tagged w/ Photos of the Day
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The illusive JR has pasted gigantic portraits all over the world, and the public still doesn’t know the artist’s full name. He insists on JR, which are his real initials. He refers to his performance-exhibitions as the mix of photography with graffiti art. His work involves showing up in a shantytown in Kenya or a favela in Brazil, a place where some event has been noted in the media and has captured his attention. His work turns it inside out, photographing the residents, then wrapping their buildings with the results, on a scale so vast that you can see their eyes from the sky.
Often he works through the night, and as soon as he’s done, he disappears; so when the installation becomes front-page news, there is no one left to explain it but the people whose voices had not been previously heard. As a woman from Kibera, a neighborhood in Nairobi, put it in Women Are Heroes, a documentary recently released in France that JR made about his work: “Photos can’t change the environment. But if people see me there, they’ll ask me: ‘Who are you? Where do you come from?’ And then I’m proud.”
JR’s collection of works entitled “Women Are Heroes” features a compelling and empowering style focused on the struggles of women in society today. JR was recently awarded the 2011 TED Prize for “Women Are Heroes.” At the age of 28, JR is the youngest recipient of the $100,000 prize.
JR’s latest project is “The Wrinkles of the City,” an installation of street pieces in Shanghai (and later, in other large cities). The project features images of the elderly, who represent the memory of the city. The photographs have been pasted up at locations that he feels speak to the heritage of a city that has definitely had its share of ups and downs, “from the Japanese occupation, the establishment of the Communist Party, The Liberation, World War II, the end of the foreign concessions, the victory of Mao Zedong over the General Tchang Kaï-Chek’s troops, the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward to the actual development of the city.“
This piece includes a number of high-resolution color photographs, a slide show and three documentary short films.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/02/27/jr-the-compellingly-powerful-street-art-of-a-guerrilla-photograffeur/The illusive JR has pasted gigantic portraits all over the world, and the public still... more
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“Analog” is an exhibition at London’s Riflemaker Gallery that invites you inside the last of London’s photographic darkrooms, as well as taking a visit to a working reel-to-reel music studio, courtesy of an installation by Lewis Durham of the band Kitty, Daisy and Lewis.
English photographer Richard Nicholson chose to photograph professional darkrooms because they are often shrouded in mystery, hidden behind the tidy glass facade of the lab’s front desk. The spaces he discovered were often haphazard and brimming with personal details: coffee cups, CD collections, family snapshots, unpaid invoices, curious knick-knacks brought back by globe-trotting photographers. These human elements transformed what might have been a detached typology of modernist industrial design into something more intimate and nuanced.
Many of the iconic images of recent decades were crafted in these rooms. Mike Spry’s high contrast lith prints of U2 and Depeche Mode for music photographer Anton Corbijn, Peter Guest’s black and white prints of the Trainspotting cast for portrait photographer Lorenzo Agius and Brian Dowling’s intricately masked colour prints for fashion photographer Nick Knight.
In Summer 2006, when Nicholson first began to shoot the images of professional darkrooms in and around London, some 204 were still in existence, continuing the printing of image from film-stock to paper within the new digital era. However, when he completed the project some three years later, only 6 remained.
This piece includes a number of high-resolution color photographs, a slide show and a music video.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/02/26/analog-the-end-of-professional-photographic-darkrooms-and-recording-studios/“Analog” is an exhibition at London’s Riflemaker Gallery that... more
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“Night Tales” is a stunning series of photographs by the Belgium photographer Tim Corbeel. Taking pictures at night is truly an art; you need to have full control over your camera, equipment and the night itself. Corbeel’s nighttime photographs passionately capture the emotions, atmosphere and beautiful moments of darkness.
This piece includes a number of high-resolution black-and-white photographs, a slide show and a music video.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/photos-of-the-evening-night-tales/“Night Tales” is a stunning series of photographs by the Belgium... more
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Lewis Wickes Hine (1874-1940) attended the University of Chicago and later moved to New York City in 1901, where he accepted a position as an assistant teacher at the Ethical Culture School. At that time, Hine started using the camera as an educational tool and also began to attend the School of Education at New York University.
By 1905, Hine had received his degree from New York University. He continued to photograph for the ECS and while leading its photography club, he met Paul Strand. By 1906 Hine was considering a career in sociological-photography and began to pursue freelance work with the National Child Labor Committee. In 1908, the NCLC assigned Hine to document child labor practices with his photography. For the next several years, Hine traveled extensively, photographing children in mines, factories, canneries, textile mills, street trades and agricultural settings.
