Posts by Jon M

My friend Cameron Ballensky has been in town visiting for a few days, so we’ve been out and about shooting loads of film. Me, mostly 35mm, him Polaroid. After seeing some of the unpredictable results yielded by certain films he uses, I was really turned on by the idea of exploring this format myself (also two of my favorite photographers, Reuben Wu and Neil Krug, have inspired this in me as well). Cameron mostly get’s all of his film through The Impossible Project, a company that now produces Polaroid film, and as I was exploring their site, I came across the beautiful work of Chloe Aftel, a Los Angeles based photographer and film director.

Browse through her beautiful body of work on Flickr.

Chloe is also part of The Impossible Project’s launch of a new instant film material for 8×10 cameras (image below). More info can be found here.

Blog and personal favorite visual artist Leif Podhajsky just updated his site recently, and as usual, mind blown!. Most notably: Dan Croll’s ‘From Nowhere’ 7″ artwork (first and second images).

Japanese artist Yamamoto Motoi was born in Hiroshima, Japan in 1966 and worked in a dockyard until he was 22, when he decided to focus on art full-time. Six years later, in 1994, his younger sister died from complications due to brain cancer and Yamamoto immediately began to memorialize her in his labyrinthine installations of poured salt. The patterns formed from the salt are actually quite literal in that Yamamoto first created a three-dimensional brain as an exploration of his sister’s condition and subsequently wondered what would happen if the patterns and channels of the brain were then flattened.

Although he creates basic guidelines and conditions for each piece, the works are almost entirely improvised with mistakes and imperfections often left intact during hundreds of hours of meticulous pouring. After each piece has been on view for several weeks, the public is invited to communally destroy each work and help package the salt into bags and jars, after which it is thrown back into the ocean.

Via Colossal

Wim Crouwel: A Graphic Odyssey – Digital Catalogue for iPad is an expanded and enhanced version of the printed catalogue published by Unit Editions and the Design Museum to accompany the recent Wim Crouwel exhibition at the Design Museum in London.

The App is more than the just the printed catalogue, it offers a comprehensive overview of the work of the great Dutch master, not only in pictures, but in words as well. The viewer also has access to a filmed interview with Crouwel, a photographic record of the show itself, and a range of animations using the letterforms designed by Wim Crouwel during his long career.

This all-encompassing digital catalogue offers a unique insight into Wim Crouwel’s work and archive, as well as the successful exhibition co-curated by Unit Editions co-founder Tony Brook. It’s a chance to either discover or relive the exhibition.

Editors: Tony Brook and Adrian Shaughnessy
Compatibility: iPad2 & iPad3
Size: 364 MB
Design: Spin
Price: $5.99

Available on the iTunes Store

Plenty more after the break – (more…)

Really enjoying the work of Los Angeles based photographer Nicholas Alan Cope. There is a sense of eerieness in his work, as well as just the right amount of “darkness”, although there are a few examples of his work I came across that were a bit too much and gore for my taste. All in all, impeccable use of lines, tones and texture.

Blog favorite Matthias Heiderich is having his first solo exhibition in the US:

Gallery Carte Blanche is pleased to announce the opening of Spektrum Berlin, Matthias Heiderich on Thursday, July 19, 2012.
Featuring the work of German-based photographer Matthias Heiderich, in his first solo exhibition in the United States, Spektrum Berlin challenges visions and stereotypes of Germany, in particular East Berlin, through colorful eye-popping urban architectural photography.
Viewed together or individually, each of Heiderich’s images transform the banality and universality of buildings into a mosaic of geometrical shapes, reconstructing the world we live in into an abstract canvas of lines, patterns, angular compositions, and vibrant colors. Saturated to the limits of reality, Heiderich’s prints, emerging directly from a 1980s color palette and influenced by 1950s and 1960s color photography and polaroid images, look at an industrial past with a present freshness and optimism for the future.
Self-taught, Heiderich doesn’t often play by the “rules”, however the influence of German photographic tradition is apparent in Heiderich’s work. Invested in the same rigor and pragmatism as Bernd Bechers, Heiderich creates systematic photographic typologies of industrial buildings and structures, emphasizing how each building is a product of human mind and skill. Following his natural instinct for composition, in series after series Heiderich experiments, searches for individuality, and cultivates a unique style and sensibility.

Spektrum Berlin, Matthias Heiderich opens on Thursday, July 19 and runs through September 13, 2012. The opening reception will be held on Friday, July 20th from 6pm–9pm.

Gallery Hours:
Monday-Friday 11am-7pm
Saturday 11am-8pm
Sunday 11am-6pm
Closed on Tuesdays

Location:
973 Valencia St
San Francisco, CA, 94110

For more information visit www.gallerycarteblanche.com or call 415.821.1055

Mr. Div is Tumblr I find myself (and apparently 30,000 other followers) visiting quite often, due to the amazing world of Animated GIF’s and Motion Graphics that inhabit within, designed by Matthew DiVito.

I intend to one day hire this man for my show visuals. Above are a few of my personal favorites.

From advertisements, album covers, to random graphics and art, 80’s Touch shines a light to what that period of time was visually.

For those of you looking to make this Monday go by a bit quicker. Browser Pong is a traditional Pong game played not in a browser window, but with browser windows. Designed by Stewdio, an art practice, code house, and graphic design studio based in London.

Tested and approved for Macintosh using the following browsers in order of preference: Safari 4, FireFox 3.6, Chrome 4, and Opera 10.