Beautiful photography from au fil de...

Images from the au fil de... blog.

Beautiful, beautiful photography from the au fil de... blog (unfortunately I haven't been able to get any proper information about the blog or the person behind it - please enlighten me if you can!).

Link found via Maria's interior blog at modette.se . Hope you haven't missed her Christmas calender where you can win interior goodies every day up until Christmas!

Laura Marling on Later with Jools Holland

Laura Marling singing the song "New Romantic" on Later with Jools Holland - for those of you who haven't seen this fantastic and also kind of heartbreaking performance yet.

(Bonus: Jools obviously completely smitten with Siouxsie Sioux).

Winter's arrived in Stockholm

Original image from underbaraclara.

Winter's arrived a bit earlier this year than previous years (although about as early as I remember it from my childhood).

I must say that if I have to have winter I prefer the snow as it gives the illusion that we have more light than we do.

Harry's book This is a Magazine video by The Selby.

Harry's book This is a Magazine video by The Selby.

I am a big fan of the Selby, but an even bigger fan of the videos they posts of artists showcasing and talking through their (or sometimes others) books / work. I'll most probably be adding more of these to the blog, but I wanted to start of with this one as I especially liked it - and of course you can't go wrong with a book format that reminds you of ones from when you're little.

Link for the book and video of the book via the Selby.

See more of the artist at the Selby post or see more of the Selby's videos here (mostly book showings!).

Walls of Aran.

Walls of Aran. Photographs by Sean Scully. Texts by Colm Toibin and Sean Scully. Thames & Hudson, London, 2007. 128 pp., 75 duotone illustrations, 10¼x9½".

Publisher's Description:

"Sean Scully is one of today's most esteemed painters, whose familiar signature style of lines or bands of color is instantly recognizable. Scully is also an accomplished photographer, his eye drawn in particular to architectural shapes that have clear affinities with his painted work.

During the summer of 2005, he spent time on the remote Aran Islands, off the west coast of Ireland, photographing the ancient dry-stone walls that criss-cross the stark and barren landscape. This book brings together for the first time his sensitive images, revealing the unexpected yet monumental beauty of these centuries-old structures that meander across the windswept and rocky islands. In their form and spirit, the photographs shed light on Scully's own sensibilities as an artist. They also capture the stillness and serenity of this rugged, timeless place on the edge of Europe.

An evocative text by the award-winning Irish writer Colm Tóibín conveys the mysterious beauty of the three Aran Islands. 75 duotone photographs."

Half Awake and Half Asleep in the Water.

Half Awake and Half Asleep in the Water. Photographs by Asako Narahashi. Introduction by Martin Parr. Nazraeli Press, Tucson, 2007. 80 pp., 59 four-color plates., 12x13".

Publisher's Description:

"Half Awake and Half Asleep in the Water is the second title in the "Parr/Nazraeli Edition of Ten," and the first monograph on the work of Asako Narahashi. This series has been exhibited in Japan to wide acclaim, but never published in book form until now. The photographs were made while the artist stood chest-deep in the ocean facing the shoreline; through them, she manages to extract the viewer's mind from its surroundings, and one finally succumbs to the hallucinatory power of the ocean. In the words of esteemed photographic historian Kotaro Iizawa, "the feeling of being stranded, however, is strangely comforting." "

26 Different Endings.

26 Different Endings. Photographs by Mark Power. Text by David Chandler. PhotoWorks, Brighton, 2007. 64 pp., 28 colour illustrations, 14¼x11¼".

Publisher's Description:

"In this new Photoworks publication, British photographer Mark Power returns to the dialogue between real and imaginary space that characterised his most successful book to date, The Shipping Forecast (1996). Once again the premise for this work has been a map and a sense of those invisible boundaries that help to form a strong and durable idea of place. In this case that place is the great sprawl of London, whose outer limits are, for most of us, defined by the extent of the A to Z road atlas. It is these outer zones – where, as the map suggests, the city thins out and then falls away into nothingness – that are the subject of Power’s photographs.

Taking each page of the atlas as his guide Power has embarked on an epic quest into a kind of local unknown, a voyage into a form of melancholy emptiness where the energies of the city evaporate into a strange kind of inertia. Like The Shipping Forecast before it, 26 Different Endings is a project still deeply concerned with the weather, with the everyday drabness of places resigned to their climate of indistinction, where a condition of greyness has become the condition of life.

