These little fellas are doing their daily affairs on these delicious food landscapes. All of this food seems even tastier somehow. This photo-art project was created by Akiko Ida and Pierre Javelle and its exposition will take place in Biarritz, France, from October 6 to 24, and Mérignac from October 30 to November 28.
The husband and wife team present a manufactured micro universe, part Toy Story, part Candy Land, populated with diminutive humanoid characters engaged in a range of ordinary and extraordinary activities. Since the project inception in 2002, the series has grown to over 60 images.
When a photographer creates a picture that matches the creative vision of the artist, successfully tells the story the artist needed told, the photograph is considered fine art. However, there is not one standard and universally accepted definition of fine art; what achieves satisfaction for an artistic photographer can be as diverse as tastes in art by people in all cultures. Fine art photographs are often one of a kind, from an era long past, and taken by photographers made famous previously in the world of photography. As the years progressed, photos considered fine art have evolved as the photographers and technology changed the way pictures are taken. So too has society’s perception changed regarding what is considered fine art. Thus photography that is fine art is now decided upon by each individual and what that person considers to be beautiful. It is the photographer and the beholder of the picture that decide if the photo is treasure or trash. Here is a collection of fine art photography: the work of 24 famous photographers.
Ansel Adams
(image credits:The Ansel Adams Gallery)
Ansel Adams was a master of fine art photography. He would pour 18 hours a day into his labor of love, his art. Neither he, nor his camera, knew the meaning of a day “off.” He loved his work though, and it shows. His photographs are legends and some of his classics include Mt. McKinley, Wonder Lake (top left), Half Dome, Merced River, Winter (top right), Rose and Driftwood (middle left), Jeffery Pine Sentinel Dome (bottom left) and Moon and Half Dome (bottom right.) He was a huge activist for the environment and the wilderness.
Robert Mapplethorpe
(image credits:Robert Mapplethorpe)
Robert Mapplethorpe was another epic fine art photographer. As often as not, however, his photos stirred controversy and would be banned from an art gallery. Mapplethorpe sometimes used a Polaroid and stated, “it was more honest.” A true artist, he snubbed his nose at social acceptance and conventional projects in favor of nudes, provocative S&M photographic documentation, or whatever caught his fancy. He caused ripples in the artistic community and was a powerful force in shaping fine art. The upper right photo is his self portrait.
Andrew Prokos Architecture and Landmarks
(image credits:Andrew Prokos)
As in all arts, fine art photography can be broken down into specific genres as well as photos that blur the lines and mix categories. Andrew Prokos is one such photographer. Although he has captured many black and white traditional fine art photos, his skillful shots include architectural and landmark collections such as: Interior of the Guggenheim Museum in New York City (top left), Spires of Gaudi’s Church of the Sagrada Familia in Barcelona (top right), Rockefeller Center Atlas and St. Patrick’s Cathedral at Night (bottom left), and Grand Central Station Mercury Clock at Dusk (bottom right).
Andrew Prokos Landscapes Cityscapes, Skyline
(image credits:Andrew Prokos)
Prokos also specializes in skylines, cityscapes, and landscapes. He is based in New York City and the top picture is a panorama of Midtown Manhattan at dusk as seen from Queens. Also in NYC, he captured willows trees reflecting on the Loch in Central Park. In DC one fine Spring day, he snapped a panoramic view of the Jefferson Memorial across the Tidal Basin which is beautifully framed by cherry tree blossoms. From the sea and facing toward Greece, he captured the colorful cliffs of Santorini. In another panoramic landscape (bottom left) is the Japanese bridge in the Brooklyn Botanic Garden. Back in NYC, he photographed a view of Hearst Tower at dusk (bottom right), showing his great range and artistic eye.
Architecture
(image credits:Blaine Ellis,D’Arcy Leck,Michael Rauner,Michael Rauner)
Beauty is truly in the eye of the beholder when it comes to fine art design and photography of architecture. Blaine Ellis visited Caravansarie in Central Turkey and visually captured Where Light Dwells (upper left). D’Arcy Leck concentrates on architectural, resort and travel photography such as of the Carlson Companies Headquarters building (upper right). Michael Rauner snaps shots that blend architecture and landscape like Salvation Mountain (bottom left) during his visionary state: A Journey through California’s Spiritual Landscape. Rauner also captured a what he calls a Meditation hut in Druids Heights during his same visionary journey (bottom right).
James Nachtwey Fine Art of War
(image credits:Clinics Rising,AgustinMedina,James Nachtwey,AgustinMedina,James Nachtwey,James Nachtwey,AgustinMedina,inmymothersroom,James Nachtwey)
James Nachtwey may possibly be the best war photographer to date. His work is definitely fine art as each picture successfully tells a poignant story worth much more than a thousand words. Nachtwey specializes in documenting war-torn countries. He once stated, “I’m working on a story that the world needs to know about. I wish for you to help me break it in a way that provides spectacular proof of the power of news photography in the digital age.” He has jeopardized his life so many times to let the world “see” what is happening that his guardian angel has surely suffered many bruises and busted bones.
