I had been keeping my eye on Flickr in the back of my mind over the years as an option for sharing and backing up my photos. Facebook is nice to share with people on FB but they compress photos and don’t save the original, as do other social sites like MySpace. Anyway finally I made the jump and signed up for another “free” account and loved what I saw… upload multiple photos at a time, geo-tagging, great organization tools, and best of all it makes multiple sizes of the image. This is great because I can share with my family high res images so they can print them. The privacy features are nice giving control over who sees what. In my mind that is worth the $25 a year! Check it out…http://www.flickr.com/photos/adamwagler/
After listening to the Photoshop Guys talk about a company that they use to print their photos I finally got around to trying them out. MPIX is a print shop who has an excellent website to upload and do some basic editing. They have all kinds of products to print on.
For the first time, I wanted to see what they canvas gallery wraps looked like and also the different types of paper they print on. I ordered a couple of 6×9s and an 8×12. Some of them were Kodak E-Surface and the rest was on Kodak Metallic.
The metallic is a little more expensive but in my opinion well worth it. The e-surface is more of a matte finish and looks great. But the metallic’s glossier finish is amazing. The gallery wrap was equally impressive. I used to work with a Roland large-format printer so I have seen plenty of large prints on tons of surfaces.
Ontop of the quality product, I uploaded these files to MPIX’x website on Tuesday night and chose the 2nd day Fedex option and had my prints on Thursday morning. Overall great service, website and product. If your curious here are the photos I had printed.
Here is a crazy video from Radiohead using no cameras, “uses real time 3D recording instead of cameras, utilizing highly technical structured light and Lidar laser-enhanced scanners to model lead singer Thom Yorke and provide an otherworldly narrative accompaniment to the song.” The technology here creates all kinds of directions for video and scanning. I am thinking of real-time images for something like goolge street view to have live images via the web. Obviously the technology would have to become much more cleaner but the possibilities are unlimited.
On the other hand, the way the technology is being used in this video provides an amazing mood which compliments the song perfectly. Radiohead has a way of combining current technology into their music and videos that push the boundaries in a variety of fields which leads to an entire multimedia experience. The attack on all the senses makes the band brilliant. Check out the video as well as an article and behind the scenes video from Creativity Online…
I traveled to Washington D.C. a couple weeks back and saw all the sites and standard things you are suppose to see there. One of the highlights was getting to see in person a piece of art by my favorite artisit. (As posted last year). Although I really enjoy her charcoal and poster work the piece I saw was sculpted. “Rest in the Peace of His Hands” was no less impressive and located in the National Museum of Women in the Arts. While in DC we made an attempt to see the prints housed in the library of congress but was only offer high resolution scans. Below is the first Kolwitz I have seen in person. Enjoy.
On NPR this morning they had a story about the rush to patent the atomic bomb and it’s components. Here the story on NPR. So why am I posting it here, the website shows some great line drawings of the patent applications. The drawings are wonderful to look at but also very eerie to view know what the product was ultimately used for. Here’s some drawings:
Hopefully to get to the other side, but evidently in Australia people wearing iPods are having trouble with the trafiic.
DDB advertising agency in Sydney, Australia and the New South Wales Police Force have released a road safety print campaign to raise awareness of the fact that teenagers are dying from crossing the road while listening to their iPods. (iPhone Savior)
Visually, think the ads are beautifully done. The play off of a chalk outline with the earbuds snaking around the victim. It reminds me a lot of Melanie Pullen’s “High Fashion Crime Scenes“, which is some amazing photography emitting a sober feeling will viewed similar to these ads. Here are some of the ads from DDB.
Currently I am a faculty adviser for the UNL AIGA student chapter. We had a meeting last week and looked at this year’s AIGA Medalists. Some great stuff, and is conveniently listed under the “Inspiration” button on their website. Here are some cool examples, but if you want to see more they have plenty here!
These things look awesome! They taken old cigarette machines and made them into dispensers of art. We are getting one in my area soon! Check out their website and here are some sample it vends:
Kathe Kollwitz is probably my favorite artist of all time. I love the high contrast she uses to produce these intense images. Here’s a link to her museum in Berlin.
Being a member of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals you see other people’s portfolios and this is one that caught my eye. Rebecca Parker has created some great photo illustrations.
