Newsweek’s Visions of China Blog

Speaking of cool Olympic photos, Newsweek has a great blog going right now written by photographers at the Beijing Olympics. It is called Visions of China and is chock full of great photographs and insider information on what it takes to get just the right shot. Here is a great post about getting the finish of the men’s 100m. I also like this photo documentation of how Vincent Laforet packed all of his gear for the games.

This is kinda cool, too.

360º View From Olympic High-Dive Platform

I have to say that I have spent more time exploring this 360º view from the high-dive platform at the Water Cube in Beijing than I have watching any actual Olympic competition. It’s true. I spent about three minutes exploring that pool yet I have watched 0.00 minutes of this years Olympics. Someone please tell the government how unpatriotic I am. kthxbye

(via Gizmodo)

The Peloton

The Peloton is an awesome set of photographs (however presented in a website with crappy navigation) from Timm Köelln . The cyclist on display have been captured moments after they crossed the finish line of the grueling 2005 Giro D’Italia that runs around 2,100 miles. Koelln set up a tent at the finish line and as soon as the riders crossed, they would get off their bike and walk into the tent to immediately be photographed capturing some wonderful emotive portraits. If you were to tell me they were long lost Richard Avedon portraits, I would have believed you.

(via mathowie at Metafilter)

Plastic From the Stomach of One Albatross

Oh! I really like your photograph of all that plastic debris. Great colors and textures. I like the way you meticulously laid out the pieces in a…

What? I’m sorry but what did you say? It came from where? The stomach of one albatross!?! Eww.

All of the plastic in the picture above was pulled out of the proventriculi – part of the birds complicated stomach system – of one bird, a Layson Albatross, on Kure, an island near Midway. The weight of the proventriculi on this bird was 340 grams and 80% of that was the plastic above. The plastic weighed as much as six golf balls.

From the book, Archipelago: Portraits of Life in the World’s Most Remote Island Sanctuary by David Liittschwager, Susan Middleton:

Inside dead chicks, I found, to my disgust, a printer cartridge, shotgun shell casings, paint brushes,  pump spray nozzles, toothpaste tube caps, clothespins, buckles, toys, and shards from larger plastic items such as laundry baskets and buckets. – David Littschwager

You can even make out a couple of cigarette lighters in the picture above. Pretty freakin’ sad if you ask me.

Open this PDF and scroll down to page 8 if you want to see a pretty gruesome picture of the bird itself.

Here is a good NPR story about this issue.

Pinhole Photography by Bethany de Forest

Dutch artist Bethany de Forest creates her art by first building tiny models and dioramas. She then takes pinhole photographs of the models, capturing the look and feel of a truly imaginary world. The models she creates are meticulously detailed and are made with such materials as sugar cubes, twigs, cotton balls, fruits and vegetables, and meats. She also frequently uses mirrors to enhance the small spaces she creates. To hide the camera from the mirrors, she custom builds most of the cameras for each shot so, that when a shot is taken with a mirror directly in front of the camera, the cameras blend right into the scene.

Thanks to Joe Barr (also a pinhole photographer) for sending me this about three years ago.

Lightmark.de

I wanted to share this site that I found. I really do not have much information on it. All of the information on the site is in German. If you click on the “Making Of” link you are just shown a photograph of someone loading film into the back of a camera.

But what I do know about the site is that it has some beautiful long exposure photography exhibited.

The Vanishing Point

This is my new favorite site. it is called The Vanishing Point. It is a website all about exploring the man-made structures that are buried beneath our feet and abandoned like old power plants and abandoned mines. I have always wanted to be an urban cave explorer. I find the huge abandoned spaces filled with discarded heavy machinery fascinating. The site gives some great history of the places they explore as well as some great photographs. Sometimes the writing is a bit forced but the rest of the site makes up for it.

Well worth exploring. Pun intended.

(Via BoingBoing)

Marc Levoy – Advanced Photographic Research

Photography + technology = *Drool*

Perspective is Everything

This is a detail of a very large image (60 X 100″) by Seattle Artist/Photographer/Activist Chris Jordan. The full size is the visual representation of how many containers are processed in American ports in twelve hours (38,000). This is part of his series “Running the Numbers – An American Self-Portrait“. It is a collection of visuals that are created in Photoshop that shows contemporary American consumption. It is very impressive.

This project visually examines these vast and bizarre measures of our society, in large intricately detailed prints assembled from thousands of smaller photographs. The underlying desire is to emphasize the role of the individual in a society that is increasingly enormous, incomprehensible, and overwhelming.

My only caveat about this series is that the prints must be seen in person to be experienced the way they are intended. As with any large artwork, their scale carries a vital part of their substance which is lost in these little web images.

He is probably right. I would love to see this exhibition some time.

Here is Chris is on the Colbert Report and on Bill Moyers. He is also going to be speaking at the TED conference this year (which I will miss yet again this year because some lacky keeps leaving me off the guest list!)