ten:15.

The web has allowed a whole new medium of collaborative photography to flourish. Artists teaming together is obviously nothing new, but the ease and instance of the interwebs make it totally free-flow for strangers around the world to shed their own little bit of creative light together onto one project.

I’ve noticed that lots of these collabs have found a way to focus on something universal and immutable: time. Our locations and cultures and languages are all different, but it’s always going to be 10:15 am everywhere and that’s not changing anytime soon. Similar to Craig Geffen’s awesome Humanclock, which collects photos from around the world visualizing every minute of every day, ten:15 wants you to send in a picture of whatever you happen to be doing at 10:15 am no matter where you are in the world.

There’s something about the communal collection of our banalities that make them become completely fascinating. Having photographic proof that some dude in Manila is putting cream in his morning coffee somehow creates a little more balance and order in the universe. While I was there, I noticed that a frequent collaborator to ten:15 is Michael Surtees, the man behind the lovely “New York City Colour Project”.

Uploaders can create their own user portfolio and the site and link it back to their personal site, making it a great way to search for new photographers or just to voyeuristically photo-creep on other people’s lives. You can search the archives by photographer, date, or location. There’s something about the casual nature of the photographs, that sort of laid back moment where someone picked up their camera or phone at 10:15 and just snapped, that creates some really beautiful shots – with an inherent spontaneity that can’t really be faked:

David Y. Lee – Brooklyn, NY

Verna Pitts – Minnesota

Barry Choi – Toronto

Jody Sugrue – Toronto

Here’s my first submission, sent in today. It’s my bonsai tree, Mr. Miyagi…

Via Gerry Mak @ Lost At E Minor

christian hückstädt.

There’s something about nudity, adultery, and all the other jealousies that boil just below our surfaces depicted in cardboard and vegetable collages that somehow makes it all seem a lot more scandalous.

German illustrator Christian Hückstädt’s work is a balance of contradictory extremes. Sure, it looks like something you’d find pinned on a pre-schooler’s refrigerator door, but the subject matter and nuance of emotion is distinctly adult. The simplicity and child-hood association with his media choices make it easy to overlook just how skilled he is. With just a few pieces of cardboard he’s got not just pictures, but entire stories, coming to life here.

This next one is a favourite of mine. I don’t know much German, but the onomatopoeiac beauty of “Putzmeister” isn’t too hard to decipher. Plus, there’s a toilet nearby, so that helps…

That’s just the beginning. Hückstädt also does some pretty amazing photographic work with fruits and vegetables. It’s not that easy to make a watermelon look trepidatious, but he pulls it off big time:

There haven’t been too many times in my life where I’ve said “Gee, I wish I knew more German.” (and I’ve been to Berlin…) but right now I really wish I knew what all these vegetable posts were saying. I have a feeling it’s subtle and brilliant and probably one of those things that’s a bit too smart to translate into other languages. Like reading José Saramago; if it’s that kick-ass in English, imagine how mind-blowing it is in Portugese.

These are just from two sections from Hückstädt’s site – we haven’t even gotten into his vector, graphic, and print work yet. To delve deeper (especially if you can read German) check out his prolific career on his site.

Via Lifelounge

david horvitz: “things for sale that i will mail you”.

This is the sort of bizarrely whimsical thing that’s just strange enough for people to say “why not?” and roll with it. It reminds me of Kyle McDonald’s One Red Paper Clip, where he documented online how in 14 consecutive trades he went from owning one red paper clip to owning a house. That’s right… a house.

On Things For Sale That I Will Mail You, artist David Horvitz lists all of the various tasks he will perform and then mail you proof of… if you pay him. The list is so randomly romantic and his descriptions of exactly what he will and will not do for you are so earnest that the whole thing becomes very appealing. Plus, he’s conscientious enough to make sure there’s something to fit everyone’s budget. He’s got a variety of sublimely ridiculous things he’ll do for you for only $1.

For just a buck he will look at the Pacific Ocean for you for one minute. As he so mathematically points out, if you send him $345 he will look at the Pacific Ocean for you for 345 minutes. For $1 he will also “sit in silence and think about you for one minute”. For proof, he’ll email you when he starts and then email you again when he’s done. There’s something about the assumption of trust here that I love – what more proof do you need?

Some of his offers are also a little more legitimately practical. Having been accepted to Bard University for his MFA, Horvitz posted up all of his tuition expenses and promises that all the artwork he creates during the amount of his schooling you pay for will become yours. His explanation is simple and universally understandable to anybody who went to college: “It is expensive. I am poor”. How much do I love this guy? We need to get him on Oprah… this is totally the kind of thing she’ll pay for, and then give the art to South Africa or something.

