These shots are from his Istanbul series…and they are seriously breathtaking.

Hoang Tran, a pro rider for Sub Rosa recently took a trip to Japan. Along with shredding he took some great photos of his trip, to see some more of what he took click here to see what the Defgrip crew has.

Marilyn Manson played the Roseland Theatre this Monday! The house was sold out, the show was great, the crowd was insane and the light show and costumes were awesome! To see a little video from the performance click here.

Two of my co-workers just got back from  Shanghai, and posted some great pictures. Here is my favorite, i love food, but the colors and motion blur are awesome! Thanks Erica and Tricia! To see the rest of their trip click here. Enjoy.

I happened by this phone booth today, and it was just too good to pass up. This took some time and the detail is even more interesting, since it was surly done under the cover of darkness. Can you find the rabid rabbit? If you know where this phone booth is, give yourself a cookie!

A shot of the 400lb beast  that was pulled up in a crab pot in Oregon’s Depot bay earlier this week. A reminder that Shark Week is not just on discovery channel. For more on the story click here.

Mark Weaver is graphic designer located in Atlanta. I recently saw some of his graphic design posted on defgrip, and really liked it! Upon examining his web site, i was able to look at some of his photography which is equally awesome! Check out his work and his portfolio on Behance. Enjoy!

Today’s photo is by The Cobra Snake, who needs no introduction… unless you live under a rock. A rad photo from the “watch out canada” party on July 8th. Check out all the photos at his site The Cobra Snake!

The Defgrip crew turned me on to this photo project by Brent Humphreys on the Tour de France. It is an artistic look at the lifestyle of the tour and the dedicated fan following. Hope you enjoy!

The High Line.

Stephen Wilkes set up the Cherry Picker from noon till dusk to assemble this sur real image of Tenth Street.

A flotilla of Nomura jelly fish off the coast of Japan. These jellies have been invading Japanese waters in unheard of numbers over the last few years, scientists don’t yet know why there are so many in waters they do not normally venture.

Beth Lesser is photographer and author who followed the birth and rise of the Jamaican dance hall movement in the 80′s. It is now a culture that spreads from the banks of Kingston to the streets of Tokyo. She published a book on the subject  “Dancehall the rise of Jamaican dancehall culture” which is full of many beautiful photos, check it out!

Kari posted Who is Neil Krug and we finally got an answer. Read Fecal Face’s interview with the 25 year old prodigy here.  Next question, will Neil do an art show at Nemo this year…

Portrait of my broken jaw by Kari Rowe. February 4th i was hit by a truck on my bike, broken jaw, stitches, wires, fun was had by all.

Dave Lehl it the the staff photographer for Rome Snowboards. “I found this little guy behind my hotel in Park City, Utah one day”.

Saverio Truglia’s photo is almost like a submersed neon sign. The surrealistic gathering of props and makeup combined with the seclusion of being under water make for an interesting juxtapose of familiarity and discomfort.

Polaroid is back! Well…kinda. A group of Ex-Polaroid employees and fans came together bought an old Polaroid factory in the Netherlands and plan to be fully operational by the beginning of 2010! Thing is they’re starting from scratch, that means new formulas and compounds for processing the instant film (old pola chemicals are no longer available), engineering new equipment, so on and so on… like their site says, they are re-inventing instant film. They have quite the challenge in front of them and their deadline is only 1 year! This comes as great news to all fans of Polaroid, this is like the resurrection of fun! I fully support and endorse this “zombie Polaroid” project 100%, and you should too! Check out their web site here for more info.

Photo by Gene Herrick/The Associated Press

An amazing candid photo of one of the greatest men in history, Martin Luther King Jr. and his wife Coretta King. Happy Birthday! Check out more amazing photos in this tribute from the Seattle Times Newspaper.

For more fun check here and donate to the cause here

Photo_Mertz

Dave Seoane, steward and fabrication genius of Nemo Design took it upon himself to create an apple box for one of our favorite photographers, Carlin Sundell. Dave saw opportunity for improvement when he spotted our 6′ 7″ Carlin, sitting awkwardly on a standard size apple box while shooting. So, he created an amazingly beautiful and much more functional box for Carlin. Using Plyboo he designed a sturdy, large, and wild looking apple box for Studio Nemo. Thank you Dave!

www.salamagica.com

www.salamagica.com

Don’t be this guy!

Julia Fullerton-Batten is a award winning young photographer from the UK. Her photos have an awkward, polished feel with her teenage models, which says a lot about those “in between” years as a young teenager. Those influential years a lot of us can relate to, not knowing exactly how the world works yet, not being completely opinionated, you find yourself well, floating.  Oh those gloriously awkward pimple filled days of young adulthood… sigh.

