As an example — in the Grand Prize winning film — Neil Harbisson, who was born with achromatopsia (a rare condition that causes complete color blindness) works with another inventor to create the “eyeborg,” an invention that translates color into sound. He wears this device on his head and it literally scans the world for color and transforms it into musical notes through a pair of earbuds. He is considered the first recognized cyborg in the world. I’d say director Rafel Duran Torrent nailed it. [Best line from the winning film: "It is very human to modify one's body with human creations."]

I’ve included the other four winners below. Certainly GE is aiming to connect the dots… their brand + innovation … but kudos to them for supporting supporting filmmakers to do it, and for rewarding them handsomely in the process.

2nd Place
The Artificial Leaf | Jared P. Scott + Kelly Nyks

3rd Place
Slingshot | Paul Lazarus

4th Place
Bones Don’t Lie and Don’t Forget | Kim Munsamy

5th Place
Mine Kafon | Callum Cooper

© Andriux-Uk

“I’m not modifying cameras if they are in pristine condition or if they’re rare, I’d rather they stay usable as cameras in those cases. The ones I’ve chosen are lightweight plastic, produced in huge numbers and easily found for sale at flea markets/ garage sales/ ebay.” [and i'll add that, in my experience, they're often inoperable too...]

While I don’t think the Spartus neon-blue wall light would necessarily mesh with my pad’s decor, I say better lighting the way to the bathroom at midnight than rotting in a junk heap. Happy friday.

[have you hacked a camera into something cool? show me with a link]

(link to Jason in one of my fav art rags, Juxtapoz, here)

© Jason Hull

© Jason Hull

© Jason Hull

© Jason Hull

© Jason Hull

Dove has been running “Real Beauty” ads for more than a decade. Their agency Ogilvy in Toronto cam up with a pretty dope hack/secret weapon to raise awareness with photo re-touchers, art directions and designers to reconsider the messaging that they and their clients are promoting by thinning, coloring and generally adding or subtracting to women’s bodies for benefit of advertising to the masses.

By disguising a desirable Photoshop action in popular blogs Dove has seeded it in a way that folks will download it for their work. What appears to be a skin “glow” or brightening action actually reverses all previous manipulations and reverts images back to their original state and posts a layer of messaging about why they’re doing this. Clever hack for their cause.

Regular readers here know I’m a big fan of street art. And when I find good stuff, I share it. In particular the work of Tracy Lee Stum have blown my mind of late – pushing the boundaries of what can be done with perspective and chalk, creating innovative new ways to expand the medium. Where most people see a piece of chalk and a stretch of sidewalk, Tracy sees yawning chasms, hidden underground cities, mythological creatures and ancient gods. To Tracy, it’s all a matter of perspective. That’s why I caught up with her in an interview below.

Anamorphic art (distorted perspective which requires the viewer to occupy a specific vantage point) is as old as the Renaissance. This new stuff from artists like Tracy borrows from that era and overlays a new urban canvas — pieces taking as “little” as 4 hours, or as long as four or more days. Nevermind that sometimes weather conditions will destroy a piece before it’s even finished.

CJ: At this point in your career, you have made art in many different countries. Is there anywhere you specifically like to work?

TS: Good question! I like working wherever I have an adequate surface, good weather (no rain) and a crowd. Certainly big cities are terrific for these works but I am also keen to travel to more 3rd world countries to introduce the art form to communities there. Art inspires and oftentimes folks in those areas don’t have access to what the 1st world population has. I’d like to bring my art form to those out of the way places.

CJ: How do you keep your passion for this specific medium alive?

TS: I’ve been doing this for a long time – 14 years! – so I do understand about keeping the passion going for the art form. I personally strive to find new ways of creating innovative images with different approaches to composition and design – a challenge keeps me going! And of course, there is nothing as satisfying as getting to the drawing phase, where color and line and all the methods you employ as an artist come into play. That makes it easy to stay excited about the art. Authenticity is huge for me and I push myself to stay authentic.

CJ: When you conceptualize a piece, do you have a specific scale in mind, or do you wait for the perfect space to create an idea you have?

TS: It’s a combination of these things – I usually have a sketchbook full of concepts (ideas come to me intuitively and I simply jot them down for later reference) and when a project presents itself, I will consider location, actual site, space, size, and interactivity needs. Scaling a painting to work with live participants is a fun challenge for me and one that requires considerable mental contemplation. I spend quite a bit of time going over my image design to make it work the best it can with a particular scale. Some designs demand specific spaces and those come to the foreground when a venue or site is offered that will accommodate them.

CJ: Do you create your pieces completely from your mind’s eye, or do you have a sketch you work off of?