He gets more exploratory and treasure-hunty as it goes on. For $1,626 he’ll go to a small Okinawan island called Taketomi and send you an enveloped filled with this (admittedly quite pretty) star sand. If that’s a bit rich for your budget, for $20 he’ll send you an envelope filled with sand from Coney Island. Again, in what is either a feat of brilliantly laid-back copywriting or just his own intrinsic whatever-ness, Hurvitz says “It’s not star sand, but it’s still Coney Island”. He’s a little bit genius.

A lot of the offers consist of going to the edges of continents and taking a picture of the sea for you. For $1,335 he’ll go to Tiera del Fuego, for $917 he’ll go to the eastern most point of Newfoundland, and for $3,143 he’ll go to Perth, Australia. The down under trip is clearly his preference, saying “I’m a little sad right now and I would kind of like to escape, so if you are thinking about getting one of these and not sure what you want, please take in consideration my emotions and pick this one.”

Amongst his many other offers are baking cookies and handing them out on the street, buying food for homeless people, reading “The Little Prince” aloud in front of the New York Stock Exchange, and writing down a memory and mailing it to you.

He’s got a concisely compiled list of everything he’s sold. Reading through it is almost disturbingly fascinating…

There is one offer that really appeals to my idealist, emotional side. For $10 he’ll take a picture of the sky, laster print it, and mail it to you. Then he’ll delete it, meaning you will have the one and only picture of that exact patch of sky at that exact moment. This might fit into the whole “get a star named after you” category of atmospheric and celestial ownership that’s actually impossible, but there’s something I just love about the idea of it.

If you find this sky thing as appealing as I do, then Horvitz also has an on-going photo project called I Will Send You A Photograph Of The Sky For Everyday In 2008. There is something so carefree and whimsical and lovely about this that I just appreciate that he thought to put it out there into the universe. His offering is so matter of fact and direct that he comes across as some sort of random-photographic prophet:

“I will mail you the prints intermittently depending on how I feel. I may mail you one at a time as a post-card. I may mail you a whole weeks worth in one envelope. By the beginning of 2009 you will have 366 skies. Each print will be stamped with the date on the back. A list of locations with their correlating dates will be printed at the end of the year. I want you to keep them in a pile so that they become a slowly growing sculpture, which I think would look nice.”

I’m seriously thinking of getting in on this. There’s also a free-email only version, where for no charge Horvitz will email you the sky picture every day, and his site claims this is part of a larger project he’s working on where he’ll take a photograph of the sky every day for the rest of his life.

magenta foundation: “flash forward” recycling bins.

Usually Canadians are pretty reserved when it comes to their public art. “Polite”, we could say, and just really bring that whole stereotype of the overly-cautious Canadian to life. It gets a little dull sometimes, especially in comparison to the ground breaking, architecturally daring public spaces that pop up in Europe and other places.

That’s why I get such glee out of this. We’re talking bright, in your face, acid-magenta coloured recycling bins featuring the work of up and coming Canadian photographers. On a grey, drizzle-filled winter day in Toronto, the brief respite these babies deliver from the monotony of your morning commute is enough to make any art-lover break down in tears.

(Artist: Nik Mirus)

(Artist: Adam Rankin)

(Artist: Scott Connaroe)

(Artist: Jeff Harris)

The Magenta Foudation is Canada’s first charitable publishing house, whose mandate is to nurture new Canadian artists and set them up for success and recognition on the international scene. Flash Forward is their yearly emerging photographers competition. Last time around, the artists chosen for Flash Forward got the added rush of having their work displayed on recycling bins around downtown Toronto.

The benefit of this is obvious. Metal recycling boxes are ugly. Art is pretty. Plus Toronto’s downtown core can benefit from all the added artistic exposure it can get. Aside from a few bright spots, it’s not exactly an area where accessible public art is popping up everywhere you look. Each time I came across a new one of these while I was walking around downtown it was like finding a chocolate egg on Easter morning. Plus I get a little misty eyed thinking of all the people who maybe wouldn’t have been interested in fostering or even noticing Canadian artists who had their attitudes changed by discovering works of art in such unexpected places.

Kudos to everyone involved in making this happen, and I can’t wait for next year.

(Artist: Eamon MacMahon)

(Artist: Adam Harrison)

(Artist: Jesse Chehak)

(Artist: Jamie Campbell)

jan von holleben: “dreams of flying”.

