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Incredible shots from Austin Mann taken with an iPhone 5. via Macspoilers:

Travel photographer Austin Mann recently purchased the iPhone 5 and took it for a field test in Iceland. Just as we thought, the camera is pretty awesome. Austin used the iPhone app Snapseed by Nik Software to edit them while others are the raw image. He puts the camera through low light tests that had minimal noise and produced clean jpegs. He also used the panorama mode to capture some of the beautiful mountains and rivers in amazing detail.

You know it’s a great time to be a photographer when a “phone” can create beautiful images like these. Of course, as they always say, it’s the photographer and not the camera… But I have a hard time believing Mann could have made these images with anything older than a 4S (and perhaps not even that phone). And my AT&T contract isn’t up until July! Oh well, will try and score a 5D in the meantime.

More photos, including panoramas, at Macspoilers

Paintings such as Samantha Keely Smith’s make me want to throw my camera away and pick up a paint brush again. I miss the quiet, tranquil nights or afternoons where it felt like it was just me and my canvas and the world around me dissolved entirely. I love inspiration like Samantha’s paintings.

According to her website, she uses oil on canvas along with shellac, varnish and enamel. I’d imagine, given the size of these paintings, that they command every ounce of your attention. They are simply powerful. Her new work is jaw dropping and I can’t imagine what they look like and how they would make me feel viewing them in person. If any one feels like buying me the first one, I would forever be your friend.

I could sit here and explain how I feel about Samantha’s work but I would rather let her paintings speak to you. Take a look at her website to see the rest of her work and her artist statement. I would be first in line to purchase a print if she offered them.

Samantha Keely Smith.

The Sky Survey, 5,000 Megapixel image of space. There really isn’t too much I can write about this, other than you should probably be prepared to set your status to “Away” for a couple hours. Before doing that, check out the story behind it on the site as well as the iPad app. I’d imagine, if you can hook your new Retina Laptop up to a 1080p projector and shoot that on a wall, it’s going to look pretty impressive.

A year and many sleepless nights later I had amassed over 37,000 exposures. Even then, the work of unifying all the photographs took three months to complete and many hundreds of CPU hours. The data crunching consumed four terabytes of hard drive space and nearly equal amounts of patience but the end result seemed worth the wait.

Here’s the link to the Interactive 360, make sure to full screen it and enjoy!

Li Hui or Hui+ as I’ve also seen referred to as, is a self-taught Chinese photographer who creates moody, often double-exposed, dreamscapes using a couple film cameras: Nikon FM2 & a light-leaked Canon AT-1. What apparently started off as a hobby to fend off loneliness, has turned in to a career.

For more images, take a look at Li Hui’s Flickr.

One of America’s dying traditions, or so it seems to be dying, is visiting our backyards: National Parks. I’ll get into that subject later but for now I wanted to share these amazing art pieces created by an aritst who goes by the name of Ranger Doug.

The history behind these posters is quite a story. You can read about why the WPA created these posters in the first place here. Here’s a little excerpt from his website:

Between 1935 and 1943 the WPA’s Federal Art Project printed over two million posters in 35,000 different designs to stir the public’s imagination for education, theater, health, safety, and travel. Due to their fragile nature only two thousand posters have survived to this day; less than one tenth of one percent!

Ranger Doug’s Enterprises is the only source for faithful reproductions of WPA National Park serigraphed posters. Originally produced between 1938 and 1941, these sixteen stunning historical posters have been painstakingly restored, one screen at a time and are now offered as silkscreened prints.

I’ve managed to collect nearly all of these stunning prints in postcard form. As some of you know, I’m an avid National Park traveler. Not only for what each park’s beauty has to offer but each park has its own fascinating history behind it that I love learning about. One of my favorite parks has to be Glacier National Park in northern Montana. I’ve never felt so small and insignificant in this universe before when I was there. Absolutely breathtaking. What are some of your favorite National Parks or National Monuments here in America?

You can purchase various prints directly from the website: Ranger Doug WPA National Park Posters.

