In the back of my mind, I feel as though one of my true callings might rest in the field of photography. There's just this certain spark that grows most times when I pick up a camera. I love composition. Ya, I admit it. Composing shots is just satisfying. That said, struggling to make a shot work is very frustrating.
I came across a very interesting site regarding a place in Russia's history. Thanks to the wonderful and always reliable Wikipedia, I've learned that The Siege Of Leningrad was an unsuccessful military operation in WWII, that actually lasted 872 days. Ok, enough history.
From what I could find online, since my Russian is a little rusty, this man named Sergey Larenkov has taken old photographs from the war and superimposed newer ones on top, figuring out the exact same locations and angles.
I think that this is just beautiful. In most cases, it shows the destruction of the past as well as the restoration of many buildings. Russian architecture doesn't really interest me too much, but I very much enjoy seeing the history of it all. Some shots are truly neat, seeing what used to be and what inevitably then stood there. See, history can be fun kids!
I truly enjoy that people know how excited I get over simple things. For example, this morning I received a half-dozen or so emails with links to just released pictures for Tim Burton's Alice In Wonderland. Boo-ya! Time to share.
Alice, Tweedle-Dee & Tweedle-Dum
Alice & Wonderland
Mad Hatter / Johnny Depp
The Red Queen / Helena Bonham Carter
Alice / Mia Wasikowska
Tweedle-Dee & Tweedle-Dum / Matt Lucas
The White Queen / Anne Hathaway
I honestly feel like Burton's imagination is equivalent to Einstein's knowledge. It's just incomparable. My only slight worry, and I emphasize slight, is that this movie comes out in March of next year and I hope a ton of things aren't spoiled before then and the movie losses a ton of it's surprises. I mean, we do know the general story, as it's been interpreted hundreds of times but as we saw with Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I guess we'll just have to wait.
Movies: They can awesome. Music: This too can be awesome. A music movie?! DOUBLE AWESOME!
I found this trailer this morning and it looks like it'll be a solid, fun movie. It follows around Jack White (White Stripes), Jimmy Page (Led Zeppelin) and The Edge (U2) as they meet up for a day to share their music, techniques and stories. I usually find it cool when good musicians get together to collaborate and play together, especially when they're from different generations and genres.
This was promised a couple weeks ago now. I guess making an entry 9 days in a row called for a break. Needless to say, I'd like to present to the world, Mr Dan. As you may have read earlier, while in Pike Place Marketon my Seattle trip in May, I ran into an local artist that just amazed me. He's got that street/graffiti style that I've always loved. Other then a few canvases that he does with some stencils, it's also all done simply by hand and memory, and usually in about an hour. I'm sure that one of the additional reasons why I enjoy his work, is my strong draw to hats, which just happens to seem to be his main bread and butter. I'm sure this is because it's an easier item to sell to passerbyers, but I've never seen it been done before.
I ended up buying 4 hats from him: A green spray-can design, a black Michelangelo, a blue Sloth from the Goonies and the red Stay Puft Marshmallow Man pictured below. Within the next month or two, I know I'll be ordering some online.
Here's some of my favorites from his site:
One of the 4 that I got...
He does music related hats, such as this Alice N Chains gem...
Movie and book themed, like Where The Wild Things Are...
Cartoons like Mighty Mouse...
City and nature inspired. This is part of his Rain themed hats...
Sports team themes. I love the cityscape and colors...
There's plenty of canvas ideas...
And then some random original designs. Such as this. Which is epic. The red creature is part of the enormous Elliot Bay shipping yard
I highly, highly recommend checking out his site. He does everything through his Myspace and he does do online sales too. There's a probably about two thousand pictures or so of things that he's worked on. And he's also just an awesomely nice guy with a terrific talent.
My life can simply be summed up as random. Random events. Random people. Random stories.
So following what I know, I figured I should just write about that.
I enjoy learning about miscellaneous things, mostly relating to some sort of graphic design, films or architecture.
As is with most others, music and movies are a big part of my life. I can only hope of one day being more involved in either industry.
Awesome.
6/29/2009 08:44:00 PM
mikey b.
