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Photography

‘Camera Obscura’: Incredible Photographs of Indoor Cityscapes

By Chloe Pantazi on

In his 1978 novel Invisible Cities, Italo Calvino wrote, “The city…does not tell its past but contains it like the lines of a hand, written in the corners of the street, the gratings of the windows, the banisters of the steps, the antennae of the lightning rods, the poles of the flags, every segment marked in turn with scratches, indentations, scrolls.” In Abelardo Morell‘s photography series, Camera Obscura (via Faith is Torment), every crevice of the interior space is infused with the city. The artist created his series by photographing outdoor cityscapes from Times Square to the Brooklyn Bridge and then projecting these images, with a small lens or prism, onto the walls of rooms. Morell has observed that an “increased sense of reality” lends itself to the photos, though perhaps it’s more the unreality of these images, and how the interior, when interposed with the exterior, begins to take on new meanings. We might regard these rooms as invisible cities in themselves, containing everything and nothing.

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Photography

Amazing Still Life Photos of Plants Used for Witchcraft

By Tyler Coates on

Working in collaboration with floral sculptor Elizabeth Parks Kibbey, photographer Amelia Bauer’s Book of Shadows combines the floral still life popularized in the 17th century with the other pervading cultural threat of the time: the looming peril of witchcraft. Using plants historically known for their medicinal and spiritual power, Bauer’s work strips away the malignant connotations. In her own words (via BOOOOOOOM), the Book of Shadows photos “turn these spells towards the domestic, and present a less threatening, more palatable femininity.” … Read More

Photography

Compelling Photos of People Running from Unseen Dangers

By Alison Nastasi on

In case you’ve been wondering what former MTV news correspondent Tabitha Soren has been up to, she’s been taking beautiful, if not somewhat surreal, photos of people running from unseen dangers. We spotted the evocative, cinematic portraits on Faith is Torment. “I want to address the sensitivity of the human condition, causing us to think about our unease in the world,” Soren stated in an interview with the Indianapolis Museum of Contemporary Art. “My static landscapes needed people on the verge of something. The most intense way I could think of visualizing that was to ask them to run. I started out shooting friends but eventually was able to also put myself in the uneasy position of shooting strangers.” The narrative photos have a striking air of panic and isolation, and feel especially poignant in the wake of the recent Boston tragedy. Take a closer look, below. … Read More

Photography

From W.E.B Du Bois to Waris Ahluwalia: Portraits of History’s Most Fashionable Men

By Emily Temple on

Admirers of the well-dressed man, look no further. Artist/Rebel/Dandy: Men of Fashion, out this week from Yale University Press in conjunction with the RISD Museum of Art’s exhibition on the same subject, is chock-full of photographs of famed sartorial geniuses and flamboyant clotheshorses, not to mention essays on “notable dandies” like Charles Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde, and John Waters. It’s enough to inspire anyone to consider a wardrobe overhaul. After the jump, you’ll find just a small sampling of the book’s many great portraits — so if you’re in the Providence area, make sure to head on over to the exhibition for the full experience. … Read More

Photography

Fascinating Early-20th-Century Color Photos of Famous People

By Emily Temple on

There are some historical figures who we always think of in black and white. After all, the world trucked on in monochrome, Pleasantville-style, until the middle of the 20th century, right? Well, not exactly. In fact, color photography dates back to the mid-1800s — the first three-color process photo was taken in 1855, but it wasn’t until 1907 that the first commercially viable method of color photography, Lumière Autochrome, was invented — and perhaps unsurprisingly, photographers jumped to take snapshots of their famous friends. Below, some notable characters, from Mark Twain to Auguste Rodin, whom we usually see in black and white, showing their true colors. … Read More

Photography

Multiple Exposure Photographs Inspired by Impressionist Paintings

By Chloe Pantazi on

Influenced by the Impressionist aesthetic of Monet and Turner’s work, these gorgeous multiple exposure photos by the artist Eeva Karhu (via Faith is Torment) possess the evocative quality of painting. Indeed, they look more like paintings than they do photos; note the grainy, hazy texture of Kahru’s photos and the way the light blurs the landscape within each frame. Her work doesn’t just emulate the Impressionist masters, however — it straddles that liminal space between mediums and worlds. In fact, Kahru’s portraits seem more like imagined renderings than real ones, but of course they are real. These pictures remind us that there’s something innately beautiful and painterly in our surroundings. … Read More

Los Angeles

Electrifying Photos of Los Angeles, 1940-1990

By Tanja M. Laden on

Not far from Downtown Los Angeles, the Huntington Library, Art Collections, and Botanical Gardens is the former home of American railroad magnate Henry E. Huntington, whose 500-acre estate and massive collection of 18th-century British portraiture became available to the public after his death in 1927. While the Huntington is definitely worth a visit in person, it’s also possible to check out a few of its resources online. Form and Landscape: Southern California Edison and the Los Angeles Basin, 1940–1990 is a web-based exhibition presented by the Huntington-USC Institute on California and the West featuring a selection of 70,000 images from Southern California Edison, the company that supplies the majority of electricity to the LA area. As part of the Getty’s initiative, Pacific Standard Time Presents: Modern Architecture in LA, authors, scholars, and other experts have culled the Huntington’s massive archive documenting the region’s — quite literally — electrifying history. … Read More

Photography

A Photographer’s Hauntingly Simple Statement About Gun Violence

By Julia Pugachevsky on

In the midst of America’s endless mass shooting epidemic, and at a time when “bleeding ex-girlfriend” shooting targets exist and Jim Porter has taken over as president of the NRA (here’s what you need to know about this guy), we need to start thinking differently about guns and their impact. Australian artist Sonia Rentsch’s Harm Less is a powerful, wildly creative collection that offers visual poetry to both the pro-gun set and the rest of us, who have yet to see any beauty in wielding a weapon. Click through to see these arresting images, and be sure to check out Rentsch’s website, full of equally stunning photographs. … Read More

Photography

Old Master-Style Still Lifes of the Ridiculous Food Musicians Request on Tour

By Alison Nastasi on

We’ve looked at the strange and hilarious demands that musicians made in their tour riders before, and artist Henry Hargreaves brought those contractual requests to life in a new photo series. In the style of Old Master paintings, Hargreaves photographed the nibbles pop stars like to stuff their faces with. “I was inspired to create this series after reviewing a few riders from some of the biggest acts in the world, all of which were ridiculous,” the artist wrote for Vice. “What I found most interesting about them is that they offered a glimpse into their larger-than-life personalities.” It’s true. Sinatra lived on booze, New Kids on the Block eat like 12-year-old boys, Axl Rose’s cuisine also makes you want to punch him in the face, and Prince sips tea. Meanwhile, Billy Idol has danced with himself for so long, he’s resorted to chocolate chip cookies and a tub of butter to soothe his weary feet (and soul). Take a closer look in our gallery. … Read More

Photography

Disconcerting Digitally Manipulated Photos That Echo Famous Paintings

By Tom Hawking on

It’s interesting, albeit not perhaps surprising, how the use of heavy-handed Photoshopping techniques as an artistic tool is generally confined to ostensibly digital images, art that draws attention to its own artifice. These pictures by Hungarian artist Flóra Borsi, which we came cross via Dangerous Minds, are decidedly different: they twist and contort the faces and bodies of models into shapes that match those of famous paintings. Borsi’s work is all the more disconcerting because it’s so naturalistic — you find yourself doing a double take at the people on display, especially as they’re posed right next to the paintings from which they’ve been taken. … Read More