Flickr user Future Ancient has some great nature photos. So clearly I need a Leica M8. You guys have a lot to buy me for Crimmas. Sucks for you.

Flickr: Future Ancient

A great slidewhow. If I could figure out how to do this correctly with two monitors I would. Or if I cared at all about my work computer environment.

Transparent Screens

Indiana University has a gigantic digital archive of photos taken by Charles W. Cushman in the 40’s, 50’s and 60’s. As someone who worked on a digital archiving project for a state university: I feel their pain. I also really appreciate what they’re doing. These photos are great and I’m glad they’ve been preserved and shared with a much larger audience. Nice job on the metadata, too.

Charles W. Cushman Photograph Collection

The Fifty Rooms project utilizes the inherent seediness of a Polaroid picture to capture the sensuality of erotic photos. A lot of them are NSFW. Just so you know. You’ve already clicked away haven’t you. I had you at NSFW.

Fifty Rooms

Who knew that aerial photography could be so amazing? It’s all just a matter of perspective. From too far away the scene becomes jumbled and meaningless, although from space it takes on the quality of awe-inspiring, and from too close the scene is good but not as great as the whole. Combine that knack for perspective and a good eye for color, and you get Alex MacLean’s work. I wonder if spending that much time looking at the world from so far away can make perspective on the ground more difficult. Can you forget how to see the world from within it? Someone ask Alex and let me know.

Alex MacLean

Micrsoft, in their usual Johnny-come-lately fashion, have slowly jumped into the world of image data. Their new programs, Photosynth and Seadragon, are supposed to revolutionize the way we use our photos and files. The revolution has already been televised, dudes. Nice try though. Anyone with enough time and Photoshop can piece togethera 3-D image from their digital photos. Which is not to say that the software doesn’t make great use of newer technologies, and the way that Seadragon looks at GUI space is pretty impressive. But fuck all that nerd talk and go watch a demo.

Microsoft Live Labs on PBS

Danish photographer Nikolai Howalt has a great series of portraits featuring boys before and after a boxing match. Each photo is shot on a neutral background to leave only the subject as the object of focus. It’s interesting to see not just how much of a beating each kid took (though that’s fun, too), but to notice how they hold themselves differently afterward. The work seems reminiscent of Timothy Greenfield-Sanders’ book 30 Porn-star Portraits. I likes it, though. Mostly just because I like the words “scrappy” and “moxy”, and these kids look like they’re full of that.

Nikolai Howalt

Some of you might have seen some talk of the Face Your Pockets project over the past week or so. And talk there should be. This is a simple idea that creates an always original and always personal work of art. Just scan the contents of your pockets/purse and your face together. It’s your life in 2-D. It’s everyday as a mixed media collage. I literally only have keys, a knife and my wallet in my pockets so my collage would not only be boring but also extremely creepy. Or manly. I think it’s manly.

Face Your Pockets

The work of Gregor Graf seems very quiet to me. Not quiet like it doesn’t say anything, but quiet like a bear just standing there staring at you. He might not be saying much out loud but his silence is pregnant with meaning. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his Hidden Town series wherein the ads and brands are removed from photos of buildings to reveal the stoic giants underneath. It’s creepy to think that a world without ads is that startling because of how saturated our everyday lives are with messages selling us things. I could definitely get used to it.

Gregor Graf

found via Kanardo

I’ve got to admit that this is something I have wondered about constantly. Where does the cat go when it’s not sitting there staring at you or asking you for something? Well one person decided to answer that question once and for all by attaching a small camera to their cat and collecting the photos it took at the end of the day. The results are interesting as hell. Apparently most cats spend their time hunting down other cats. I probably could’ve guessed that, but seeing their interactions is a lot better.

CatCam: The adventures of Mr. Lee