I’ve found photos that remind me of the feeling that overtook me after the first movie I saw in a theatre. It was “E.T. The Extra Terrestrial”, which I think we can all agree is maybe the most kick ass movie ever. When those kids took off into the air on their bicycles, I lost my l’il kindergarden mind. I spent the next several weeks riding my bike as hard as I could up and down the street, and when the wind lifted my hair and the neatly lined-up houses started to blur by, nobody would have been able to convince me that my bicycle and I hadn’t just taken flight.

In his on-going photo series “Dreams of Flying”, Jan von Holleben captures the essence of childhood abandon. By laying his subjects down on the ground and shooting from over-head, he not only brings an inventiveness to layout and sense of perspective, but he triumphs and reinforces the central idea; when you’re a child, whatever it is you believe is what you’re doing. I love the realism of his art direction, every detail is true to the nature of what a child would do. Feather dusters are wands. Jumping is flying. Blue blankets are sea water. Trees are jungles.

Based on the myths within storybooks and legendary superheroes, von Holleben recruits local kids from his neighbourhood in Southern Germany for his shoots. The project began in 2002 and since then he’s won a shitload of international awards, just as he should. The pictures are joyous and exuberant, and convey not so much a nostalgia for the past but more a celebration of the human imagination…

Here’s what might be the most awesome pic of the whole series. It’s the fucking GHOSTBUSTERS!

Having been published widely in books and magazines and held his own solo shows in Paris, London, New York, and Berlin, von Holleben’s career is already illustrious. His site is a definite must-see for just how prolific he is as well. Besides the full “Dreams of Flying” series, you can also check out “The sodawaterfireworks”, where he’s got shots of various soda pops splashing against a white brick wall, and “You run, I count 10”, a beautiful outdoor series that, true to its name, features shots of people after 10 seconds of running away from the camera:

michael surtees: “new york city colour study”.

Sometimes the simplest observations bloom into something very cool. Manhattan-based Art Director Michael Surtees looked out his apartment window and realized how different the colours of the sky can be from day to day. On January 16, 2008, he started to document all these different sky colours by taking a picture out his window every morning, usually between 7am + 9 am. Say hello to “New York City Colour Study”:

It’s crazy to see just how differently the human eyes sees one thing so drastically differently because of light, humidity, smog, clouds. The sky itself is always the same colour, it’s just everything around it that affects how we see it. This could almost lead us into the eternal “why is the sky blue?” question, but I’m no scientist. You can check out the full study on his Flickr page or on his personal blog.

The icing on the cake is that Surtees is originally from Canada, so he spells “colour” the right way. With the “u”. Yeah son.

Via Gerry Mak at the daily must-read Lost At E Minor

brian ulrich: copia.

The seemingly unstoppable rise of North American consumer culture probably isn’t unknown to anyone who would be reading this. We shop, buy, eat, and consume more than any other continent on Earth. Far beyond the simple, original need to go out and buy something to eat or buy something to wear, we’ve plunged ourselves into a consumerist machine where a large part of our culture and, indeed, our entire economy is based on people buying lot of shit. I know because I’m in the middle of it – I write advertising for a living…

In his on-going photographic project “Copia”, photographer Brian Ulrich is using the power of the captured image to force a second look into just how far down that consumer rabbit hole we’ve all fallen.

“Copia” is part of Ulrich’s reaction to the post-911 idea that in times of strife and uncertainty Americans could support their country by shopping. He forces us to look at moments that have become so common and socially acceptable that when, in the context of his project, we make the effort to look twice that’s when we realize just how bad it’s become.

As he says in his own statement, “In 2001 citizens were encouraged to take to the malls to boost the U.S. economy through shopping, thereby equating consumerism with patriotism. The Copia project, a direct response to that advice, is a long-term photographic examination of the peculiarities and complexities of the consumer-dominated culture in which we live.”

Though clearly his project is driven by his own awareness of the evils of consumerism, his photographs maintain the unjudgemental eye of a consummate documentarian. His shots aren’t manipulative or over-wrought; he’s not telling us what to think. He’s showing us moments inside the halls of the shopping kingdom. If there is a deeper meaning or glaring irony in the image, it’s simply because he was vigilant enough to capture it amongst all the banality. Lots of the time, it’s the exceptional normalcy – the complacency of consumer culture hidden within these mundane moments – that makes them worth looking at.

I like how he leaves the series so open for interpretation. Though clearly the project has a brilliantly realized purpose, it’s set up for us to do all the discovering. These aren’t shots for us to merely look at. These are photographs we have to see; primarily because they’re all showing us something we’ve already seen before (cleanup, Aisle 12…) and so you need to dig in and find out what the layers all mean. Even the names of each shot give no direction or inclination – each photograph’s title is simply the location you’re looking at and the year it was taken.

