Helmut Newton, Kiss from “The Bordighera Details”, 1982
Posts Tagged ‘black and white’
Anna Dello Russo by Helmut Newton, 1996
January 19, 2012
Inspiration 10.29.10
October 28, 2010
Can you tell I just re-watched Blue Velvet?
David Lynch and Isabella Rossellini by Helmut Newton.
Coveting 10.13.10
October 13, 2010Dear Gareth Pugh,
If you could just messenger me over the following looks from your new collection, that would be great. You’ve even sold me on the colour white.
Smooches!
Alex
(Seriously, I would sell my baby brother for this jacket. Sorry Charles. I love you and all, but I’m a sucker for asymmetrical closures and interesting peplums.)
Sleek, black, vaguely armour-like. WANT.
Disco cyborg. Hate the leggings, covet the dress.
This is so cool and android-at-a-Ren-faire-y. I want to twirl around in it.
I think my other brother might have to be exchanged for this jacket. Sorry, Max. Your charms are no match for metallic drapey awesomeness.
So, Gareth, what do you think? Do we have a deal? My undying love and two brothers in exchange for your awesome clothing?
What do you mean, it doesn’t sound like you’re getting much out of it?
So cruel of you, Gareth. I thought you were better than that.
[via where you will also find awesome menswear looks which I ignored in my selfish focus on my own imaginary wardrobe.]
And inspiration to revisit the collection thanks to Gene!
Barnumville
February 14, 2010
I’ve had Matt Hoyle‘s photography on the brain for a couple months now. The majority of his stuff is hyper-realistic in style, so shiny as to make the subject seem to be out of a vintage illustration for the Saturday Evening Post. His “Barnumville” photos lack the gloss of his other series, but the colourful subjects made me even more curious about the project.
In an interview about the series, Hoyle reveals that these portraits “were initially just a recording” of the performers, in preparation for a greater thematic project depicting his imaginary town of Barnumville, where sideshow performers live in their time off. I’ve always had a soft spot for the idea of circus performers, so the thought of a fictional sideshow community just about made me jump about in glee. I can completely see these people pictured below retiring to some small town in the Florida panhandle. Scandals abound, outrageous acts are pulled off, but at the end of the day the charming characters spout good ol’ fashioned horse sense, peppered by observations from their crazy experiences. Into stereotyping, moi? Never!
I think the big thing that strikes me about this collection is that it manages to tread a very careful line between strangeness and and complete normalcy. When I saw the picture above, I gleefully prepared myself for a freak show, but as I scrolled through the shots, I found myself pleased by the fact that these people who are so often fetishized because of their careers are shown as normal people. Some of them, at least. Others are in clown makeup, or are human blockheads (shudder!) so can’t quite tread that line, but I like the contrast. Anyway, check out the shots below.
Hello, Dali!
November 7, 2009
His pictures always make me laugh so much! Can you imagine how much fun it must have been being him?
Minutes to Midnight
October 23, 2009
There’s something about Trent Parke‘s photography that reminds me of David Lynch’s movies, particularly Inland Empire. I think it’s his use of unusual lighting. It gives his photos that sense of normalcy gone terribly, terribly twisted that I see throughout Lynch’s work. Parke’s pictures are wonderfully thought-provoking. I love how he manages to evoke this sense of motion and dreaminess, just through his use of lighting, until the subject becomes almost abstracted.
I’m not going to quote this directly, as I can’t find the source, but I could swear that I saw an interview with Parke where he talked about his inspiration for photographing his work, Minutes to Midnight, coming from a quote about the Australian lack of innocence, and wanting to document the process through which it happened. In order to do this, he took a roadtrip around Australia with his wife (photographer Narelle Autio) for two years, and just took pictures of everything he saw. The results are stunning.
The pictures I’ve put up come from his series “Minutes to Midnight”, “Dream/Life” and “The Seventh Wave”. He started shooting in colour, but I found I preferred the moodiness of his black-and-white photos.