TS: In the past I have typically used a sketch, albeit rough ones, to work from. I’ve also used a camera lens to view the site and imagine a likely image for the space. Lately though, I seem to find that approach somewhat restrictive and prefer to create on the spot. I may rough out an idea and once the properties of a good design are worked out, I forget the sketch and go with impulses I get while working on the actual painting. Often times, and this has been true throughout my career, I begin with one idea and then make significant changes to the design as I am developing it on the street. Again, I receive impulses and follow those absolutely – they always take me to a better result than staying with a rigid framework. I’m fairly fluent in the principles that govern 3d works so I feel fully confident to spontaneously create a design at any given time and place.

Thanks Tracy. More of this badass work found here… http://www.tracyleestum.com/gallery

© Andrew E Larsen / Seattle Public Library

Libraries tend to be some of the most architecturally stunning places in the world. They come in a variety of shapes, sizes, and materials.  From authoritarian classical gothic arches to sun drenched rooms made of ethereal glass, these buildings are sanctuaries, space ships, time machines and gateway all in one.

My local library is a celebrated architectural masterpiece. You can’t walk by the Seattle Public Library without taking a photo. Libraries of the world survive wars and revolutions because they are respected and masterful. The photo opportunities are abundant.

We managed to snag a few minutes of Seattle Public’s Librarian Marcellus Turner’s time to ask him a few questions. Enjoy.

MT: Over the last 10 or so years, libraries have taken up the cause and role of the “third place” – a place / public space outside of home and work where people can enter and just “be” – participating in independent study, reflection, people watching or personal self-fulfillment.  Equally important is that the library as public space allows a place for our citizens to connect with others, actively engage in topics, lectures, and events and have exposure to the arts.  The fact that we offer these things for free is a fitting role for the library.

© Steve Cadman / The British Library

Have you seen a major shift lately in reader tastes and the types of
books they read?

MT: I don’t think so, but this is not based on any true observation or research.  Having worked in libraries for so many years, I know that what goes around comes around and the reading tastes of library patrons everywhere continually circles, expands, contracts, and renews, just based on popularity, recommendations, life circumstances, age and new information.

© Daniel Parks / UC Berkeley

What is the most satisfying aspect of your job?

MT: When people comment or directly share with me the love they have for The Seattle Public Library or  information that they found as a result of our staff’s assistance, as well as seeing the wonder and amazement from our visitors when then enter our doors and marvel at our wonderful facilities.

I don’t know that you can call any of this “my job” because it is actually the “work and job” of my 700 plus colleagues who work for The Seattle Public Library, making our grounds and facilities clean and useable, answering questions and assisting our patrons with their informational needs, and offering great programs and events that provide more access, exposure and understanding of important issues locally and across the globe.

MT: There are several public and school libraries also doing this and I think it is a great concept if it is appropriate for that community.  As for e-books, I have to believe that whatever promotes reading and active engagement is a good thing.

© Mr T in DC / Library of Congress Reading Room

I know a lot of bookstore employees end up spending most of their paycheck on books. Has working at a library introduced you to a lot of new authors and their work?

MT: Yes, you can’t help but have exposure to new authors and their works when you walk through our libraries, where we have books on display and are immediately re-directed to those shelves to look closer.  It happens for me here at the Central Library and in our neighborhood libraries, so I’m always adding new titles to my reading list.

© Lauren Manning / Yale University

Is it still true you have to be quiet in a library?

MT: Respectfully quiet I dare say.  And I say it that way because our libraries are active places of connection, engagement and movement that carry with it some level of “din and hum, laughter and whispering, conversational tones, active participation and kids shrieking with joy at a story time.  So instead of saying that we actively enforce quiet, we opt for respectful quietness.

And yes, we especially encourage silence in areas of the library designated as quiet areas.

MT: I really don’t know.  I have favorites over time, I have favorite authors, I have favorite readers, I have favorite subjects to read and I have favorite genres so it is quite hard for me to name one book.  But one of the books that I enjoy (but have read only once so I don’t know if that disqualifies it from being a favorite book) is a fictional book titled “The Company” by Max Barry.  And I like it for its crazy take on corporate work.   I also love JK Rowling’s creative mind just for the Harry Potter series and the character names, potions, classes and other imagery that is evoked in the series.

MT: Thank you for this wonderful opportunity to talk about libraries.  It has certainly been my pleasure.

© Mik Hartwell / Royal Library in Copenhagen

© Francisco Anzola / Mexico City

© David J Laporte / Vancouver Central Public Library

© Andrew E Larson / Yale Library

© Alex Proimos / NY Public Library

Every so often, I am reminded of the tectonic shifts in photography that seem to skip under the radar in our exploding world of photography and photographers. No harm, no foul — but it snaps my head back into place when pointing these out from time to time.

Mary Warner Marian’s book 100 Ideas that Changed Photography” does a damn nice job highlighting some of these shifts. It’s her personal take on the most influential ideas that have shaped photography, from the daguerreotype in the early 19th century up to the digital revolution and beyond.