Currently made up of three chapters: “Retail”, “Thrift”, and “Backrooms”, Ulrich promises to add to the scope of the project as it continues. And I can’t wait…

Via Brian Fichtner @ Cool Hunting

mike stimpson: “classics in lego”.

Lego is seriously one of the building blocks of life. We’ve got Carbon, we’ve got Hydrogen, and then we’ve got Lego. It should have it’s own atomic symbol and everything. There isn’t a single person I know who doesn’t have childhood memories of sitting on the living room floor building something out of Lego blocks.

I have a distinct memory of surreptitiously crawling into my little brother’s room and thoughtlessly pillaging his lego stash because I had an Empire State Building on the go in the family room that needed a turret. There was simply no way I was going to go to sleep until that little architectural masterpiece was fully erected. When my Mom caught me she actually snuck in and helped me pull apart his Lego Death Star because she knew I would go apoplectic if I ran out of grey blocks. For those of us who’ve followed the creative/design/geek impulses fostered in our childhood by marathon lego-skyscraper building sessions there is something about using Lego in any adult capacity that is completely, utterly fascinating.

Enter the work of fellow-Lego lover Mike Stimpson. On his Flickr set you can see his toy block genius at work: he takes classic photographs and recreates them with Lego. I appreciate how he doesn’t necessarily take any of the pre-supposed emotional impact of the Lego itself into account when he chooses which photos to recreate. Sure, Lego are always smiling, but that doesn’t mean he only recreates happy photos – like in his reenactment of the iconic “unknown rebel” in Tiannemen Square…

Via Why Me? via NotCot

methodizaz.

It’s always the pictures you didn’t know were being taken that turn out the best. Most of the time, as soon as you do the whole customary “group gather turn arms around each other look happy smile” rigamarole and then try to look like it’s all totally impromptu, it just doesn’t work out. By the time you realize there’s a moment to capture, the moment is already gone. MethodIzaz knows this, and, in fact, is banking on it…

In a kind of guerrilla portraiture that I suppose could only really have evolved in the post-Paris Hilton paparazzi era, MethodIzaz is a lot like a hired P.I. On the website, you enter in specific details about your daily routine, a current photo of what you look like so they can identify you on the street, and even what kind of moods you’d like the pics to capture. Then an anonymous photographer takes shots of you while you go around doing your thing. The site promises “without posing or artifice, the camera captures on the natural beauty of the person.”

I think this would probably work best for a couple where one knew about the plan and the other didn’t, and then the first partner could make sure the other one looks good and then lure them to all the pre-determined spots. If I hired them to follow myself, I might be a little too aware that, at some point, my picture was going to be taken. Though it might be fun to ask them to capture moments of happiness and untold joy, and then act very grumpy for the week. Just to give them a challenge..

Via Veer

kristopher grunert.

Photographer Kristopher Grunert has an obvious eye for taking the (literally) concrete and making it ethereally beautiful. Listen to how exquisitely Grunert explains the passion behind his work: “The engineering, the placement of lights, steel, and concrete – someone, somewhere, poured their efforts into these creations and my objective is to show the beauty that exists there. To me, they are as magnificent as a constellation of stars.”

I feel an affinity for his work because our lives have had a similar trajectory – Grunert was born and raised in Saskatchewan (as was I), and like me he followed a need to create to another side of Canada; his photography led him to Vancouver, where he’s now based. I think that explains another part of why I love his work so much. Growing up in the prairies, you learn a different way to see. There’s not always a lot going on, and so, if you’re artistically inclined, you inherently train you train your eye to dig deeper for subtleties that others might pass over.

I think that’s how, though his subject choices seem at first cold and impersonal – highways, factories, empty parks (all at night), he inevitably captures the light around these solids at the perfect moment. The instant a car’s tail light creates a streak of colour he captures it in parallel to the bridge it’s crossing. As the effluence of a mist fills a highway, he takes the halos of light from the street lamps and finds the moment where he can balance these growing circles and cones in perfect symmetry.

The base of the shots are the industrialized world we’ve created, but I feel like he also uses the energy of nature – qualities of light, the weight of air – to somehow highlight both the invisible geometric structures that have always existed in nature, but also the softness and humanity given to concrete and steel when humans touch it and bring it to their use.

For his Viaduct(s) installation, he mounted several misty blue shots from that series and back-lit them. Imagine coming home into your darkened hallway and instead of flicking on a regular light, being greeted instead by these glowing works of art…