Carlos Tarrats Still Life
(image credits:Carlos Tarrats)
Carlos Tarrats is a still life fine art photographer. His images are not digital manipulations but are constructed on a set and then printed digitally onto Kodak photographic paper. Much of his focus is on the versatility of plant life and serves as his main subject. When he holds his camera, he is considering life, death, hope and conflict. The protagonist is his photos, plants, may end up visually distorted, however he is shooting to give his viewer’s imagination a big dose of hope. “Hope is the possibility for something else, not necessarily something better and yet not necessarily something worse. Whether one is better than the other depends on one’s perception. It’s the uncertainty of the situation that gives the image tension and creates conflict.”
Mary Ellen Mark
(image credits:Mary Ellen Mark Gallery)
Mary Ellen Mark is an influential fine art photographer with a high degree of humanism. Through her travels and her pictures, she documents diverse cultures throughout our world. Her photo-essays include such work as bringing an Indian Circus and the lives of men, women, and children who work and live there into households and galleries for all to see. She captured one of her mentors and respected colleagues, Ansel Adams, in the upper left photo.
Grace Weston Constructed Fine Art Photographer
(image credits:Grace Weston)
From the serious to the loopy, Grace Weston focuses on constructed fine art photographs. Her creativity might make you smile or make you scratch your head and think, hmm. Through her fictions, she stabs at the truth. Weston states, ‘Child-like fantasy scenes are punctuated with anxieties common to adulthood: choices must be made, demons haunt us, beauty conceals danger, the end of the world is near, and perhaps God does not have our best interests in mind. Picasso said, “Art is a lie that tells the truth”. I make up visual stories that address the dilemmas, illusions and fears that at once seem so personal, yet are also universal.’ In the upper left she presents Couples Therapy, while Winter Thaw is in the upper right. Heaven Help Us is at the bottom left and Winter Wish Winter Dream is at the bottom right.
Walter Astrada
(image credits:Walter Astrada)
Walter Astrada does not tackle unimportant issues or frivolous acts with his artistic abilities. From one of his fine art photojournalist collections, he offers images daring the world to try and turn their eyes away as if these problem do not exist. The photographs above are from Femicide in Guatemala. Fine art? Indeed it is. His in-depth images and photo documentaries capture basic human rights, injustice, and social issues.
Werner Bischof
(image credits:Werner Bischof Pictures)
Werner Bischof was originally from Switzerland before he began moving and then traveling as if from a young age he was destined to become a fine art photographer. For a period of his life, he worked for exclusively for a magazine. In fact, he photographed the Olympics, the devastation of the Second World War, and received other international recognition. However he left the ’superficiality and sensationalism’ of the magazine business behind him and moved forward in search of tranquility in traditional culture. He was a founder of Magnum Photos and died tragically when his car fell off a cliff in the Andes. Above are some of his works, such as Buddha in Japan, children playing ring-around-the-rosie, and a view from Westminster Abbey at The Thames river (bottom right). Bischof is quoted saying,”I felt compelled to venture forth and explore the true face of the world. Leading a satisfying life of plenty had blinded many of us to the immense hardships beyond our borders.”
Nudes and Still Life
(image credits:Walter Chappell,Ruth Bernhard,Imogene Cunningham,Cindy Sherman,Pamela Creevey,Linda Elvira Piedra)
Many and varied photographers devote their entire lives to nude or still life fine art photographs. Walter Chappell presented Mother and Child (upper left) and stated, “Camera vision operates as an intelligent function between the human eyes and the totality of understanding in a moment of active awareness.” Ruth Bernhard studied nudes for 40 years like her image External Body (upper right). She said, “For me, the creation of a photograph is experienced as a heightened emotional response, most akin to poetry and music, each image the culmination of a compelling impulse I cannot deny.” Imogene Cunningham often used her children as her models like Twins on the Grass (middle left). Cindy Sherman captured many images, but her untitled series (bottom left) featuring mannequins in flagrante delicto were in protest against people who protested her friend and fellow nude fine art photographer Robert Mapplethorpe. In the bottom middle photo, Pamela Creevey presented Reclining Nude. Linda Elvira Piedra managed to mix the fine art genres of nudes, figurative and still life like in the bottom right picture.
