Hasta La Ideas

La marque Opening Ceremony a fait une collection de vêtements basée sur les célèbres peintures de Magritte. Parapluies et voiles sont à l’honneur : une façon très originale de ré-actualiser la culture classique avec l’ère contemporaine et la mode. La collection est à découvrir dans la suite.

‘a close look at trinkets’

Alongside a relaunch of Ken Garland’s website, designer Joseph Marshall and writer Sarah Snaith have also created an online shop for Pudkin Books, the small publishing outfit run by Garland and his wife, Wanda…

Marshall and Snaith worked on making Garland’s extensive site at kengarland.co.uk viewable on mobile devices, but have also launched pudkinbooks.co.uk, from which visitors can view the series of 12 photography and illustration books the Garland’s have self-produced to date – and buy them, too.

‘a close look at fallen leaves’

Pudkin Books was founded in 2008 by Garland and his wife Wanda, an artist, with the intention of publishing books under the broad theme of ‘a close look at …’. Nine of the titles are of Ken’s photography with subjects as diverse as pebbles, trinkets, fallen leaves, the tall windows of Mexico, the rickshas of Bangladesh, fire hydrants, landscape sequences, street graphics of Brighton and the ‘buddy bears’ of Berlin.

Drawings that his daughter made between the ages of 14 and 16 make up ‘playing out’; John Laing’s watercolours are compiled in ‘chance and opportunity’; and Lana Durovic’s photographs of urban decay in ‘between and beyond’.

‘a close look at playing out’

The books are published in A6 format and printed on a digital press in restricted editions, usually of 100. “It is our firm intention to stick to this pattern, restricting ourselves to the short-run limitation of digital printing on demand,” say the Garlands. “We would rather publish many titles in small editions than fewer in large editions.”

All books are priced between £7.50 and £8.50. Three new titles in the ‘a close look at …’ series are also expected to launch soon.

Ken Garland’s site is at kengarland.co.uk. Ken and Wanda Garland’s Pudkin Books is at pudkinbooks.co.uk.

‘a close look at between and beyond’

How can something that beautiful (above) be captured with something this ugly (below)? Those unbelievably detailed macro photographs of snowflakes captured by Alexey Kljatov were shot with this monstrosity:

A conventional lens set-up to achieve shots like Kljatov’s could run you in the thousands, but the clever Moscow-based shooter hacked this together on the cheap, all from obsolete equipment. He took a common, unremarkable Helios 44M-5 lens (a Soviet-era Carl Zeiss derivative that can be had for less than US $30 on eBay!) and somehow figured out that if you flip it around backwards, then place it against the lens of a common Canon Powershot A650 in Macro mode, you get some pretty awesome zoom. (The A650, a camera whose heyday was the year 2007, goes for less than US $200 on eBay.)

Kljatov then mounted his Canon to a wooden slat by drilling a single hole and driving a screw into the tripod mount. The Helios was then attached to the board with strapping tape, with the makeshift connection then “protected” from light leaks and weather using a cut-up garbage bag.

Still not impressed? Of his two shooting surfaces, one is an upside-down stool and a piece of glass, and the other is what looks like an old wool sweater. (And his lighting source, not pictured, is a freaking flashlight.)

Yet from these most ghetto-tastic of set-ups, Kljatov can start with these…

(more…)

Après la shortlist, le concours Sony World Photography 2014 vient d’annoncer ses 10 premiers gagnants : Alpay Erdem, Hairul Azizi Harun, Holger Schmidtke, Kylli Sparre, Valerie Prudon, Arup Ghosh, Ivan Pedretti, Gert van den Bosch, Chen Li et Vlad Eftenie sont à découvrir dans la suite.

Muddy Smile by Alpay Erdem.

Photographer story, Behind the scene by Hairul Azizi Harun.

Under the Staircase by Holger Schmidtke.

Rescue Operation by Kylli Sparre.

Rodeo by Valerie Prudon.

Poor God by Arup Ghosh.

Starry Lighthouse by Ivan Pedretti.

The Cold Pony by Gert van den Bosch.

Rain in an Ancient Town by Chen Li.

First Snow by Vlad Eftenie.

Our April issue is a photography special. In it we talk to photographer Nadav Kander abourt his new TV ad for Age UK; discuss the enduring appeal of Henri Cartier-Bresson’s work with the curator behind a new retrospective; and also talk to four photographer’s agents about how they help their artists to make great work…

We also look at how the GoPro camera sells itself and how leanin.org and Getty are to change the perception of women in stock photography.

The April issue of Creative Review will be available to buy direct from us here. Better yet, subscribe to make sure that you never miss out on a copy – you’ll save money, too. Details here.

On top of all that we talk to the client, agency and packaging designers behind the Marmite brand and have reviews of the Richard Hamilton exhibition at Tate Modern, the Muriel Cooper retrospective in New York, and Cape Town’s Design Indaba. At the back of the issue, Paul Belford wonders why it is so difficult to make a great poster for an exhibition.

Opening the issue, our Month in Review section looks at the controversy surrounding the new identity for the city of Amsterdam; spotlights an inventive digital subway poster from Swedish agency Akestam Holst; and examines the story behind the creation of the ‘ultimate selfie’ at this year’s Oscars.

In the columns, Gordon Comstock bemoans the lack of time for outside artistic projects in today’s ad agency culture; Michael Evamy looks at the new ‘inflatable’ identity for Darling Harbour in Sydney; while Daniel Benneworth-Gray dismisses the old ‘work/life balance’ adage in favour of embracing the fact that, as a designer, he has little need for other hobbies.

We also talk to Dave Sedgwick, the founder of the BCNMCR initiative that is bringing designers from Barcelona and Manchester together for another exhibition (work from which appears in this month’s Monograph, see bottom of post).

The features open with our photographer’s agent round-table – Mark Sinclair grills four of the best about just what their multifaceted job entails and how they help to get the best work out of the artists on their books. Plenty of advice for new photographers, too.

Eliza Williams talks to Nadav Kander about his work on a new commercial for Age UK featuring models aged between 0 and 100 – a behind the scenes shot by Calum Head also features on this issue’s cover (see top).

Jean Grogan interviews Clément Chéroux, the curator of a new exhibition on the work of legendary photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson.

And Rachel Steven talks to CR readers about their experience of the GoPro camera, and looks at some of the brand’s forays into content marketing via video sites and social media.

Antonia Wilson looks at a new initiative from Getty and leanin.org which aims to shift the ways in which women are portrayed in stock imagery.

And we also look at stock trends from the last 12 months – Shutterstock delve into their data to tell us what you’ve been looking for on their website.

In Crit, Adrian Shaughnessy enjoys a detailed retrospective in New York on the work of pioneering US designer Muriel Cooper…

And Rick Poynor takes in two London exhibitions dedicated to the work of British artist Richard Hamilton. Rachel Steven also reports back from Design Indaba in Cape Town.

Finally, this month’s Monograph (spreads shown below) features a selection of the artwork produced for the BCNMCR show, bringing together the work of design studios from Barcelona and Manchester, which opens next week.

The April issue of Creative Review will be available to buy direct from us here. Better yet, subscribe to make sure that you never miss out on a copy – you’ll save money, too. Details here.