26 Different Endings is a report about what appears to be a deeply traumatised place. It is also about a state of mind that Power has become entranced by, one conditioned by flat white skies and a generous expanse of pebble dash, an overbuilt environment where all buildings, new and old, look something like ruins. David Chandler’s autobiographical short story, written in response to Power’s pictures, delves deeper into this state of mind, drawing on a vivid picture of both the emotional and physical landscape of his childhood.

In many ways, as Chandler suggests, Mark Power has photographed places of exile, and perhaps its psychology, too. 26 Different Endings presents places where the city’s vanquished have retreated to, where those who lived through the Blitz are happy to survive on supermarkets and soap operas, and where subsequent generations have become accustomed to not really knowing where or who they are."

Pictures.

Pictures. Photography by Tim Walker. Te Neues, New York, 2008. 320 pp., 245 color and black & white illustrations., 11¼x14½".

Publisher's Description:

"This book offers us a privileged glimpse into the artistic process used by top fashion photographer Tim Walker. This comprehensive overview of his work brings us deep inside his glamorous world of adventure. Featuring a wide array of sketches, contacts and Polaroids—we share in source materials normally hidden within the photographer's studio. The evocative images are rich with textured nuance and intriguing details. Walker gives full rein to his playful side and intersperses collages among the photographs. The over-sized format showcases some of the most imaginative and exuberant art being produced today."

It's super duper to be a rabbit.

This is New York.

This is New York. By Miroslav Sasek, illustrations by Miroslav Sasek. Re-issued 2008 by Universe. 64pp, numerous colour illustrations, 32.5 x 21.6 x 1.3 cm.

I found this wonderful book over at Book By Its Cover - and as I am also feeling pride in New York and the US at the moment it felt appropriate.

I am ashamed to say I had never heard of this Czech artist, illustrator and author or the "This is"-series of (children's) books.

This will be rectified as I'm planning on having a peek in several of the "This is"-books as soon as possible (and hopefully make purchases!)

To learn more about Miroslav Sasek and the books go here.

Superficial Snapshots, Zine 2. An Issue With Lomos.

Superficial Snapshots, Zine 2. An Issue With Lomos. Photography by Allison V. Smith. Allison V. Smith, 2008. Unpaged, Numerous color illustrations., 7x5".

Publisher's Description:
"Superficial Snapshots. Zine 2. An issue with Lomos. A collection of true stories shot between May 2007-August 2007. These photos were all shot with my recently upgraded Lomo LC+A which is hailed by its makers as 'the finest, most delightfully unexpected, robust, pocketable, vividly colorful, and soundly addictive snapshot camera of all time.'

The Lomo and I traveled to California and Maine in the summer of 2007. We traveled by plane, car and boat. I used it as a visual diary. The photos I took were mental notes and conversations. Sketches of secrets and dreams."

More Allison V. Smith here. More images from inside the zine here for example.

President Obama!

Obama poster by Shepard Fairey.

Barack Obama has won a historic victory in becoming the first black president of the United States.

I have been impressed with the calm, measured and quiet authoritativeness he's display in the course of the campaign.

I - and many many with me - have big hopes of a fundamental change in US policy abroad and at home with a stabilizing effect on the financial crisis, global warming and the humanitarian and security mess that is the Middle East (something that of course also has a massive impact on the rest of the world).

I can only hope that the intention is there and at least some of these will be fulfilled. In his speech Barack Obama said "change has come to America". Please let change and progress come!

I have just listened to John McCain's concession speech and I must say it's the most generous, uniting and honourable one I've heard - I have a new-found respect for him.

Full cover of the US election here for example.

Alla helgons dag is All Saints' Day

Image courtesy of Anita Elgerot

In Sweden we don't have Thanksgiving, but lately I've been thinking that perhaps our holiday Alla helgona in a way has a similar function (even though of course not the same origin).

Alla helgona is All Saints' Day - a holiday a lot of my friends and family in the UK and US think of as a Catholic holiday. In Sweden however Alla helgona is not necessarily seen as religious, but rather as a day to remember those loved one's we've lost and as a celebration of your family and an occasion to gather everyone for a nice meal.

At dusk clusters of families - often with many small children - go to the cemetery bringing candles, flowers and arrangements made with pine cones and other local and seasonal plants. The graves are visited and tended, its owners' remembered. And the memorial garden overflows with candles and flowers. When you go through the cemetery the candles are so many they glow like stars guiding you. Back home you continue the remembrance, but also just enjoying being together. Stillness.

A Series of Disappointments.

A Series of Disappointments. Photographs by Stephen Gill. Nobody, London, 2008. 78 pp., 36 black and white illustrations, 9x11¾". First edition, 3000 available with three different covers.