Click for more!

www.spencerhiggins.com

desireedolron.com

the computer desktop. We look at it all day, every day and do we really appreciate the real estate for what it could be? th elayers over at DESKTOPOGRAPHY are adding their community spin to an other wise taken for granted space. their out look is: “Designers spend about 90% of their waking life in front of a computer so the most appealing genre for a wallpaper would be one that has beautiful design mixed with the all important aspect of being outdoors.”

www.desktopography.net

Photography as “art,” I sometimes have a hard time with. There are so many mechanical pieces to the image that are out of the photographers control that it is really hard to stand out and be original. Alexey has exploited the medium to own his original approach to tell a story about his surroundings.
“Titarenko’s image of St. Petersburg presents the compressed urban space as abounding in dichotomies and gray areas. In big cities, beauty and ugliness, wealth and poverty, education and ignorance, violence and serenity are never far apart.”
– Ferdinand Protzman
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

Here we have a picture of the one and only Kate Moss, next to a found photograph from a abandoned storage facility. Draw your own thoughts and conclusions. Enjoy.

Seoul-based Korean artist Ham Jin makes the tiny a spectacle, and spectacles a scream. “I want to make a spectacle that is invisible to the eye—which is a part of everyday life,” says the 30-year-old artist, who, since the age of twenty has made a living and a name for himself with miniscule clay sculptures defying humor and horror.

www.vincentskoglund.com

ilikethesephotos.com

Photography Director Rob Haggart.

“Attention art buyers and photo editors, this is a free promo that’s meant to supplement all the other ways you find photographers to hire. I created it see if there might be an easier more efficient way to quickly look at 200-300 photographers. Compared to the weekly promo pile this works pretty good. Plus, if you’re like me, you remember a picture and not necessarily who took it so you can come back to this slideshow and find the name and website of the photographer whenever you like. This project only works if you find work you like and hire the photographer. I can create more of these but it’s a complete waste of time if it doesn’t connect buyers with photographers. That’s the only reason I did this. If you have suggestions on how to make the next one more useful for you please let me know.”

One of my favorite photographers, Cass Bird, shooting the amazing gem sweater queen of Leslie and the Lys

Fishing with Guns Circa 1960

Check out Ramona’s work here

www.colebarash.com

Check out more of her work here. 

I had a chance to catch up with my buddy Vincent Skoglund. He recently reworked his website and you can see it here.

I see in your “BIO” section of your website you have entered your bio as “When not traveling, Vincent Skoglund lives in Stockholm, Sweden” I was hoping to get more of a background story about you. Where you grew up, things you were interested in as a kid, the first time you got busted by the cops, the first time you picked up a camera and decided in that moment you wanted to be a photographer.

I grew up in Falun about 2 hrs north of Stockholm on the countryside. I was, as a kid really interesting in drawing and painting. I also remeber that I wanted to be a boss or an artist when I grew up. I guess that being a self-employed photographer that is as close as I can get. I got busted by the cops when I did my first graffiti on a wall in a parking garage. There was only one window of a flat that could see us. That one flat hosed the chief of police in falun. So 3 cop cars busted us. That was pretty much it for my short-lived graffiti career.

Snowboarding has been a big part of your career. Could you make a connection to how snowboarding has help you evolve as a photographer?

Most of all Snowboarding has been a fantastic way of learning about people, the world and life in general. All the travels and new discoveries. This is what has had the biggest impact on me. Photography-wise, shooting as much as I did when I did snowboarding full time was really what made me evolve. I started young so it was like a life school. Also the commisions from snowboarding companies was so loose there was so much room to be creative. The brief would be like “Vincent, we love your photography just keep doing it”. It was also open for any type of photography, portraits, landscapes, action, life…

In the past 10 years, what would you say has been your most memorable snowboard trip/ shoot?

2 years ago I had a funny and hectic schedule. It was a trip around the world with back to back commitments of very different kinds. Something like this:

1. Paris opening of the Adicolor exhibition. 2 days.

2. Vermont. Shooting, read hunting, Shaun White at the US open. During the pipe contest. For Burton snowboards. 3 days.

3. Whistler, Shooting with Jussi Oksanen and Tadashi Fuse in the Backcountry. A really heavy sled mission since we got a few feet of fresh pow. 6 days.

4. Miami, Shooting tennis with Boris Becker. 2 days.

5. Hong kong, Opening of the adicolor exhibition and press. 3 days.

Adicolor- is an amazing body of work, can you give me a brief explanation of the assignment?