Hine’s photographs alerted the public to the fact that child labor deprived children of childhood, health, education and any chance of a decent future. His work on this project was the driving force behind changing the public’s attitude about children and work, and it was instrumental in the legislative battles that resulted in the passage of stricter child labor laws.
This piece includes a number of high-resolution vintage photographs, a slide show and a documentary short film about Hine's work.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/02/17/lost-youth-lewis-hine-and-the-crusade-against-child-labor/Lewis Wickes Hine (1874-1940) attended the University of Chicago and later moved to... more
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In 1998, the small East Texas town of Jasper was shaken by the brutal, racially motivated killing of a forty-nine-year old African American named James Byrd Jr. The international coverage of that traumatic race-crime did not, for the most part, reveal the stark past and complicated social life of this historically segregated community. For example, little notice was paid to the photographs of Alonzo Jordan (1903-1984), a local photographer who had made Byrd’s high school graduation portrait, and who had worked for more than forty years to document African Americans in Jasper and in the surrounding rural areas. Jordan’s photographs are the subject of an exhibition, “Jasper, Texas: The Community Photographs of Alonzo Jordan,” presently on view at The International Center of Photography in New York City.
Like many small-town photographers, Alonzo Jordan fulfilled various roles in the community. A barber by trade, Alonzo Jordan was also a Prince Hall Mason, a deacon in his church, an educator and a local leader, who took up photography to fill a social need he recognized. Over the years, he documented the everyday world of black East Texas, especially the civic events and social rituals that were integral to the daily life of the people he served. In addition to revealing the African American culture of Jasper during the Civil Rights era, this exhibition challenges the existing formalistic approaches to the study of vernacular photography. It considers Jordan’s distinguished career as a “community photographer.”
In communities across the nation, photographs of this kind have been proudly displayed for decades in people’s homes, local churches, businesses, civic buildings and schools, because they document groups and individuals who are held in high esteem. Frequently, the photographer is not identified or credited, because the emphasis is upon the family, social and professional groups, and the recognition of the community infrastructure.
This piece includes a number of high-resolution black-and-white vintage photographs, a slide show and a documentary short film about the life of James Byrd Jr.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/02/12/jasper-texas-the-hidden-half-of-a-small-texas-town/In 1998, the small East Texas town of Jasper was shaken by the brutal, racially... more
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Twenty-five years after his death, André Kertész (1894–1985) is today a world-famous photographer who produced images that will be familiar to everyone. However, he has yet to receive full recognition for his personal contribution to the language of photography in the 20th century. His career spanning more than seventy years was chaotic, and his longevity was matched by an unwavering creative acuity that made an immediate or retrospective understanding of his work difficult.
For the first time, an exhibition at Jeu de Paume in Paris has assembled a sizable collection of prints and original documents covering the different periods of Kertész’s life and artistic career. It brings together a large number of prints and original documents that highlight the exceptional creative acuity of this photographer, from his beginnings in Hungary, his homeland, to Paris, where between 1925 and 1936 he was one of the leading figures in avant-garde photography, to New York, where he lived for nearly fifty years without encountering the success that he expected and so rightly deserved.
It pays tribute to a photographer whom Cartier-Bresson regarded as one of his masters, and reveals, despite an apparent diversity of periods, situations, themes and styles, the coherence of Kertész’s approach. The exhibition reveals how Kertész developed a genuine poetics of photography, what he called “a real photographic language.” The display highlights the autonomy of each photograph, while at the same time indicating the presence of series or recurring themes (for example, the distortions, the buildings of New York, the chimneys, and solitude).
Kertész remained true to his intuitive, allusive personal style, and used his work to give voice to the sadness that undoubtedly permeated his entire life in New York, rendered most explicitly in The Lost Cloud (1937). Right up until the end of his life, he sought images of solitude, and on January 1, 1972, during a trip to Martinique, he caught the fleeting, pensive profile of a man behind a pane of frosted glass: this nebulous vision of a solitary man before the immensity of the sea was the last image in his retrospective collection, “Sixty Years of Photography, 1912–1972.”
