Photo from the India portion of Eskildsen’s Roma Journeys
Check out the photography of Joakim Eskildsen. Gorgeous shots. His Roma Journeys book is epic, a clumination of years of continuous work. Also worthing of checking out is his lengthy list of self-published books. Jörg Colberg has a recent interview with Eskildsen.
[via Heading East]
File this one under: Ideas I wish I had thought of:
Self evaluation in transit: public art by Candy Chang
Sidewalk Psychiatry encourages self-evaluation in transit by posing critical questions on the pavements of New York City. Now your daily ponderings and emotional problems can be prodded and treated on the go - and, best of all, it’s free of charge!
Medium: Stencils, temporary spray-chalk. Brilliant!
[via Wooster]
Photo by Daniel Hernandez
The Daily Swarm: Mexico’s Emo Witch Hunt: mob attacks in Mexico City and Guadalajara… Televisa VJ’s rants inspire violence… Emo kids fight back across the country…
Mexico has a fervent emo subculture:
“Emo” refers to a youth subculture which involves a punk-meets-geek approach to fashion, angst-driven “emotional” music, and a general depressive nature. It is often regarded as a watered down version of the punk movement, much to the emo kid’s dismay.
No Wrong Turns: Emos Attacked in Mexico and Chile by Kelsey Mulyk
Apparently emo kids are being targeted by other youth subculture groups like goths and punks. Negative sentiments and open hostility have given way to fighting, rioting and strategic targeting of emo groups (personally, I can’t even imagine real goths picking on anyone, nevermind attacking them). Daniel Hernandez is a reporter for the LA Weekly, living in Mexico City. He has a series on the attacks, his coverage is in depth and ongoing:
A bizarre wave of mob emo-bashings is sweeping across Mexico. The movement is being generated on message boards and social networking sites by non-emo youth who highly dislike like the emo look and attitude.
The spark came first in Queretaro on March 7. An estimated 800 young people poured into the city’s Centro Historico hunting for emos to beat the crap out of. They found some. The next weekend it spread to Mexico City, where emos faced off against punks and rockabillies at the Glorieta de Insurgents, the epicenter of emo social space in the capital. There’s also been reports of anti-emo violence in Durango, Colima, and elsewhere.
Hostility towards emos has been bubbling under the surface, but current attacks coincided with an expletive and vitriol-laced tirade on emos by on-air personality Kristoff, on a recent Televisa morning show. The video is shocking.
The nationwide assault campaign against emos in Mexico continues to surge forward, as word is spreading that emos will be hunted and beaten by anti-emo kids in Tijuana on Saturday. Word is emos will rumble with their adversaries at Plaza Rio, Tijuana’s central outdoor mall…
If you’re interested in this story you can follow Hernandez’s reporting and all-seeing YouTube has tons of clips on the riots and anti/pro-emo user videos.
Following up on the Dengue Fever post, Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten - Cambodia’s Lost Rock and Roll is a recent documentary directed by John Perozzi, who also directed Sleepwalking Through the Mekong.
During the 60’s and early 70’s, as the war in Vietnam threatened its borders, a new music scene emerged in Cambodia that took Western rock and roll and stood it on its head-creating a sound like no other.
Cambodian musicians crafted this sound from the various rock music styles sweeping across America and England, adding the unique melodies and hypnotic rhythms of their traditional music. The beautiful singing of the renowned female vocalists became the final touch that made this mix so enticing.
This documentary film, “Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten,” provides a new perspective on a country usually assocated with war and genocide. By celebrating this powerful music, and the people who created it, Cambodia’s musical heyday emerges from the shadows of tragedy into the light of history.
The site for the film has several songs that help define the sound, they are a trip. Surf Rock from an alternate dimension.
Tiger Phone Card is my new favorite song of the moment by Los Angeles band Dengue Fever, whose primary inspiration is 60’s era psychedelic Cambodian surf rock complete with lyrics in cambodian and english. Their music is wicked and their vibe is totally left field. There’s a new film about their pilgrimage to Cambodia Sleepwalking Through The Mekong and the trailer goes into their influences and how they’ve arrived at such an original sound.
The odyssey is a homecoming for singer Chhom Nimol and a transformation for the rest of the band as they perform with master musicians and record new songs along the way.
More than a rockumentary, the film serves up a portrait of modern Cambodia as the band tours through Phnom Penh and beyond, crossing a great cultural chasm with the same spirit of Cambodia’s original rock pioneers.
Cambodia is often synonymous with the brutal Khmer Rouge regime that left millions dead and scattered refugees around the globe. This tragedy overshadows the story of Cambodia’s music scene in the 1960s and 1970s. Cambodian musicians reinvented Western rock n’ roll with a distinctly Khmer flavor to crete a sound that is at once familiar and completely original.