Publisher's Description:
"These betting slips were discarded in and around many betting shops (71 at the time of publication) in the borough of Hackney in north-east London. The average number of betting shops in other London boroughs is 23.

Each of these papers began as hope, were shaped by loss or defeat, then cast aside. These new forms perhaps now possess a state of mind, shaped by nervous tension and grief. After these images were made, little autopsies were performed on the papers to reveal the failed bets held within.

If betting shops move into places previously occupied by banks or solicitors, they are classed as financial services and don’t have to apply for any special permit. In such numbers, they are beginning to feel like a burden around a borough that is trying to improve itself and the lives of its residents, and to shake off its bad reputation."

Dancing Walls.

Dancing Walls. Photographs by Thomas Kellner; introduction by Alison Nordström. Thomas Kellner, 2008. 81 pp., Numerous color illustrations., 8x8"

"Kellner's mosaic renderings of the world's buildings and interiors are achieved through a succession of carefully orchestrated individual shots that yield an overall image of architectural liquidity--a kind of photo-cubism [...] through Kellner's lens, wonderfully obsessive and colorful.

This book--published by a consortium of the galleries in which Kellner will be exhibiting through 2008--documents his recent shift away from iconic architectural monuments to the somewhat fussier interiors of museums, libraries and palaces."

A Clearing.

A Clearing. Photographs by Raymond Meeks. Nazraeli Press, Tucson, 2008. 48 pp., 34 duotone plates., 12x17".

Publisher's Description:

"Following up his richly emotive debut collection, Ray Meeks expands the range of his vision with equally stunning technique, suggesting visual rhymes between the sentient and the inanimate, between stratigraphic lines and telephone wires, between a bulldozer’s tread marks and a boy’s ribcage. Whereas his earlier book, Sound of Summer Running, invited us inward, into the expressive interiors of family and place, a Clearing presents us with a world that averts its face, a world we haven’t yet learned to read, where meaning still seems to be gathering itself, where verticality is a sign of defiance. Figures in the landscape appear so isolated, they take on mythic force. The sky is resistant as eyes turned back in a head. Meeks’s camera records the naked geological and human assertion of presence against the flattening insistence of time, erosion, and poverty. In a Clearing, the world speaks itself in a language of origins: stone and child and woman and man cry out from elemental silence, Look, I am here. The first printing of this gorgeously-produced artist’s book is limited to 500 numbered and signed copies, each with an original print on the back cover."

"Hardcover edition now out-of-print. This limited edition of A Clearing comes with a gelatin silver print (approximately the size of the hardcover book) housed in a clam-shell box in an edition of 25."

Exploitive?

Hermes A/W 2008-2009 campaign.

This is so very very beautiful - but does it not also feel exploitive?

Ark.

Ark. Photographs by Adam Fuss. Self-published., New York., 2007. Unpaged, 34 UV coated, color photographs. Limited edition of 333 copies, signed and numbered.

"Large folio; 34 UV coated, color photographs; full-black leather; blind-stamped colophon on orange hand-made paper, laid into black hand-made paper covered clamshell box, black ribbon tie; illustrated label affixed to box recto." Just beautiful.

Lovely Susie Bubble

Photo of Susie from Style Bubble.

The blog Style Bubble is so way, way above the "normal" fashion blog I'm even hesitating calling it so. Her posts are always beautiful, unique, well-research and well-written. And here personal style is just pure beautiful. Go and visit!

Uppdrag Barn Charity

Uppdrag Barn är ett samarbete mellan World Childhood Foundation och Vattenfall. För varje bloginlägg som länkar hit ger Vattenfall 20kr till förmån för utsatta barn. Mer info hittar du här.

For every link to this charity, coupled with a blog posting in Swedish, the company Vattenfall will donate 20SEK to at-risk children.

Colour Sells.

Color Sells. Conde Nast Publications, Inc., New York and Greenwich, Conn., 1935. Folio (15 by 12 inches). Unpaged; (70 pp.) Photo-illustrated wrappers in photo-illustrated box.

How I wish I'd been able to view this book before it was auctioned.