This piece includes a number of high-resolution vintage photographs, a slide show and a documentary short film about the exhibition.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/andre-kertesz-the-nebulous-visions-of-a-solitary-man/Twenty-five years after his death, André Kertész (1894–1985) is... more
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Triiibe is a performance collective that originated in 2006 when performance artists and identical triplets, Alicia, Kelly and Sara Casilio joined creative forces with noted documentary photographer, Cary Wolinsky. Together, Triiibe creates political and social commentary through art using performance, video and photography. They explore diverse ideas together and their collective voice allows them to reach a broad audience. The images their exhibitions are carefully constructed observations on identity and the politics of identity. The works ask questions such as: How are we the same? How are we different? What is feminine? What is masculine? What role goes gender play in politics?
This piece includes a number of high-resolution color photographs, a slide show and two documentary short films by Triiibe.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/02/06/tripling-playing-dress-up-to-disrupt-identity-politics/Triiibe is a performance collective that originated in 2006 when performance artists... more
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From January 28th through May 15th, The Albertina in Vienna is showcasing some rare works by the celebrated artist Roy Lichtenstein. Roy Lichtenstein: Black and White 1961-1968 features pieces from one of the most prolific periods in the artist’s career, illustrating a shift in style that would influence his later works.
Inspired by advertising and the media, Lichtenstein began creating his famous comic-strip pop-art in the 1960s. The artist created about seventy impressive black-and-white drawings and paintings between 1961 and 1968, which were completely new in terms of subject and style. The Albertina is presenting the black-and-white drawings in conjunction with selected black-and-white paintings for the first time in this special exhibition.
This piece includes a number of high-resolution illustrations, a slide show and two documentary short films about the exhibition.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/02/04/roy-lichtenstein-the-finished-black-and-white-drawings-of-a-pop-master/From January 28th through May 15th, The Albertina in Vienna is showcasing some rare... more
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Chicago is a city that prides itself on its ability to conquer any snowstorm that comes its way, but it woke up on Wednesday to discover that hundreds of people had been trapped by a massive blizzard for hours along a prominent roadway that runs smack through the heart of the city. Among the scenes described by those who spent most or all of the harrowing night on Lake Shore Drive: Frustrated drivers trying to unclog the roads by pushing stuck and abandoned cars through snow-filled exit ramps; a band of passengers crowded inside one Chicago Transit Authority bus, deciding after five hours to make a run for it (many were forced to turn back); people who ventured out, perhaps from their homes along Lake Shore Drive, to deliver cereal bars, water and Gatorade to those who had been stranded.
Cold winds were part two of the brutal storm system that stranded motorists, caused power outages, forced the cancelation of thousands of flights and closed down schools across the region, including Chicago schools for the first time since 1999. On Wednesday, winds of up to 70 mph had whipped up around about 20.2 inches of snow, creating high drifts and some whiteout conditions that made driving hazardous. Thursday’s sub-zero temperatures were expected to add a different layer of misery for commuters.
At 7 a.m. on Thursday, the temperature at O’Hare International Airport was zero with a wind chill of 11 below. Wind chills were expected to plumet to 20 below by early afternoon, according to the National Weather Service. Under such conditions, frostbite can develop within 30 minutes, officials said. Emergency personnel worked overnight to clear Lake Shore Drive of the large number of abandoned vehicles and huge mounds of snow, according a spokesman for Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management and Communications.
This piece presents a number of high-resolution color photographs, a slide show and two videos, including a music video.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/02/03/massive-snowstorm-batters-chicago-the-chicago-blizzard-of-2011/Chicago is a city that prides itself on its ability to conquer any snowstorm that... more
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George Condo is a prolific painter whose career spans almost three decades, creating characters who inhabit a grotesque, comic, baroque and sinister world. His work presents surrealist-style figure paintings, where humor abates tragedy and our inner demons are realized on a canvas. Condo’s work has been described as the visual embodiment of our mental states, and the first major American survey of his work has just opened at New York City’s New Museum, aptly entitled “George Condo: Mental States.”
This piece includes a number of high-resolution color photographs, a slide show and the documentary short film, “Condo Painting.”
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/george-condo-a-mind-where-picasso-meets-grotesque-looney-tunes/George Condo is a prolific painter whose career spans almost three decades, creating... more
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“Luminous Cities” is a fascinating collection of photographs, which have been selected from a delightful exhibition of photographs of the built environment presently on display at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne, Australia. The world’s great cities have always been vibrant centers of creativity, in which the built environment is often as inspirational as the activities of its citizens, and since the nineteenth century photographers have creatively explored the idea of the city.
