Form follows
Buildings usually have a front door. At home, it’s the door you pose
in front of with your new bike / puppy / degree / wife / baby / grandchild. In public
buildings it’s the set of stairs on which politicians erect podiums, it’s the setting of
countless wedding photos, of protests, celebrations, demonstrations and...
Sunglasses
Sillabario dei tempi tristi (Syllabary of Sad Times) is a book in
short essay form written by Ilvo Diamanti, a well-known Italian academic and journalist. My
attention is drawn to an essay entitled “Sunglasses” where he analyzes the (mis) use of dark
sunglasses in public. Publicized and sold as fashion accessories, sunglasses have evolved
from...
Discovering / Uncovering the Magic
The thing is, famous photographers who are considered the “best
photographers of all time”, will always be surrounded by this magical mist, this
seemingly massive genius. There will always be the myth that their most famous shots – the
ones known from books and galleries – were images that were produced as a single frame.
The...
Cinemagraphs
Recently there seems to have been a significant amount of coverage
online about “cinemagraphs”, images which contain a shot sequence of frames,
giving the effect of a still photograph with limited points of repeated movement. The term
cinemagraph is claimed (and trademarked) by Kevin Burg and Jamie Beck “for their
cinematic quality while maintaining at...
iPods and Other Devil Devices
Michael Bull cites Lefebvre: “he who walks down the street… is
immersed in the multiplicity of noises, murmurs, rhythms”, arguing that urban dwellers are
primarily “listening” subjects. But “listening subjects” have become exponentially deaf. We
are moving to what Bull calls a “mediated urban isolation” or what Bauman sees as
“privatizing of the street” and...