Now… top “100″ lists are always risky business. Inevitable omissions beget unavoidable criticism; the author’s author-ity (and intelligence) gets questioned; the business of “TOP 100″ lists is decried. NO so long ago, when I created a little 240 page book of portraits titled “Seattle 100, which featured my personal curation of 106 people influentially driving culiture in Seattle, it was not to prescribe the “best” 100…not “THE” 100, but simply A 100 if you catch my drift. Fortunately for us, Marian’s book seems to take the same approach — curated list of her own design and one that I respect. Ultimately, this book is a reminder that much of the fear and chatter expressed in our modern day, the alleged affronts to the “craft” of photography by new technologies, are seriously misplaced. The art of capturing light has been evolving since Christian Gobrecht first illustrated the workings of a camera obscura.

As the author Marien puts it:

While it may seem that a new photo technology is born every day, photography is still what we make it, not what it makes us.

IDEA # 1: THE CAMERA OBSCURA When Christian Gobrecht illustrated the workings of a camera obscura for Abraham Rees’s The Cyclopedia or Universal Dictionary of Arts, Sciences, and Literature (1805-22), he was careful to show how the device created an inverted image.

Collodian

IDEA # 13: COLLODION Photographers who used the collodion process had to process their glass plates before and after exposure. They brought a portable darkroom and sometimes employed assistants to help.

The Lens

IDEA # 9: THE LENS Specially designed weights or impromptu inventions were attached to the shutter to create timed lens exposures.

Negative/Positive.

IDEA # 4: NEGATIVE/POSITIVE The negative formed the basis of photography until the digital age. It is based on the reversal of dark and light tone.

Images and captions courtesy of Laurence King.

Sleigh Bells / Reign of Terror

The big record companies are struggling.  Indie labels are struggling.  The photographers, illustrators, and graphic designers who create album covers are NOT struggling.  The music industry is an entirely different beast than it was a decade ago, but apparently musicians still believe in communicating what their album, as a whole, is all about with stunning visuals.

Music seems more disposable and forgettable than ever with apps like Spotify and Rdio. I mean, you have access to more than 15 MILLION songs if you fork over the $10 bucks a month for a Spotify membership — a far lesser cost than downloading individual songs and albums to iTunes. While this accessibility to music is amazing, it’s also overwhelming. We are being bombarded with more aural pleasure than we can possibly handle.

The beauty lies in the fact that we will stumble across tunes we love that may have not crossed our path without this technology. This, in turn, can lead us to finding our new favorite band (at least until we find our NEXT new favorite band). And then we will go to their concerts. And then we will buy their vinyl. Because vinyl is making a comeback.  And then we will go home, put that record on like our forefathers did before there were 8-tracks and cassettes and cds and mp3s.  We will once again experience what it’s like to be grounded in a room without earbuds and iPhones.  To have to get up and flip the album.  To listen from beginning to end, as the artist intended.  To stare at the cover and read through the liner notes.

The XX / Coexist

XV / Popular Culture

Scratch Massive / Nuit de Reve

Scissor Sisters / Magic Hour

Santigold / Master of My Make-Believe

Blur / Parklive

Nas / Life is Good

Laurel Halo / Quarantine

Ke$ha / Warrior

Gentleman Jesse / Leaving Atlanta

Fiona Apple / The Idler Wheel

Father John Misty / Fear Fun

Eprom / Metahuman

Brother Ali / Mourning in America and Dreaming in Color

Black Moth Super Rainbow / Cobra Juicy

Bat for Lashes / The Haunted Man

Thanks Chase. Changing habits is tough. I used to, for the most part, use my iPad in portrait orientation. Now I’m trying to break that habit.

Ditto for things on the shooting side. At one point, I used to leave a vertical grip on my DSLR and shoot in portrait mode. Most of what I shot was vertical, and I loved it.

Now? Not so much.

The obligatory iPad Hero shot

I’m shooting more horizontals. I’m consuming more content in that orientation too. And, like any self-respecting geek obsessed with the underlying reason behind things, I wanted to know why.

I think I’ve figured it out.

1. Tension and space

“Fill the frame.”

Every photographer I know says this. Some are starting to move away from that, but getting closer is generally considered to be a good thing.

I haven’t changed my mind about that, but I have noticed that there is a marked difference between getting closer to your subject while in a vertical orientation versus a horizontal orientation.

Take the image of Dwayne Wade from a past issue of GQ. Here, in the iPad version of the magazine, the example makes much more sense.

In the vertical orientation, Wade’s cut off at, well, his crotch. Or, fine, at the hem of his jacket. He fills the frame, and it’s a great shot (totally dig the suit, by the way).