"Rare thirties book features the acclaimed early color work of Bruehl-Bourges, which was featured in Conde Nast publications --(Vogue, Vanity Fair, and House & Garden). "...through the very depths of the depression, the Conde Nast organization enriched its magazines with the best examples of color photography...From May, 1932 to the end of 1934 these magazines produced 195 pages of color photography. These amazingly beautiful color photo reproductions...are the one important contribution to the publishing and printing art of today... The sixty-four subjects reproduced here are the creations of Anton Bruehl... He combines genius for artistic composition with thorough knowledge of stage-craft and sure mastery of lighting. He is ably seconded by Fernand Bourges. His thorough knowledge of the chemistry of dyes enables him to produce from his negative a perfect color transparency, which the engraver uses as his guide for color reproduction." Included are glamorous and dynamic images, including a little-known shot of Marlena Dietrich that epitomized her seductive charms, images of Art Deco jewels, fashion, and furnishings that enticed consumers, advertising photographs for cigarette and food goods, etc."

"The color cover of the box is a close-up of flowers shown in color-component dots. Inside the lid of the box is a label describing how the color process used dot formations and explaining that if the box cover was held at a distance, "the dot pattern disappears and the flowers retain their delicate gradations of color". Letter of explanation from the president of The International Printing Ink Corporation that provided the inks for the book laid in."

Sand . Silk . Snow .

Sand . Silk . Snow . Photographs by: Maria Luisa Morando, Chaco Terada and Lisa M. Robinson. photo-eye Gallery, past photography exhibition.

"Maria Luisa Morando’s desire to remove the disorder from her world inspired this new series of beach photographs titled White, Series 1. By overexposing each image, Morando creates the illusion of bright light, simplifying the scene and muting the colors, allowing the viewer to experience quiet, tranquil moments by the ocean. By removing the surplus detail, Morando creates a space for the viewer to fill with the other senses. One can almost hear the waves, feel the heat of the sunlight and taste the salty air. These timeless photographs were taken in Marina del Rey, California.

Chaco Terada uses a combination of Japanese and Chinese calligraphy to create her images. She learned these traditions as a young child and has since transformed these ancient techniques to produce images that are uniquely hers. She combines calligraphy and photography, which is scanned and printed onto transparent silk. Additional calligraphy is then added with sumi ink. “When I create a brushstroke, I think of the motion of water in a stream, or the movement of breeze. The lines do not create a word in the traditional sense, they interpret the meaning or mood that I feel."

Lisa M. Robinson began her Snowbound series five years ago. “On the surface, these images are quite beautiful. They appear elegantly simple and accessible, evoking, perhaps, the silent tranquility that one might feel after a fresh snowfall. Beneath the surface, however, there is a subtle tension. Like fine haiku, each image quietly references another season, a time of life or activity that has already passed, and may come again. Throughout the series run the leitmotifs of poles and ropes and a palette of man-made color. The relationship between the human and the natural world becomes more tightly intertwined as the series progresses, and the cycles of life and death and transformation fold inward.” This self-conscious meditation on the power of visual metaphor is key to the Snowbound work. Here, Robinson takes the inherent formal intentionality of large format photography and adds a carefully constructed metaphoric visual language. This work is collected in her recent monograph, Snowbound, published by Kehrer Verlag."

Paul Newman RIP

Legendary move star and actor Paul Newman passed away yesterday at the age of 83 after a battle with cancer.

Despite his "matinée looks" Newman saw himself as a character actor, and said of himself "I was always a character actor. I just looked like Little Red Riding Hood."

"His characters - convicts, outlaws, con men and hustlers - were far from admirable. His gift, however, was to invest them with a charm, humour and crumpled nobility that made them irresistible to men and women alike.
It was this that enabled him in later life to become a distinguished character actor capable of elevating films like Road to Perdition, Message in a Bottle and The Hudsucker Proxy by his sheer force of presence. "

Outside acting he was a great philanthropist and political activist, Newman once said "I didn't turn in my citizenship card when I got my screen actor's card".

His good works, iconic character portrayals and fundamental decency will outlive him.

For clips of some of his iconic and memorable roles go here.

Book is beauty

Book project by Sohon Studio.

The photographs above is of book art by Sohon Studio (click on the link to go to the site for larger images to do the work justice) - eagerly awaiting the site to be finished!

For more book art go here for example, or see the links to the right.

The Diary of

The Diary of a Modernista

Sample description: State: Excited; Places: Library, the Milkbar, Market-Hall; Music: Otis Reading - Security.

Lovely state of daily description is the appropriate phrase I believe!

Beauty in a blog

I love this girl

Great young photographer seen in print in a range of international magazines. Arvida's blog is a mixture of her published and unpublished work, others' photographs / inspiration and general musings.

And I could be Friends with Winter too

Sonia Rykiel Autumn/Winter 2008

Welcome back Autumn

By Jennifer Khoshbin. Found via Maria's interior blog at modette.se