Los Angeles, 1950's Style 
So right about this time last year I was soaking up all that beautiful Los Angeles had to offer. It was Spring Break and Southern California was sunny, warm, and welcoming. The Connecticut rain and gloom? But a distant memory.
Unfortunately, I’m not repeating my West Coast jaunt this year, but I have these really awesome vintage pictures of L.A. from the ’50s and ’60s to help quench my wanderlust.
I found them on the blog A Continuous Lean, but they were originally posted on Neat Stuff Blog. Both are worthy of your time and visit.
perfecting the portrait: arno rafael minkkinen
Arno Rafael Minkkinen is a photographer, originally from Finland, who has been for many years capturing amazing portraits (and more abstract works with human subjects) in the wilderness of the United States. I have been captivated by the sublimity in his images and the delicate relationship he presents for us between man and his natural habitat. Minkkinen’s self portraits are some of his best, in my opinion. He demonstrates an almost supernatural talent in the practice of yoga in order to twist his body in impossible ways, alternatively melting into and bursting out of the frame. His personal website on ArtNet is currently under construction, but a Google image search will give you ample introduction to his work.
Having just returned from Tibet I was pretty eager to get these photos up considering that blogging and facebooking (among many others) are illegal activities in the People’s Republic of China. Well now they’re up and the Chinese can’t do shit about it except revoke my visas and arrest me when I go back. But if that happens then we’ll know the Mill has really made it. I digress.
I took these photos at a gallery/workshop outside of Lhasa that we had the rare privilege of seeing. The professor leading our trip has an old friend, a talented Tibetan artist, who runs the place and brought us in. He was trained in Beijing at arguably the best arts institute in the country and has used his skill, alongside his colleagues, to develop their little known gallery- housed in an unassuming, oldish Tibetan building. Some of the pieces are highly controversial by Chinese standards. Others are more subdued. However, it all takes a clever approach to reach the intended result. Much of it deals with a disappearing culture, oppression and the persistence of Buddhism (or what’s left of it). I apologize for the photo quality on some as I was running through the gallery taking snapshots of everything without a tripod or proper exposure but you get the point. This is only a handful of the pieces but it shows the varied mediums and focuses. The artists have no websites or much in the way of professional development but you can access a past catalogue from a recent show in Beijing at the Red Gate Gallery (www.redgategallery.com) under “Return to Lhasa”, artists Gade and Tsering Nyandak.
I just came across this blog, and I don’t know how I’ve missed it for so long.
Its called “The Constants Kept”, and its a mix of aesthetically pleasing ‘looks’, ‘scenes’, ‘people’, ‘spaces’, ‘objects’, and ‘graphics.’ Its definitely got a vintage feel to it, with many of the postings containing some ’50s, ’60s, ’70s throwbacks. Enjoy!
Cindy Sherman: Lack of Identity in Self-Portraits
Cindy Sherman, a modern female photographer, captures herself in a series of self-portraits from the late 1970s to contemporary time. Although Sherman photographs herself, she takes on different roles and personas within the images and subtly addresses gender and popular culture issues.
Her playfully ironic photographs of the nameless Hollywood celebrity, the young girl in the big city and the housewife fantasizing about escaping reality, capture the essence of the American dream and are tied together through Sherman’s constructed identities. The result is a terrific blend of reality and fiction, and one’s perception of self in relationship to the stereotypes defined by American culture.
Within Sherman’s series of self-portraits she simultaneously appears as herself and as some unknown character. Her lack of identity within the images makes them all the more enjoyable as they actively capture our own desires and dreams for a created identity. In a 1990 New York Times article Sherman stated, “I feel I’m anonymous in my work. When I look at my pictures, I never see myself; they aren’t self-portraits. Sometimes I disappear.”
I love escaping into the created reality of these photographs and I hope you will too! Enjoy!
Landon McMahon Photography
You need to see Landon McMahon’s portfolio if you’re into fashion photography. I grew up with him back in the promised land and I’ve watched him blowup in the last few years. His work is varied in style and avoids standard fashion photography. Enjoy and see for yourself.
It’s a Small World After All
2 videos to start your monday off right.
I’ve been really into Tilt Shift Photography recently, because the effect it produces is so surreal. A quick explanation - Tilt-Shift Photography is a style of photograph where only the center of the image is crisp while the top and bottom are blurred. the result (callled the Scheimpflug principle -thanks wikipedia!) is this weird trick on the eyes where the image looks almost like a designed set of minatures. Here are two very different but excellent examples done with film.
San Francisco Transitions from Bhautik Joshi on Vimeo.
Metal Heart from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.
Photographic Dictionary
For any photo enthusiastists, here’s an excellent way to kill time - The Photographic Dictionary.
The site is extremely simple and a great resource for seeing how a picture defines a single word.
Click on any letter in the alphabet and then select one of the words - you’ll see a really well taken picture and the basic dictionary definition of it. You can spend hours searching around the site, and it’s updated constantly. Enjoy!
some examples -
MAGIC
SHEEP
Broken
found on Kitsune Noir
PULP
I came across these polaroids by photographer Neil Krug in today’s New York Times. It’s part of a project he calls PULP.
Krug became fascinated with Polaroid technology when he learned of his discontinuation last year, and, collaborating with girlfriend/supermodel Joni Harbeck, took this stunning photoset on Polaroid film.
The shots are simply marvelous. The classic polaroid grime is laid upon Krug’s mastery of his setting. At times menacingly angry and at others angelic, the set borders on the spiritual and is certainly worth a look. Krug will be releasing the set in a book called PULP sometime this year.
These photos were taken from his Flickr.
Check out this awesome gallery on his website, pulpartbook.com.