The exhibition enables the viewer to examine the various ways photographers have viewed cities as historical sites, bustling modern hubs and architectural utopias since the nineteenth century. Through the work of a range of photographers, “Luminous Cities” leads viewers on a fascinating journey around the world, into the streets, buildings and former lives of some of our greatest international cities. The many fine photographs presented here, and in the remarkable slide show, include works by renowned photographers Eugene Atget, Edward Steichen, Paul Strand, Berenice Abbott, Bill Brandt, Lee Freidlander and Grant Mudford amongst many others.
This piece includes a number of outstanding high-resolution vintage photographs, a wonderful slide show of additional architectural images and a documentary short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/01/21/luminous-cities-creative-explorations-of-architectural-structures-in-urban-landscapes/“Luminous Cities” is a fascinating collection of photographs, which have... more
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Rock photographer Autumn de Wilde and The Decemberists have teamed up with The Impossible Project to create a deluxe box edition for the band’s new album, “The King Is Dead.” Autumn de Wilde was joking when she first offered to take a couple thousand Polaroid shots of her friends in the folk-rock band the Decemberists. But they called her bluff, and a few months later she’d accumulated more than 2,500 single- and double-exposed photos of the five band members, which were taken during recording sessions for the new album and around their hometown haunts in Portland, Oregon. All of the pictures were taken on Polaroid Type 100 peel-apart film provided by The Impossible Project, a group of former Polaroid employees who banded together in 2008 to rescue the beloved instant cameras from total obsolescence.
This piece includes a number of the high-resolution Polaroid photographs, a slide show presenting more of de Wilde’s unique and dramatic Polaroids and a musical video-montage of her Polaroids accompanying the Decemberist's new song from their album, “Down by the Water.”
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/rock-photographer-autumn-de-wilde-the-decemberists-in-polaroid/Rock photographer Autumn de Wilde and The Decemberists have teamed up with The... more
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“In Focus: Still Life” is a selection of remarkable photographs from an installation of wonderful still life photographs presently on view at The J. Paul Getty Museum Center for Photographs. The collection presents a survey of some of the innovative ways photographers have explored and refreshed this traditional genre. During the 19th century, still life photographs tended to resemble still life paintings, with similar subjects and arrangements. Beginning in the 20th century, still life photographs have mirrored the subjects and styles that have more broadly concerned photographers in their time.
In addition to early experiments of pioneers of the photographic medium, some of the works that have been newly acquired by the Getty Center are presented here: “Still Life with Triangle and Red Eraser” (1985) by American Irving Penn, “Lorikeet with Green Cloth” (2006) by Australian Marian Drew, and “Blow Up: Untitled 15” (2007) by Israeli Ori Gersht. Gersht loosely based his “Blow Up” series on traditional floral still life paintings. His arrangements of flowers are frozen and then detonated; the explosion is captured using synchronized digital cameras, with the fragmentary detritus caught in remarkable detail. This contemporary approach to still photography belies the notion of still life as something motionless, as it explores the relationships among painting and photography, art and science, and creation and destruction.
This piece also presents the acclaimed experimental video “Still Life” (2001) created by the English artist Sam Taylor-Wood, a three-minute short film that focuses on a classically composed bowl of fruit as it decays. Also, there’s a pen. “Still Life” has been said to be one of the most classical works in contemporary art, carving a permanent record for itself in art history with hardly any commentary. This is not just a Still Life; it is based upon a particular type of still life painting that developed during the 16th and 17th centuries in Flanders and the Netherlands, part of a classical genre that contains symbols of change or death as a reminder of their inevitability. Its focus was upon confronting the vanity of worldly things through often subtle signs of elapsing time and decay.
Sam Taylor-Wood’s film represents yet another step in that direction: the image, beautiful as ever in Taylor-Wood’s universe, decomposes itself. By the end of the short film, nothing is left but a grey amorphous mass. But upon closer inspection, one detail distinguishes this picture from its predecessors. The plastic ballpoint pen, a cheap contemporary object. One that doesn’t seem to decay and doesn’t seem to be a part of the universal process of self-disappearing life. Is this what is really left here to stay after we are gone, this nothingness, this ridiculous attribute of ourselves?