23 different artists around the world got invited to do a shoe and a tracksuit each based on a color. On a 6 week trip around the world I went to meet most of the artists involved in the adicolor project. It turned out to be a fantastic trip of inspiration and great people. Meeting the artists in the places were they work and were they get their inspiration. Since they all have different backgrounds, they have very different ways of being creative, that was great to see. Creativity is the red line that ties everyone together.

The comission from Adidas, was to make my own creative interpretation of the artists, places and the adicolor project in general. Very much a dream job that resulted in little bit more than 100 prints, that got exhibited around the world.

On the WeSC headphone campaign (girls plugged into a pineapple) you are listed as Photographer/ Art Direction. Could explain the new role of Art Director and what it means to you?

It is interesting for me to shoot ideas I am interested in.

The Burton Un-Inc portraits are amazing, the set looks very art directed and I am sure there are some stories here. Can you share a story about the Un – Inc work. (Romain and Gigi with puppies)

Thanks, I worked together with Lance Violette on that shoot. Really fun. We bounced some ideas back an forth a few weeks ahead of the shoot and came up with the night / day concept which is inspired by 60′s music covers and 80′s heavy metal covers. Then all the puppies and kittens shows up as well, with their owners. It was a fun shoot!

I get a feeling there is nothing in the world that scares you physically, mentally or creatively. The Svenska spel work has some amazing post production work, the JC work is a challenge in the lighting and action and Nike and Burton have you on top of a mountain, that I am sure is sketchy. How do you keep focus and creativity? Maybe a comparison between these very different shoots and how they are similar and different.

Lots of times on commercial shoots it is about improving what I got in front of me as much as possible. Making sure the angle, light, composition etc is as good as possible. Of course there is also a thought process before that is very important, to make sure that I do it the right way. I like to get to meet with the art director ahead of the shoot to take the ideas the extra mile and be as good as possible. JC and Svenska spel was well planned ahead of the shoot. With the Nike work we got locations that looked good, then it’s about making it something special. The Burton latest campaign I did for them was with a very snap / reportage approach. That was so much fun. Being in the right place at the right time. Try to get moments that convey the great and fun things about snowboarding.

It is funny how Art Buyers may put a shooter into a category. Categories may include Portrait, Lifestyle, Fashion and Editorial. In a good way I have no way of stereotyping your work, you pull it all off so well! When you think of your work and where you are heading, can you categorize yourself? What interests you in all these types of photography?

I am not really interested in categorizing myself. I like the idea that it is not so much about what you shoot as to how you approach it and how it feels when you look at it.

I hate to do the cliché question but I think it is still a good one for you, when you think of the future, 5 years, 10 years down the road, where do you see yourself going?

I am currently working on a few different personal projects. Having the first of the second solo exhibition with the series “Lightyears” in a few weeks. This exhibition will go from there on some kind of tour. A group show at the Art Basel in NYC as well, with prints from the “Lightyears” series. I am in also putting together a book about the snowboarding life and the people around it. Looking at what interests me at the moment I think I will be doing lots more series that will evolve from the “Lightyears” series. I will become more personal with my work as well.

Thanks Vincent for your insight! I hope to connect soon!  

Peace.

tg 

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Imy2V52P8Ao&hl=en]

brought to us by the Quit Life Camera Club and Cherlyn Licas.

An insider told Star Magazine that Steve-O was hospitalized Sunday at the Thalians Mental Health Center, specialized in crisis intervention, where he was put on 72-hour-hold, which has been extended to 14 days.

“Steve is stabilized on meds at this point,” the source told Star. “He was also treated for burns on his skin as if he had been putting cigarettes out on his own body.”

Seems his friends had enough of his antics and pulled a Survivor move and voted to call the cops.

They suspect that he maybe Bi-Polar. Dah.

Rick Kosick has been documenting Steve-O and the crew for year.

Darri Lorenzen was born in Reykjavik, Iceland and currently lives and works in Berlin. His work emphasizes spatial relations… people in context of a geography, they are often empty and dislocating in nature. It makes me think of the body as a shell, a space within a space. hh

Marnie Weber is a multi-media/faceted/talented artist from Los Angeles. She creates photo collages that have a surrealist slant; images that are at once compelling and disturbing. You might recognize her work from Sonic Youth, A Thousand Leaves album. The white face reminds me of Japanese Noh masks that are made to represent, women, children, supernatural beings, heros, devils, or ghosts.

Johanna Reed’s work is different from Weber’s. She paints found images, often highlighting the foreground or background, which in turn can erase or highlight the context of the image.

I’m much more interested in Weber’s work, but I think they are both good examples that expand our view of photography today.