Poladroid - More Flickr Genius

Just found this funky Polaroid converter. It's really easy to use and converts your digital photos into polaroid lookalikes. It's a bit of a craze on Flickr at the mo, check out this group and mine for more. I really like the didgeridoo man one I took, just found him practising in an alleyway in Covent Garden. I thought he was busking so gave him some money and asked if I could take some pictures of him. Turns out he wasn't a busker....bit of a blunder, but he was chilled anyway and let me take some photos.

There's a first time for everything - Data makes me happy - Flickr Stats

Anyone who knows me will probably know that I am obsessed with Flickr. Just when I thought it couldn't get any better, they added Flickr stats. Just in the 5 minutes time that I looked at it earlier, I found loads of little gems that I otherwise wouldn't have known; that people have actually been commenting on my photos for a while and have added some as favourites.

They've also updated the homepage so that you can see all the recent activity on your photos, any comments, favourites or views. It's great to see this as it gives you a real idea of who is looking for photos like yours and who are the best people to get talking to among your contacts.

Plus, they link with Moo, makers of Moo Cards so on the back of the cards I just ordered, I've been able to put my own pictures. Seriously, I love Flickr!

Btw, I'm aware this is an extremely geeky post

Under Scan at Trafalgar Square

Next week the Trafalgar Square North Terrace will be covered in the world's largest interactive video installation. It's going to cover an area over 2000m squared. Two projectors will cover the area with over 100,000 rays of light so that anyone who walks through the space. As a person enters the area they will be detected by a camera and tracking system and a series of video portraits will be projected onto their shadows. It's going to make for some interesting photos I think, I'll be sure to take some and they will be uploaded here next week. The Under Scan project is designed by electronic artist Rafael Lozano-Hemmer

A concept sketch is shown above and below is a photo of the installation in action

The Photographic Adventures of Nick Turpin

Here's an example of a brand having a good online idea to promote one of it's products only to be let down by a poorly laid out and frustrating website.

Samsung sent renowned street photographer Nick Turpin around Europe with their new 8 megapixel cameraphone. His mission was clear and simple, to take the best photos he could using the Samsung phone. Visitors to the website suggest the themes that Nick must focus on during his travels. These range from "Beer" to "Space" to "Sticker" and "Danger".

The site is well linked, Nick has a Twitter page, a Flickr gallery and you can see where he is on Google via GPS and the associated pages work well. But the microsite itself looks cheap and is annoying to navigate. It's a shame, because the quality of the photos and the quality of the idea is high,but it's let down by the microsite. It could have followed a much better formula, as shown in a website like this - put together by an amateur photographer. Anyway here's some examples of how Samsung have used various platforms to spread the message.

Reminded of the Power of Black and White

Having a browse through Flickr and thought I would post a few of my recent faves. I could spend hours on that site, the quality of photography from amateur photographers is outstanding. The three I have posted above were taken in Beijing and Shanghai by travelight and sakura love. It would be hard to find better examples of where black and white photography can work than the two above. As England gets colder and darker by the day as we push into winter, I can see myself turning to a spot of the old black and white photography!

Slinkachu at Cosh Gallery Soho London

A new exhibition to launch in London this week - "Ground Zero: Little People in the City" by Slinkachu under the tagline "Little handpainted people, left in London to fend for themselves". I would try to explain the results of his work, but the blurb from the gallery does a great job:

"Slinkachu has taken street art to a new scale,
painstakingly hand-painting tiny characters that live
in a world that’s too small for us to always notice
beneath our feet. His street installations are
constructed in all sorts of public spaces, the portrayal
of little lives that mirror our own. Working in miniature
opens up the city landscapes in unexpected ways
and this is explored in Ground Zero where he literally
brings you down to a new level.
Ground Zero is both street art installations and
photography. The two go hand in hand with the
subsequent photograph uncovering his hidden
world. The show depicts the little fears and anxieties
of city life and the general feeling of being alone or
insignificant in a large city. While the scenes reflect
the loneliness and melancholy of urban life there is
always an underlying sense of humour and feeling of
empathy"

A Little Bit of Beijing

Images courtesy of Dan Eckstein.

Dan Eckstein has gone on a photographic journey of China, covering 10,000km in eight weeks and creating a document of China as it is from the high rises of Beijing to the Tibetan Plateau and the Yangzi river. In Beijing, Eckstein visited the 798 space art district, aburgeoning arts district in the northwest of Beijing. For a number of years, Beijing based artists and designers have made this area their home and the work being produced there is at the forefront of Chinese contemporary art. The studios and galleries are housed in old munitions and metals factories which in themselves are quite striking spaces.

Dan's Picture China photoblog can be seen here

The digital building Beijing:

Hospital Records Designs

I've often thought that designing album covers would be a great job. These three examples from Hospital Records show a great sense of humour.

Li Wei - Dangerous

No- they're not photoshopped. Li Wei creates these "performance art photos" using props and extremely strong wires. His photos show him in precarious situations where for the viewer, the only possible outcome is disaster. These situations range from the above, to falling from the sky to having already landed, head first into various objects (cars, the ground, lakes).

His work evokes strong reactions from passers by: "The first reaction is astonishment. Some people think they are full of sense of humour. They are curious about how I did this".

It's this sense of humour, albeit slightly dark, that makes these images so striking. It's something that I mentioned in a previous post and I'm glad I've been able to find an example so quickly to illustrate my point.

Find more of Li Wei's photos here

China's Creative Imperative - Kunal Sinha

"I've learnt from my experience in China to never under-estimate the Chinese. Kunal's insight creates a compelling case that they have what it takes to move beyond the world's factory to become a force in creativity. "
— Colin Giles, President, Nokia China



Burying your head in the sand...
....if you think that China is not going to become a creative force in the future. This follows on from my last post, creativity in China is booming at the moment, especially in the fields of music and illustration/design. It's timely that a Strategy Director at Ogilvy Greater China has just published a book on the subject.

China' s in a unique position to absorb the best of all the creative talent and ideas arriving on it's shores, and to build a strong visual/design community and identity of its own. I think the next ten to twenty years will be a hugely exciting time to be involved with this kind of work in China. As the above image illustrates, the Chinese have a unique sense of humour and it will be this, combined with striking visual imagery which will hopefully provide some very inspiring work.