Wade, Vertical

But look at the same image in the horizontal. Here, he’s cut off mid-thigh, and he’s looking off to camera left. There’s space, filled with text and graphics, and there’s breathing room on his sides.

Wade, horizontal

In the first image, he’s being crowded. There’s tension there, but it’s the not-so-good type. He’s looking off the edge of the photo, and there’s almost no room for him to move.

In the second image, his gaze has a direction to go in. You can imagine D-Wade feinting to the left, or pulling back to the right. There’s tension, but it’s the kind of tension that comes from what I think of as potential motion.

That’s the good kind of tension, the kind that exudes an energetic vibe. Horizontally, you get it. Vertically, not so much.

2. Context and room

Take this image from a Dior ad. In the vertical, you see the model, you can see that she’s in a car.

Dior ad, vertical

Switch that out to the horizontal, and… what changed?

Dior ad, horizontal

She’s still in the same car. She’s still in the same position. Nothing’s changed, except the space you can see in the photo.

I argue this: in the horizontal, she seem more comfortable. Less cramped. She’s got room to move, room to shift.

That room is what makes the horizontal image seem more luxurious than the vertical. I look at that vertical, and I think, “Yeah, she’s in a car. It’s probably a nice car.” The horizontal image, however, changes that to “Oh yeah, she’s definitely in a nice car. Look at how she’s chilling in that seat, look at all that room.”

Context is another reason why I’m digging horizontal images more. This ad from Longchamp Paris is an excellent example. The vertical focuses on the model and the bag, which is fine. she’s at edge of the frame, an elbow cut off. Nice image, but again, all I can see is that she’s on a motorcycle on a country road.

Longchamp ad, vertical

Cue the horizontal. Now it’s a whole new story.

Longchamp ad, horizontal

The motorcyle is vintage. The helmet and goggles in her right hand could be straight out of the forties, fifties, maybe sixties. That adds context to the image, gives it a sense of place and time.

It makes the image come alive with meaning, and you buy into the picture of motoring down a French country road on a vintage Triumph, this gorgeous woman with her Longchamp Paris bag hanging on to you.

That’s context.

3. We see horizontally

Okay, human vision isn’t really horizontal or vertical. But I do think we see things primarily on the horizontal axis. We read either left to right or right to left (the Chinese and Japanese systems being the notable exception). We see things that are in a horizontal panorama that stretches across our vision. How often do you look up and down, versus side to side, when you’re just walking around?

Visually too, we are trained to see things in the horizontal. Your TV is a widescreen, as is your laptop’s screen. Movies are made in widescreen, not narrowscreen. You drive, you scan left and right, because there’s no reason for you to look up.

I argue this: the horizontal is more natural for most people.

iPhone users – do this. Take out your iPhones and make a quick video, with your phone held vertically.

Now make the same video, but switch your phone to the horizontal orientation before hitting the record icon.

Which one’s easier to watch?

The when and why of vertical

Verticality (yes, it’s a word) is around us. It’s pervasive too. Our book pages are vertical. Our magazines are vertical. I thing that human beings prefer to read in narrower columns than wider ones.

The vertical page is more convenient to hold as you read it. I can hold an 8.5 x 11 page quite firmly along one edge, with one hand, as I read it, but if I switch it to horizontal, I have to use both hands.

That’s why magazines have been vertical, I think. It’s a lot easier to read a magazine with one hand if you’re holding it vertically.

But in case it hasn’t escaped your notice, most situations where the vertical is more appropriate have to do with the written word – and even there, as I said, we still manage to insert a bit of horizontality (yes, also a word) by reading left-to-right or right-to-left. For images, I think, by and large, that we prefer the horizontal over vertical.

Final word

My iPad is more comfortable to hold vertically. There’s no denying that. When I hold it horizontally, I feel like I’m cantilevering it with my hand. It’s annoying.

But honestly? It’s a small price to pay, because I enjoy looking at images a lot more. Photographers often realize this; guys like Michael Nichols and Steve McCurry, who are selling apps comprised of their work, don’t even offer you the option of viewing the app in portrait orientation.

Gannon Burgett over at Gizmodo recently did an article titled “13 Design Trends for 2013.” One of the trends (number 7) was “Wider Websites.” He writes:

By offering wider websites, it also allows for visual media to be more prominently displayed alongside the text. A picture can speak way more than a thousand words in some cases and having a beautiful photograph at 700 pixels doesn’t do it justice.

I argue that this design trend also holds true for just pure images.

Sure, there are images where the vertical works better. I once saw a great image of a kayaker about to go over the edge of a waterfall that must have been about a hundred feet high. In that shot, a horizontal might not have conveyed the gravity (no pun intended) of the situation.

Yet I find that these circumstances are few and far between. For me, at least, landscape works better than portrait, and I’m happy to accept that the new horizon(tal) is here, at least until something comes along to beat it.