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Mear One rocks some wicked pieces in promotion of LA vs War, a 4 day art + activism even in downtown Los Angeles, April 10-13:
LA vs WAR highlights the travesty of a senseless war now going into its 6th year, giving LA artists a platform to exercise their freedom of speech. Hundreds of artists representing our diverse communities unite in delivering a universal message of peace and understanding, and offering resistance and opposition to the US government’s war policies.
Good art + Good ideas. The Ghandi piece, in the video, is amazing!
[via Wooster]
Photo from Tom Casella
There’s a huge, funky-ass swell rolling through town. And the photo above is me. Well, maybe it’s not me but our current swell is rather large and the solid groundswell is churning up some nastily cold water (ok, water temp is relative, but I’m definitely purchasing a full suit - asap).
Yesterday afternoon I went out to Mules. Came out on to the beach to see overhead rockers and I forgot my leash so I spent the entire time chasing waves, fighting the comp, surviving the water and the wind-chill, had some nice near misses with speeding freight trains, got my fair share of drubbings and got my head cracked as a some kook in front of me, didn’t duck-dive hard enough and came floating back for an underwater collision (still feeling it in the neck), only to drop in once, legs not working from cold, bail and the board meets me back at the beach.
That entire last paragraph was one big run-on sentence.
This morning went back out to the same spot to find overhead closeouts, with one other dude just heading out. I decided to paddle out, if nothing else for the sake of surfing Mules damn near solo. Grabbed a few nice, slow head-high carvers and a floater and then got caught in the inside for the mother of all outside close-out sets. 8 overhead walls of solid water, a mile of coastline crashing simultaneously, 6 feet of solid foam, one after the other, dragging me around like a rag doll. I said screw it and paddled in.
On the way back I stopped off at Dinosaurs, to find 6 people in the water, surfing heavy head high sets. Paddled out and sat on the shoulder, freezing. The sets came in fast and think. Riding the 6′0″ round tail super-light ATL, I went for a few but just couldn’t get in to anything as they raced past me. The wind didn’t help and after about an hour or so of near-misses, I paddled in, just as the wind started blowing the spot out. Everyone else had the same idea. Definitely tow-in material.
I love my ATL, but it definitely needs a certain condition, on a point break like Punta Piedrazota it works flawlessly. But sometimes I need something with a little, er um, more heft to get me in to the waves. My fish is great, but it’s bit too thick and squirrelly and the tail is just too big. I’ve been thinking of something maybe like a Double Wing Quad Fish from Mandala, maybe like 6′0″. definitely a modified fish, slightly thinner. just a thought.
nice to be back in the water after a few weeks of land-lockedness.
[photo shamelessly pillaged from The Daily Drop]
FUCK is a diabolically simple and brilliant photo project that spawned a book and a user submission based website. I’m a fan of the word and all it’s thousand uses.
Dude is collecting images for a second edition, here’s the text regarding the responsibility behind the project, priceless:
I will not be responsible for irresponsibility. This is supposed to be about collecting funny images, not FUCKing up people’s personal property. That’s why the stickers are strong, but removable. Don’t be an asshole and leave the stickers on signs around children’s playgrounds.
I know… cheap people want to have fun too. If you’re one of them, here’s a few templates that you can print on full-sheet labels, and cut them yourself. Believe me, it’s easier to just buy a pack from me, but whatever…
[via The Daily Drop]
Photo from Gutierrez’s Xinjiang series
Raul Gutierrez’s photography is currently blowing my mind. all of it. I could rummage around his portfolio site all day long. His images are impeccably well done, yet there’s something very raw about them, which I’m very much in to.
Why not listen to Raul’s muxtape while viewing his portfolio or blog (how cool is the internet?!). I also found these interesting finds while on his flickrstream.
A little birdy tells me that InterfaceFlor are going to be making modular carpet tiles based on the La Fonda Del Sol series from my favorite nice modernist Alexander Girard. The designs look gorgeous and well produced. can’t wait to see them in the wild.
If I end up getting a few of these I’ll be putting them on the wall.
A new documentary called Surfwise is coming out. Looks pretty good:
Like many American outsider-adventurers, Dorian “Doc” Paskowitz set out to realize a utopian dream. Abandoning a successful medical practice, he sought self-fulfillment by taking up the nomadic life of a surfer. But unlike other American searchers like Thoreau or Kerouac, Paskowitz took his wife and nine children along for the ride, all eleven of them living in a 24 foot camper. Together, they lived a life that would be unfathomable to most, but enviable to anyone who ever relinquished their dreams to a straight job. The Paskowitz Family proved that America may be running out of frontiers, but it hasn’t run out of frontiersman.
I can’t possibly begin to describe to you the complexities going on in this photo, so hear it directly from the man himself.
Pops is now an official switcher. After 30 odd years attached to a PC, he is now using a Mac, with Aperture no less: “I feel like I just got rid of my old clunker dodge with the AM radio and got a Prius.”