Other Fine Art Photography Types / Photographers
(image credits:Laurie Tümer,Thomas Michael Alleman,Jarrett Murphy,James Stillings,Richard Avedon,Richard Avedon Foundation)
Laurie Tümer takes fine art photographs as a narrative like Glowing Evidence: Jack-o’-Lantern (upper left). Thomas Michael Alleman works with urban landscapes such as the angel in downtown LA (upper right). Jarrett Murphy captured this tree (middle left) in Highland Park, yet his fine art photographs are classified as “other genres.” However, James Stillings is fascinated with the Hoover Dam Bypass Project (middle right) and intends to follow the progress with a photo-documentary. “When completed, the 1900 foot bridge will be the longest concrete arch span in the U.S. and 5th longest in the world. Watching the bridge’s construction at night is both magical and inspiring.” The pictures on bottom were taken by Richard Avedon who started as a fashion photographer and moved into fine arts and images of performers.
Narrative and PhotoMontage
(image credits:Photo Eye)
Keith Carter enjoys working with images and his imagination such as with Giant (upper left). He weaves tales of mysterious wonders with photographic narratives. Carter doesn’t seek reality but tries a poetic spin with his pictures. Instead cold hard facts presented through his artistic eye and talent, he hunts “around the edges for those little askew moments – kind of like what makes up our lives – those slightly awkward, lovely moments.” Tom Chambers brings the world photomontages. Chamber said, “I build my images, starting with an idea and converting it to a sketch that I follow to create the final image.” Pictured in the upper right is Aground. On the bottom left is Pueblo Fire and on the bottom right is Horse Talk.
10 Sites for Alternative Urban Photos
Urban photography doesn’t have to mean perfectly framed parks and stoic skyscrapers. Some of the best urban photos feature wonderful abandonments.
Cities of the World at Night – Photography
If you thought these places were glorious during the day, wait till you see them at night.
20 Subversive Works of Urban Guerrilla Street Art
Whether using the streets as a blank canvas or masterminding ‘interventions’, these street artists help change the public perception of everyday urban life.
[VIA]
Parabolic cooker concept is a perfect cooking solution to avoid producing lot of CO2 and other harmful particulars when using liquid gas or wood as cooking material. This concept has utilized the endless and clean power source, solar energy, which has many environment friendly attributes and great potential to become the most effective traditional cooking material replacement. This cooker heats rounding oil through solar energy and store the hot oil in an insulated tank that can store heat for days. Users can control the movement of oils in the heater or oven through appropriate valves. With this concept, users may have an oven and a heater in a single good looking and functional package.
(Click to view bigger image)
Designer : Xiao-Fang Shen and Nikolai Ruola
Mirage is a digital chess set concept that includes a digital projector aside from the conventional chess pieces. This portable chess set is designed for chess enthusiasts that can track the moves of the pieces and provides different playing modes to the user as per the user’s requirement. The old fashioned mode allows two players to play face to face just like an ordinary chess set. When in online mode, a player on net acts as an opponent and the physical pieces are used to play an online game. Finally, the learning or practicing mode allows playing against a computer or watch a game to learn the moves played by chess masters.
Designer : Pengtao Yu
Check out some of the stranger wrecks captured by the Google Street View team.
The Summer Redneck Games started in East Dublin as a laughable spoof of the 1996 Summer Olympic Games and have grown into a national phenomenon.
The Summer Redneck Games take place in July and feature side-splitting entertainment like Redneck Idol, Battle of the Bands in Redneck Land, Bobbin’ for Pig’s Feet, Redneck Toilet Seat Horseshoes, and a crowd favorite, the Mud Pit Belly Flop.
Be Bold – Be GOLD
Rescaling Contemporary Crafts
Tuesday 22 – Thursday 24 September
Art Studio, Sackler Centre
(The Sackler Centre is the V&A’s centre for public learning through creative design and the arts)
11.00–15.00
Bring along your own object to be gold-leafed by students from the Royal College of Art’s Goldsmithing, Metalwork and Jewellery Department. See how they challenge popular perceptions of craft as the poor relation of design and demonstrate their different approaches to creating innovative and unusual objects. Explore the results in a special display and talk informally with them about their work and the design process.
Free, drop-in
V&A South Kensington
Cromwell Road
London SW7 2RL
p.s. I wish I wasn’t at the office! Otherwise some of my toys would have had a lovely ‘gold’ look. Damn shame!!
The world’s worst skyscraper disaster is still fresh in our minds, and every year sees a new calamity in our global obsession with building storey after storey, higher and higher. You would think that all architects would be careful to make their buildings look as stable as mountains. You’d be wrong. Thanks to modern building materials and behind-the-scenes architectural wizardry, the new field of precarious-looking urban architecture is on the rise – as these ten vertigo-inducing examples illustrate.