This piece includes a number of stunning high-resolution color photographs, a slide show and the short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/01/19/still-life-photography-courting-surprise-and-allegorical-meanings/“In Focus: Still Life” is a selection of remarkable photographs from an... more
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Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) was one of the most visible advocates of nonviolence and direct action as methods of social change. Dr. King initially gained national prominence for his role in the Montgomery bus boycott campaign, as well as in the Birmingham demonstrations that led to the passage of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. He was the recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964; the Presidential Medal of Freedom was awarded to Dr. King by President Jimmy Carter in 1964.
In late 1967, King initiated the Poor People’s Campaign, which was designed to confront economic problems that had not been addressed by earlier civil rights reforms. The following year, while supporting striking sanitation workers in Memphis, he delivered his final address, “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop.” The following day, April 4, 1968, Dr. King was assassinated.
This commemorative piece includes a number of high-resolution vintage photographs, as well as two memorable documentary short films.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/01/17/a-tribute-to-dr-martin-luther-king-and-the-civil-rights-movement/Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929-1968) was one of the most visible advocates of... more
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“Sun City Picture House” is a very engaging documentary short film by David Darg and Bryn Mooser. After the devastating earthquake rocked Haiti last year, food and medical aid poured into the island country, but in the months that followed a pair of Hollywood actresses and their friends had another idea. They wanted to build a movie theater. Maria Bello, who starred in the Adam Sandler comedy “Grown Ups,” and “Tron” actress Olivia Wilde, have documented the efforts of the group of people that brought the theater to life in this new, documentary short.
The documentary focuses on Haitian aid worker Raphael Louigene, whose dream was to build a movie theater, and the two American aid workers who helped him realize that dream by constructing it in just four days: Bryn Mooser from Artists for Peace and Justice, and Dave Darg, who works for Operation Blessing. Mario Bello stated, “The thing that’s needed most in Haiti right now, besides the immediate relief efforts, is joy. And that’s what this movie is about.” This article also presents a photo-gallery of stunning photographs of life in Haiti’s tent cities by New York photographer Wyatt Gallery.
This piece includes a number of high-resolution color photographs, a memorable slide show and the documentary short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/01/14/the-sun-city-picture-house-hollywood-comes-to-haiti/“Sun City Picture House” is a very engaging documentary short film by... more
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January 12, 2011, will mark one year to the day that the devastating 7.9 magnitude earthquake hit Haiti, resulting in what is arguably the worst natural disaster in modern history. Of the 1.5 million Haitian people who lost their homes in the earthquake, the majority are still living in makeshift tent cities, and the promised billions of dollars in foreign aid have yet to materialize. While financial donors and peacekeepers have resources that vastly overshadow those of the Haitian government, a lack of coordination in their endeavors has hampered the country’s efforts to recover.
“Tent Life: Haiti” is a very timely collection of stunning portraits of dignity, hope and joy by New York photographer Wyatt Gallery, inspirational photographs that show the reality of Haitian lives a year after the earthquake’s destruction and its aftermath. Gallery’s photographs present an artful and unselfconscious study of the resilience of an irrepressible people. They are beautiful narrative illustrations of the lives of a people experiencing a painfully arduous process of recovery, but they don’t romanticize the tent cities or the desperate living conditions of the Haitians who were rendered homeless by the earthquake.
Rather than using the medium of photography mainly as an attempt to understand what has happened in Haiti, Gallery’s portraits reveal a sense of intimacy and closeness with the Haitian survivors, as well as a genuine wish to be helpful. His work stands as a tender expression of the unexpected and unlikely sense of hope that he discovered in the residents of the Haitian tent cities.
This piece presents a number of inspiring, deeply engaging high-resolution color photographs, a memorable photo-gallery of additional images, a documentary short film and an HD-version of the official music video, “We Are The World 25 For Haiti.”
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/01/11/tent-life-in-haiti-portraits-of-profound-dignity-in-the-wake-of-devastation/January 12, 2011, will mark one year to the day that the devastating 7.9 magnitude... more
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At 11:00 a.m. eastern standard time on Monday, Americans are called upon to observe a moment of silence to honor the innocent victims of the senseless acts of violence in Tucson, Arizona, including those still fighting for their lives. It will be a time to come together as a nation in prayer or thoughtful reflection, keeping the victims and their families closely at heart.
