We’ve admired Robbie Cooper’s fascinating photographs of gamers and their avatars before. This time, the artist aims his lens at children while lost in the virtual world of their favorite videogames. The head-on portraits show several zombified, hilarious, and eerily calm expressions. The images are reminiscent of that feeling you get when you catch your reflection in passing, or hear your own recorded voice for the first time. It’s interesting to note that the children in Cooper’s body of work are far more composed than the adults in Phillip Toledano’s portraits that capture the same moment — perhaps proving that we were more sane when pint-sized. Check out the images below in our gallery.
Combining 19th century cabinet card portraiture with superheroes, movie monsters, and other idols, artist Alex Gross has created an army of whimsical trading cards with a vintage feel. Stoic figures from the past have been reincarnated as the stars of Superman, Star Trek, Star Wars, and other cult faves. Gross doesn’t just slap a painted costume on each individual, though. He transforms them into lively characters by creating new landscapes for them to dwell in, complete with props and other quirky touches. Delight in Gross’ geeky menagerie past the break.
The seeds of David Lynch’s film career started germinating during his time at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia where the painter created a series of animated shorts. He eventually used them to apply for a filmmaking grant with the AFI. His projects won him wider admiration, he relocated to Los Angeles, wrote a script for an adultery/madness tale called Gardenback — which Lynch felt like he quickly lost creative control of once an interested producer at Fox asked him to expand upon it more realistically — and started developing Eraserhead.
The script was around 20 pages long, and the shoot was schedule for a few weeks, but the haunting film took several years to complete — mainly due to budget restrictions. We first spotted some fascinating behind the scenes photos from the set of Eraserhead at This Must Be the Place, featuring the director (along with his long locks and signature cup of coffee), Jack Nance (and his electrifying coiffure), and everything in-between. Check out several amazing snapshots from one of cinema’s strangest and most beautifully surreal movies past the break.
Who spent that evening with Marylin? Who captured the Tank Man in Tienanmen Square? Who took Kurt Cobain’s portrait two months before his death? For his book Behind Photographs: Archiving Photographic Legends, photographer Tim Mantoani tracked down the masters behind some of our visual history’s most iconic images to rescue them from anonymity. Highlighted in Wired, here are just a few of the 150 portraits of famous photographers holding their famous photographs and sharing stories, like Steve McCurry searching for 17 years to find Sharbat Gula, the young, translucent-eyed girl from Pakistan, the star in his famous Kodachrome. Find out more about the project, but first, sift through these intentionally analog, enormous 20×24 Polaroid portraits and… respect!
Weegee’s lurid photographs of New York City crime scenes would be considered tabloid journalism today. Yet, between 1935 and 1946, the photojournalist carved out a niche for himself — a bloody, grizzly niche. Freelancing for several papers and agencies, Weegee stalked night courts and appeared “on the spot” of New York’s many murders. From violent hold-ups to tragic accidents on 5th Avenue to violence-hungry crowds of gawkers — Weegee shot them all and organized his own photo exhibits. Not even his temporary displacement in Los Angeles as a paparazzi could keep him away from his New York, his business.
Culled from the International Center of Photography‘s extensive archives, the exhibition Weegee: Murder is My Business (organized by ICP Chief Curator Brian Wallis) opens tomorrow and runs through September 2nd. Click through to preview a selection of the fascinating photographs on display courtesy of ICP, but you’ve got to head there in person for the environmental recreations of Weegee’s apartment and exhibitions.
Civilians can find it difficult to relate to soldiers who have seen combat, who have pointed and a fired a gun at their predetermined enemy, who have witnessed their mates killed or returned changed. Photographer, journalist, and filmmaker Lalage Snow has photographed and interviewed soldiers in the 1st Battalion of the Royal Regiment of Scotland before deployment, three months into their service, and days after their return home for a stunning new photo essay in The Telegraph. As you see their faces weathered, hardened, shaken, you can literally read the psychological toil of war. It gets particularly heartbreaking when a teenager who eagerly joined the force as a kid talks of crying every night. It gets you thinking about the war, its alleged purpose and its realities. It’s a heavy insight.
These photographs catch young teenage girls mid-wink, mid-gum chew, mid-hair twirl, mouths agape, and eyes rolled back — split-second scenes that capture the very essence of entering puberty… It’s awkward. Photographing her subjects with bursts of shots in fast succession and plucking out the choice shot, Stockholm-based artist Julia Peirone freezes the girls at their most unguarded. As seen in the Winter 2011 issue of Aperture Magazine, the series More Than Violet plays on the duality between the documentary and staged: She gets them just getting ready to pose, that is, not posed at all. Somewhere between the outward appearance and the inner world, these off-guard portraits are revealing and just a bit jarring. Do they bring you back to middle school?
Auckland, New Zealand-based artist and photographer Geoffrey H. Short, whose work we first saw over at Beautiful/Decay, makes and photographs explosions in his ongoing project entitled “towards another (big bang) theory.” No Photoshop manipulation here — Short hires special effects experts from the film industry to set up explosions on the black sands of the New Zealand coast, mixing fossil fuel and gunpowder, while Short photographs. His work is meant to “explore the relationship between terror and the sublime,” which we think it does — but it’s also just plain striking and somehow very surprising. Click through to see some of our favorites from Short’s project, and then be sure to head over to his website for even more of his work.
In 1965, the legendary Gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson scored his first big break. As an assignment for The Nation, Hunter lived with the most notorious motorcycle gang in the United States. Random House publishedHells Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs in 1966. Hunter’s year with the club ended in a “stomping” — the Angels beat him up, allegedly when his editor wouldn’t share the profits from the story.
Check out some casual shots of the outlaws setting off for a ride, dusted in brutal bravado and motorcycle exhaust, taken by Hunter himself. Observe Hunter’s self-portrait with his Hell’s Angels black-eye. Then, take a short trip to Big Sur in picturesque California, where the literary rebel worked as a security guard and penned The Rum Diary after returning from Puerto Rico and his long jaunt as a traveling journalist working for US publications abroad. These are just a few pages from the icon’s storied existence, but they’re pretty exciting.
When it comes to RVs, you’ve got your run-of-the-mill vehicles, which lead people to behavior like this, and then you’ve got the classier sort — namely the silver beauty known as the Airstream. The gleaming rock star of the RV world, the Airstream has been embraced by everyone from vintage enthusiasts to NASA since its first appearance in the 1930s. In conjunction with its Sailor Jerry Presents concert series, the retro-minded rum merchant has embraced it as well, outfitting an Airstream trailer to take its rock n’ roll mission on the road. Inspired by that iconic mashup, we went hunting for more adventurous Airstream appropriations — and we think you’ll be equally inspired by what we found.