(Image via: arch daily)
Capital Gate, Abu Dhabi – the most acutely leaning building in the world. It bows out 18 degrees from the vertical – in comparison, Pisa’s famous tower is only leaning at 3.99 degrees. Technologically ambitious and architecturally stunning, it looks like nothing on earth. (Well, okay, it does look like something in particular, but this is a family-friendly corner of the Web and we refuse to draw certain parallels).
(Image via: cosmoworlds)
And by the looks of the first concept drawings, Capital Gate was meant to be even more ambitious. How on earth would this design have stayed up? Judging from the reworked shape, the designers couldn’t answer that question either.
(Images via: luxuo)
If you live in the Danish principality of Rødovre, you may see this queasy-making structure against the skyline. This ‘Sky Village’ is made up of 60 metre square blocks built up around the building’s core. Exactly how is up to the buildiers – meaning that in theory, no two buildings would look alike. We applaud engineering flexibility, but our applause for rock-steady stability is louder. Exactly how will it stay upright, please?
(Image via: freshome)
It may look like a bad or possibly drunken attempt at Photoshopping – but the Walters Towers will soon be reality. Forming an enormous W (possibly standing for “weird”), this apartment block complex in Prague is the slightly fevered work of architects Bjarke Ingels Group, and for obvious reasons, uses the latest in load-bearing building materials.
(Image via: freshome)
Our questions are endless. Do the lifts go diagonally? Is it safe? How would it fit in with the current Prague skyline? Is it safe? Exactly how is the weight distributed? Oh, and is it safe?
(Images via: design boom)
How would you feel about living in a building that looks less built than balanced? This Singaporean residential complex by OMA comprises of 31 six-storey apartment buildings stacked up in a thrilling haphazard manner, with the aim of circulating fresh air around every building. Since this is Singapore, heat loss wouldn’t be a problem – but what about air-con efficiency? And that certainly isn’t a balcony-view for the squeamish.
(Images via: gayol87 and IASeNews)
Costing over $600 million and reaching 51 floors into the blue, the China Central Television Headquarters in Beijing was completed in December 2008. It is built of steel, and its two rakishly-skewed towers had to be joined in the dead of night when the metal was coolest, to prevent expansion distortion. The local nickname? “Big shorts”.
(Image via: daylife / Reuters)
In February this year, it narrowly escaped damage when the nearby Television Cultural Centre caught fire after opening ceremony fireworks went awry. This event has sparked an inquiry into the widespread use of high-explosive fireworks in China – and into the subsequent attempt by national authorities to suppress coverage of the blaze.
(Images via: coolboom)
Commanding what must be one of the most spectacular views in Sydney, the Holman House teeters on the brink of architectural possibilities. Although not quite as unstable as the above photos suggests, the house juts out from the cliff edge so alarmingly that we commend its current occupants for their nerve (and try to hide our jealousy at having that view). But isn’t the Sydney basin prone to earthquakes?
(Image via: dezeen)
The new Museum of Image and Sound in Rio de Janeiro is an award-winning response to the question “How unconventional can we make a museum look?” Looking like a stylishly collapsing carpark (ahem, arguably), the front-facing “vertical boulevard” hides galleries, auditoriums and even an outdoor cinema perched on top. No word on what the residents of the surrounding tower-blocks think of this last feature.
(Image via: dezeen)
Due to open in 2011, the design is meant to channel the energy of the beach promenade, providing an extension of its movement rather than an interruption. If they could turn one side of those steps into a waterslide, we think it would be made completely perfect.
(Images via: homedesignfind)
As well as challenging our assumptions and sensibilities, good architecture should make us feel happy. So what about this house from Ensamble Studio that seems designed to perturb, upset and make us permanently uneasy? From the swimming pool sticking out into thin air to the apparently badly-supported slab of concrete poking high above the roof, this void-riddled structure is certainly fascinating and challenging…but is it lovable?
(Image via: skyscrapercity)
Unlike with Capital Gate, there is no attempt to subvert the shape of the two towers that make Madrid’s Puerta de Europa. These massive structures (115 metres tall) look like conventional skyscrapers – except ones that lean towards each other at a 15-degree angle.
(Image via: luciapensache)
Completed in 1996, they were the world’s first leaning high-rise buildings (so urbanites who suffer from vertigo, you now have someone to blame for the trend). They are positioned so far apart to provide the room for a subway interchange.
(Image via: arch daily)
The new housing development of Strandkanten in Tromsø, Norway, is 900 decided modernistic homes making best use of reclaimed land – and of design possibilities. The waterfront properties lean out over the water as if they long to go for a dip.
(Image via: arch daily)
After hundreds of years of straight-up window design, how do we feel about windows that themselves lean out, making it impossible for us to safely do so? And there is the potential problem with all these designs: they’re built for people, and need a warm public response to become a success. No matter how ingenious the techniques or how space-age the materials used…are we truly willing to step inside?
