographs were taken Jul 24, 2007 during an underwater caving trip in Dominican Republic. The camera in use is a Canon PowerShot G7. More photos from this dive on Blausey's Picsa webAlbum.
Nick
Not much is known about Nick except for his first name and the fact he is a skilled cave diver and a talented underwater cave photographer. The above photo selection was taken on Jul 31 - August 1, 2007 during Nick's caving journey in Florida. More photos from Nick on this Picsa webAlbum.
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Are You Talking To Me...?!!
It's coat encrusted with dried red mud, looks up briefly while grazing on a patch of short grass in the Pongola Nature Reserve, KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. White Rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum). What a sweety!
read more | digg story
From Oppenheim to Akiyo: 7 Unusual Skin Artists
It is our largest organ. It covers every inch of our body, protecting it from hit and illness. Sometimes it inflates pain and agony, other times it can be the source of great pleasure. Skin has been playing a major roll in the history of human culture. People go to war to keep their skin color more popular than others. Skin both reflects and affects our emotions. Obsessed with age-related changes in their skin, we pay billions to have every last one of our wrinkles vanished with plastic surgeries. Skin decorations such as partial or full body tattoos, body piercing and body painting have been means of self-expression long before we adopted them as pop-culture items. Modern interpretations of body art involve the exploration of skin as a living canvas with its own unique physical dimensions, attributes and limits. The following is a brief review of 7 unusual contemporaneity body artists focusing on the human skin.
1. Dennis Oppenheim: Reading Position for Second Degree Burn
One of the first and most well known modern artists to explore the human skin is Dennis Oppenheim, an American conceptual, performance artist, sculptor and photographer. In his 1970 work Reading Position for Second Degree Burn, Oppenheim lay in the sun for five hours bare-chested except for an open book on his chest. According to Oppenheim the roots of this particular creation can be found in "a notion of color change... I allowed myself to be painted, my skin became pigment."
http://www.dennis-oppenheim.com
2. Youri Messen-Jaschin: Mad Lausanne
Youri Messen-Jaschin is an artist of Latvian origin living and creating in Lausanne, Switzerland. Amongst other forms of art, Messen-Jaschin is also known as an avid messenger and specialist in the art of body painting. Messen-Jaschin's works are often exhibited in clubs where UV lamps are in use.
He is known for his tendency towards psychedelic colors and according to Wikipedia avoids skin damage by using special biologic paint. Other than his fine art activities Messen-Jaschin is also an avid photoblogger. The above photos (by events-gallery.ch) are titled Mad Lausanne. They were taken in Switzerland December 2, 2006 during an event dedicated to Aids awareness.
http://yourimessenjaschinbodyart.blogspot.com
3. Kim Joon: Billboard Postures and a La Mode Attitude
Born 1966 in Seoul, Korea, Kim Joon has been of the most prominent body paint artists of the 21st centaury. With an MA degree in Painting from Hongik University, Joon's creations were exhibited in solo shows across the world. His recent works include "Duet" (2006, Canvas International Art Gallery, Amsterdam), "Stay" (2007, Space 355, Tokyo) and "Party" (2007, Touch art, Heiri)
"Each Party body is a centrifugal magnet of contemporary fashion design, billboard postures, and a la mode attitude, spinning through magazines and youtube. But amidst the excitement there is pixilation and jaundice skin. Among each conflation of pattern and tattoo, flesh appears deformed and ruined, so each body-surface becomes a multi-layered fact of nature's being written by culture and science; and vice versa […] is this flesh on tattoo and pattern, or vice versa?" (Christopher Jones, Seoul, 2007)
http://www.kimjoon.co.kr
4. Ariana Page Russell: Immune System Poetry
Ariana Page's skin frequently blushes and swells due to dermatographia, a condition in which one’s immune system exhibits hypersensitivity via his or her skin, causing capillaries to dilate and welts to appear when the skin’s surface is lightly scratched. The welts last about thirty minutes but that is more than enough for Page to painlessly draw those spectacular patterns and words on her skin. And then she taker their pictures and share them with us. Her patterns range from adaptations of Greek and Etruscan vases, Medieval wall coverings and Renaissance pottery to contemporary clothing and wallpaper found in domestic spaces. In her own words:
"Each body becomes an index of passing time. Bones shift, muscles loosen, freckles and wrinkles form, bruises appear; skin is the forum for these transitions. It may also evidence sensitivity, embarrassment, discomfort, fear, excitement, infection, health, attraction, and energy expended - reflecting vulnerability and conditions we’ve inhabited."
http://www.arianapagerussell.com
5. Yasmina Alaoui: Koranic illustration and Islamic Architecture
The One Thousand and One Dreams is a mixed media project by Yasmina Alaoui and Marco Guerra. Alaoui is a multimedia artist of French and Moroccan descent and thus her skin art patterns are strongly influenced by Koranic illustration and Islamic architecture.
Chilean born Guerra is a New York City based fashion photographer whose work is inspired by Pablo Neruda's sultry poetry. Their collaborative project resulted with mysteriously beautiful body art mixing modern and classic images in a most unique manner.
http://yasminaalaoui.com
6. Joanne Gair: At the Pinnacle of the Body Art Genre
If you were already an adult in 1992 chances are you bumped into Joanne Gair's work in the August issue of Vanity Fair. Featuring Demi Moore wearing nothing but a suit of body paint this spectacular cover put Gair at the pinnacle of the body art genre. Her major breakthrough as an artists came in 2001 after 50 of her most famous creations were presented in the Vodafone Body Art Exhibition at the Auckland Museum in New Zealand.
Gair had worked with almost every top photographer, director, super model or "A Class" celebrity you can think of including Cindy Crawford, Michelle Pfeiffer, Kim Basinger, Christina Aguilera and Sophia Loren. Her work with Madonna spanned over a decade including some of Madonna's top rated music videos such as Express Yourself, Vogue, Fever, Rain and Frozen.
http://www.joannegair.com
7. Akiyo: Henna Designs as Art of Body Embellishment
Henna also known as Mehndi decoration is an ancient form of body art that became fashionable in the West in the late 1990s. Unlike tattoos Henna decorations only involve pigmenting the surface of the human skin and are temporary. With over 10 years of experience with professional textile design, Akiyo transforms common Henna designs into a new art of body embellishment. Her art spans from contemporary designs to traditional Indian, Moroccan and Arabic patterns including spectacular hands and feet designs.
Akiyo practices Henna art in parties, bridal and baby showers and bridal mehndi, yet her respectful client list includes names as HBO, Bloomingdales, Camel and NYU. Akiyo is one of the contributors of henna design book “Henna Tribe Hot 100” put together by Henna Tribe and currently working on a first design book to be published on Henna Tribe. For those who are interested - a long list of other Henna / Mehndi artists can be found on hennapage.com.
http://www.akiyohenna.com
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Frames of Frozen Time: 7 Contemporary High-Speed Photographers
If you ever tried taking a photograph of a running dog or a fast moving car you must have noticed it is quite a difficult task. Even with the most generous lighting conditions and very good lenses normal photography equipment is unable to capture sharp images of extremely fast motion due to the familiar effect of motion-blur. That's where special High Speed Photography equipment and a lot of experience and knowhow get into the picture... High Speed Photography is the art and science of taking of motion picture film, video or still photos of extremely fast phenomena such as explosions and detonations; water splashes; gunshots and other extreme high-speed actions.
The first practical application of high-speed photography is attributed to Eadweard Mu