Yoshi Sodeoka is the man behind the latest video Elephant from Tame Impala. WHat you should know is that the man has been making analog synthesized videos since 2005 along with DVD, prints and also audio pieces. My favorite video has to be Violet Dark Spring of the Numinous Orb(poster and video above), its a little more my speed.

Norman Seeff has photographed some of the greatest legends of our time. One of my favorites was Steve Jobs. Seeff was able to photograph Steve both in the work environment with the Apple team, but also in Steve’s home.

In captions that support these images, which can be read on his website, Seeff recalls how Steve surveyed his work before he was comfortable enough to allow him to come to his home. This photoshoot would in turn produce one of the most iconic portaits of Steve Jobs of all time.

Shared from Mac Spoilers

We’ve discussed Vitsoe around here before, primarily focusing on what they are most known for: Dieter Rams’ furniture designs, including the 606 Universal Shelving System and the 620 Chair Programme. Founded in 1959, they have worked with arguably some of the most influential mid century graphic designers in Germany, and their attention to detail in the company graphic identity and literature has always been just as impressive as the furniture itself. Now, Vitsoe has started to release some of it’s amazing archival material via it’s newly created Tumblr page, and it’s worth a visit.

I find myself most drawn to the posters and graphic identity that Wolfgang Schmidt created for Vitsoe early on. Being a record collector, I’m obviously obsessed with this 7″ that they pressed in the 1971 for one of the various live performance events in the showrooms.

The poster he designed in 1972 for the 620 Chair Programme is genius – it really captures the idea of ‘furniture as a system’ that both the 606 and 620 embody. Each unfolding of the poster reveals a new layout, ultimately culminating in a whimsical layout featuring the Vitsoe employees as the models.

Schmidt’s book of invitations for the Frankfurt fair in 1971 delivers humor via his iconography combinations.

Finally, Günther Kieser, most famous for his jazz and rock posters, art directed various photo shoots for Vitsoe. This is a postcard featuring one from 1968.

Bookmark the Vitsoe Tumblr page or follow the twitter feed for daily updated content.

Posted by Rob Fissmer

Argentinian artist Tomas Saraceno goes beyond the traditional conceptions of place, time, gravity and our familiar notions of architecture. Saraceno is an artist and architect whos visions for cities floating in the air have led him to create a series of experimental structures such as balloons or inflatable modular platforms that can be inhabited and exploit natural energies. Any of his objects is an invitation to think about alternative knowledge, about emotions and the interaction with others. They invite you to participate, like Poetic Cosmos Of The Breath (pictured above), an experimental solar dome, which was part of The Arts Catalyst’s 2nd International Artists Airshow.
At dawn, crowds formed around a giant and colorful, circular foil, pinned to the ground at the edges with sand bags. Throughout the morning, the artist and his team gradually filled the foil with air and visitors could walk through this stunning colored wonderland.

Via Ignant

To celebrate the Ghostly International: Of Art and Artifice event Incase shared this amazing compilation of songs which includes a Kolombo remix of Tycho, Tensnake rework of Osborne, Fort Romeau edit of Beacon and many more.

Incase is proud to support Ghostly International: Of Art and Artifice, a multi-day event presented by the Art Directors Club CRE8 Series that promotes art connected through a spirit of inventiveness and anti-genre thinking. In the years since its birth in 1999, Ghostly has grown from a boutique label known for its experimental-pop and -techno acumen to an internationally recognized platform for the work of the world’s best visual artists, designers, technologists, and musicians.
As a multi-platform cultural curator, Ghostly International is a tightly knit aesthetic universe fulfilling the roles of art gallery, design house, clothing designer, technology innovator, music-publishing company and record label, all in one. From September 13-16, The Art Directors Club will house a comprehensive exhibition that gives a peek into what’s next after 13 years of creativity from Ghostly International, highlighting an essential selection of work from the Ghostly family in a never-before-seen collection. In addition to the exhibition, Of Art and Artifice will also encompass a series of events that include an Opening Gala with live performances by Com Truise, Lusine and NYC’s own Michna, as well as two days of talks with Ghostly artists hosted by Incase.