July 2012
Great Videos on Vimeo
28.07.12 | 22:06 • Filed in: Film
Supermercado from Fernando Huck on Vimeo.
An arty hybrid of a zombie movie and anti-consumer porn, Supermarket is hilarious. Though obvious and stupid (and a bit long), I just couldn’t stop laughing.
Here are a few others, which I loved: a computer-generated animation called The Future Forms of Life, a noirsh dancing slow-mo film called Falling, a music video for AAA called La Boum Fatale, and a very sexy Brazillian music video called Mallu Magalhaes --Sambinha Bom. Finally, in the geeky musical fun department, there’s Instruments of Robot Repair below. Enjoy and please don’t blame me if you waste a couple of hours exploring Vimeo.
Instruments of Robot Repair from robot repair on Vimeo.
Storm (Prospect Heights)
The anticipation for the storm on Thursday evening was tremendous. We were lucky that neither rain nor strong wind hit us. The thunder and lighting was great though.
Panorama from Mt. Agamenticus (Ogunquit, Maine)
From the summit of Mt. Agamenticus (692 ft), you can see the White Mountains and Mt. Washington in the distance.
Lobsters (Ogunquit, Maine)
Maine rock lobsters were less than $4/lb at markets this summer. Which means that we had two family feasts of 1.5lb lobsters. I was in charge of the cooking, which is often best with a little music to obscure the horrible sound of claws scraping on the sides of the pot of boiling water. They were quite delicious, especially because they were so cheap. Russell Banks has a great short story called Lobster Night, which explores cruelty, lechery, and what The Smiths called eating animals: Meat Is Murder.
Good or Bad Photography?
Photo by Joe Klamar
Quite a controversy has developed around photojournalist Joe Klamar’s photographs of the U.S. Olympic Team heading to London next month. With less than heroic poses and little to no retouching or any of the slick lighting that we’ve come to expect from Olympian portraits, Klamar’s photos got a lot of pummeling by amateurs and pros alike. Some even accused him of mockery and anti-Americanism. And many said that an amateur could have done a lot better. After lots of speculation as to the photographer’s motives, he finally spoke up, revealing that he was unprepared for a studio shoot and thus had to wing it, borrowing another photographer’s seamless and extra strobes and coming up with a new pose every three minutes. After perusing the comments to some of these articles, I realized that I was definitely in the minority: I find these portraits very realistic depictions of ordinary humans with extraordinary skills who are not pretending to be monumental. There’s an intimacy and vulnerability and playfulness you don’t find in most sports portraiture these days and I really like it. Read about it here, here, here, and here.
Times Square 360
ConEd Explosion (Prospect Heights)
Probably just a coincidence, but now that a heat wave is in progress and regular ConEd workers are locked out, management (and scabs) are on the scene. This was around 11am this morning. There was a loud boom, the lights flickered and when I went outside ten minutes later, smoke was pouring out of a manhole around the corner. I wouldn’t be surprised if there’s a brownout over the holiday week.
Barclays Arena at Night
Construction is acclerating down the street. Though perhaps with the recent scandals, our Ratner eyesore may be known this fall by a different name.
Little Prince on the Subway (Canal Street)
01.07.12 | 23:01 • Filed in: NYC:Street Photography
