Over A Month - No Posts 2

I've decided to create a label named "Over A Month - No Posts". This way if you'd like to locate the first posts after each of my long, lazy blog breaks, well then you're just one click away. I'm going to go ahead and put all the blame on the cold weather which has sort of taken the fun out of going out on photo adventures. But this blog wasn't created for the sole purpose of posting your photography, Kyle! What happened to the album reviews, ikebana lessons, and drawings!? GIVE US MORE TILT-SHIFTS!!! Whoa, jeez. Stop yelling at myself, self.

Above are some '08 pictures I've uploaded recently to Flickr that I had forgotten were on my camera. Hopefully you will hear from me again within the next thirty days. Ciao.

It's at&t. Not AT&T, idiot. Now swallow this semiopaque sphere of confusion!

I thought I hated it, but it's grown on me. Well, the new type at least. Still not digging the awful globe and it's 3D treatment. I spotted the new logo on a store front in the city today (pictured above) and was reminded of the original logo:



The whole idea of that negative spacing on the original is to indicate that it is indeed a sphere. Simple yet effective. Now take that image and actually make it a 3D ball with gradients and transparencies and you get something that defeats the whole purpose of the original design.



Yuck. Just another bubbly, Apple-ish 3D logo. It looks like it belongs on my applications dock. The perspective is all wrong and shouldn't the white be the transparent part? I thought the blue was the solid area. But anyways, whatever. Just thought it was interesting that if you strip away all the 3D treatment it really is nice looking, especially on that large copper sign.

LIFE Photo Archive Hosted by Google

LIFE and Google have come together and created a HUGE photo archive (10 million scanned photos) spanning from the 1750's to today. Apparently 95% of these have never been seen before! Above are a few photos I liked from my keyword search "plane". You can start by clicking here or by adding "source:life" to any Google image search.

Happy searching!

EDIT: Seriously, what's up with that third photo? It looks like he's flying a missile or something. And the lit up cockpit, it's just such a wicked picture.

Japan Graphic Review Magazine

In addition to my Grandfather's postcards, film negatives, slides and 8mm movies, I also found two large books each containing twelve magazines bind together titled Japan Graphic Review. The content in each magazine is somewhat interesting with black and white photos and Japanese text. But the covers I had to scan. Some pretty cool and vibrant images were used on these. You can view the whole batch here.

Over A Month - No Posts

Wow, I really let over a month go by with no posting? Let's just pretend I've been on a long vacation in Iceland with no internet access taking advantage of their fallen economy, when really I've been sitting at my desk all month with plenty of time to post. Capiche?

Well, above is a selection of random pictures I've taken throughout the past month. I've been doing a lot of scanning recently trying to continue transferring all of my Grandfather's negatives to digital. A lot of really interesting stuff. I'll be uploading everything soon!

Jan Von Holleben Photography

Some of my favorite shots by German photographer Jan Von Holleben. These must have been so fun to setup. It's amazing how much of a sense of movement was accomplished with such static subjects. And the expressions on the kids faces completely sell it. Happy times.

David Byrne - Playing the Building

I forgot to post this earlier, but I ended up checking out David Byrne's grand installation, Playing the Building, at The Battery Maritime Building.

"Creative Time presents Playing the building, a sound installation in which the infrastructure, the physical plant of the building, is converted into a giant musical instrument. Devices are attached to the building structure — to the metal beams and pillars, the heating pipes, the water pipes — and are used to make these things produce sound. The activations are of three types: wind, vibration, striking. The devices do not produce sound themselves, but they cause the building elements to vibrate, resonate and oscillate so that the building itself becomes a very large musical instrument."

I went with my friend Jonah and we ended up seeing Byrne just hanging out in the corner of the room! The installation itself was pretty neat. It was a bit frustrating trying to play some sort of rhythmic arrangement since the actual sounds produced by striking the keys were delayed a second or two. And since there was a line to sit down and try the instrument, I felt rushed. Probably only played it for 45 seconds or so.

I suggest that you go see it though if you're in NYC. It's open until August 24th.

Metropolitan Museum

The Sogetsu School of Ikebana chose some of their New York based members to create some beautiful arrangements to be displayed at the Metropolitan Museum! Two of those members were my Grandmother (Kazuko Moriwaki) and my Aunt (Shoko Iwata).

When we first walked in, I was pleasantly surprised to see that my Aunt's arrangement (top) was the center piece in the room. It had a strong sweep to it that left me staring at it for a while. Below that was an arrangement done by my Grandmother, and two other members (Yuriko Hiramoto and Jacqueline Lorieo). This one was very interesting in that it had two arrangements almost physically interacting with each other to become one piece. Really beautiful and inspiring work from everyone who participated.

But it had also been a while since my last visit to this grand museum and I ended up having a lot of fun with my Leica camera. Below are some various shots I took throughout the enormous structure.