Further, as a mark of respect for the victims of the tragic violence perpetrated on Saturday, January 8, 2011, in Tucson, Arizona, President Obama has ordered that the flag of the United States shall be flown at half-staff at the White House and upon all public buildings and grounds, at all military posts and naval stations, and on all naval vessels of the Federal Government in the District of Columbia and throughout the United States and its Territories and possessions until sunset, January 14, 2011.
This piece includes a number of high-resolution color photographs, a memorable photo-gallery and a video.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/01/10/honoring-the-victims-of-the-tragedy-in-tuscon-arizona-a-moment-of-silence/At 11:00 a.m. eastern standard time on Monday, Americans are called upon to observe a... more
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Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, shot today outside a Tucson Safeway grocery store, was featured on Sarah Palin’s infamous “crosshairs” map, which targeted legislators who voted for President Obama’s health care bill. This was the map that was roundly criticized as an incitement to violence.
Gabrielle Giffords, a third-term legislator, supported Obama’s health care reform bill. This earned her a place on the map, posted by Sarah Palin’s Political Action Committe, that literally put Democrats in the cross-hairs of guns last spring after the bill passed. “Don’t retreat, instead- RELOAD!” was how Palin introduced the map to her Tea Party Twitter followers. Days later, a vandal smashed the glass door of Giffords’ Tucson office. Giffords’ father stated that members of the Tea Party “always threatened” his daughter.
Giffords’ Tea Party opponent in the 2010 election, Jesse Kelly, went even further with the violent rhetoric. Kelly’s campaign held an event called “Get on Target for Victory in November.” Description of the event: “Help remove Gabrielle Giffords from office. Shoot a fully automatic M16 with Jesse Kelly.”
This piece includes high-resolution photographs, as well as the video of President Obama's response to the shootings.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/the-vitriol-of-sarah-palin-and-her-tea-party-followers-for-shame/Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, shot today outside a Tucson Safeway grocery... more
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“The Empty Restaurants of New York” is an emotionally moving collection of photographs by the Dutch photographer Wijnanda Deroo. Deroo’s work depicts the hushed melancholy of vacant interiors found in the cafes and restaurants from four of New York City’s five boroughs. Instead of actual people, there is the presence of people who have been there before and who might be there again. Despite the lack of people present in Deroo’s work, there exists a tangible presence of human experience and activity, manifested in the subtle clues left behind from a once vibrant history. Her alluring use of color and composition invites the viewer into these hauntingly empty spaces with emotive power, reinforcing the perspective that beauty can be found in the least likely of places.
This piece includes a number of stunning high-resolution color photographs, a memorable slide show and the hauntingly beautiful music video, “Alone in New York.”
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/the-hushed-melancholy-of-new-yorks-empty-restaurants/“The Empty Restaurants of New York” is an emotionally moving collection of... more
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“The Ruins of Detroit” is a powerful and disturbing collection of photographs, which are the result of a five-year collaboration by the French photographers Yves Marchand and Romain Meffre. “The Ruins of Detroit” tells the city’s story in one starkly beautiful photograph after another, adding up to nothing less than an end-of-empire narrative. The abandoned factories, the eerily vacant schools, the rotting houses and gutted skyscrapers chronicled by Marchand and Meffre are the artefacts of Detroit’s astonishing rise as a global capital of capitalism and its even more extraordinary descent into ruin, a place where the boundaries between the American dream and the American nightmare, between prosperity and poverty, between the permanent and the ephemeral are powerfully and painfully visible. No place exemplifies both the creative and destructive forces of modernity more than Detroit, past and present.
In addition to these remarkable photographs, this piece presents a memorable slide show of additional images from the collection and a documentary short film. “Pure Detroit” is a short film by Ivan George with gorgeous cinematography, but it’s also one that confronts the viewer with dramatic images of the collapse and decay that rapid economic and social change can have upon urban life. The impact of the film has been described as somewhere between heaven, hell and quiet meditation. While “Pure Detroit” is a beautiful visual mood piece, it’s also incredibly sad. The film reveals so much about the rapid changes we’re encountering in our world right now, how the old things gets broken much faster than new things are put in their place. “Pure Detroit” serves as a powerful reminder of what the old things breaking down can be like for so many of us.
Again, this piece includes a number of striking high-resolution photographs, a memorable slide show and a documentary short film.
http://disembedded.wordpress.com/2011/01/02/the-ruins-of-detroit-a-sad-narrative-of-urban-life-in-america/“The Ruins of Detroit” is a powerful and disturbing collection of... more
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