We’re now officially an all-Mac family. Each person with their own rig. When we’re together, we don’t sit in front of the TV, we sit around the living room with laptops, each in his/her own world. Marcia and Mom on their 12″ PBs, Mom playing Bridge games, Marcia tweaking speadsheets (and checking Perez Hilton). Dad, Beth and I on our 15″ MBPs in Aperture tweaking photos. And all of us emailing political/economic articles back and forth.
Welcome to the tribe, Pops.
Forward Through Backwards Time:
[SWF]http://www.youtube.com/v/YDKmFipygWY&hl=en, 425, 355[/SWF]
Lee Rogers has some pretty nice looking surf-culture related photographic works in a nice clean site. also peep his graphic design section. more surf/beatufiful shots up on his flickrstream.
Yesterday I dragged the girls up to Sayulita to give them surfing lessons in the shallow break to the side of the beach towards Villa Amor. Each of the girls braved the cold water and got up on the board enough to claim bragging writes for when they get back home. Bella did particularly well and had good sense of balance.
Sayulita was bananas. Semana Santa in full effect. The most crowded I have ever seen it. Maybe 100 boards in the water. And not a single local in site. There wasn’t much swell to speak of but the ocean was broiling with wind generated white-cappers.
Today is the official start of Semana Santa, but the coast has been clogged with inland mexican vacationers since Friday. Semana Santa is Mexico’s Spring Break, Fourth of July and Labor Day all rolled into one. The entire country takes off, packs up and goes to the beach. Anything even remotely inflatable can be used as a floatation device and beaches look like hodge-pod terry cloth patchworks. The highway that runs through Bucerias is a virtual parking lot and every restaurant and corner store is jammed with gente. Going anywhere is a problem. But it’s also one of the best times of the year to be here. Our sleepy little beach town is alive and well.
Lilah is the resident myspace fiend of the family. The kid spends all day writing messages on the social networking teet. Hooked I tell ya. The above pose is her typical rebellious anti-camera pose and as soon as the camera comes out, the hands come up to the face and the hair becomes a flowing dirty blonde shield. Lilah is 13 going on 21, I’ve never met a smarter, more mature 13 year old in my life.
She got a heart a gold.
Recently I’ve been incessantly listening to Yeasayer’s hit from last year 2080 (i’m late to the party, as usual). La Blogotheque’s Take Away Show idea is rad and i’ve linked them before. They’ve got a new episode up with Yeasayer performing 2080 and I have to say I almost like it better then the original. Stripped down to acapella vocals, piano, spontaneous choir and banging and clapping makes the song even cooler then it was before.
Update: I ripped the song to mp3 so I could bump it on the regular. I hope the Yeasayer kids (and Blogotheque) don’t mind, it seems to be within their politics and general vibe to be cool with this. Download it here.
I just got back from taking photos. I’ve been shooting for a tentative project about cookie cutter developments here in the bay area, trying to coalesce my ideas. I was catching up on my blog reading when I came across the work of Livia Corona, linked from The Jackanory. Her splash page (the image above) illustrates these kinds of developments gorgeously.
I am in awe.
Bella is the aspiring actor/model of the family. Her personality has the perfect mix of Miranda July’s frank observation of human minutiae and Michel Gondry’s inventive curiosity. This child is eleven and studies Mandarin Chinese. The classes at her school were not so good, so she opted for her own tutor. Bella will probably grow up to be a world-class mathematician with a fierce dedication to fashion. She’s got brains, creativity and style.
This is Claire’s favorite animal pose, an elephant. It also happens to be her signature “don’t take my picture” face sans elephant ear hair braids. You might remember Claire from this photo from awhile back. Claire no longer goes by Claire. You must now call her Coolio. This child is strange. She knows who Coolio is but she doesn’t know what Star Wars is. What is the world coming to?
Her shirt says “go figure”.
Left: Original | Center: Photoshop | Right: Aperture
Yesterday, I came across a great tutorial called Curvy Cross Processing by Mark Fleming, on using Photoshop’s s-curve to approximate a cross-process look for digital images. Reading my way through Mark’s curves-only tutorial, it became clear that I could probably replicate his approach using Aperture’s levels tool. Since Aperture’s initial release people have been clamoring for a xprocess adjustment block or plugin and I wanted to see if I could get a pretty good xprocess look using levels combined with a little contrast and A2’s new Vignette tool (which rocks!).
Above are two example images. On the left is the original image, in the center the Photoshop image and on the right the Aperture image. The altered images are pretty similar. The photoshop image is slightly punchier. Further along in the primer I’ll get in to the differences.
My little cousins are here visiting us from New Hope, PA. and we’ve been hanging out this past weekend. They are beyond photogenic and my camera seems to love taking their picture.
more pics over at my flickr stream
UPDATE: the above photo (claire + bella + lilah) was featured over at PhotoDoto, thanks John!
I wrote this post last year about the iPhone coming to Mexico (if/when). The post still gets comments daily, most of which point out that indeed the iPhone is available in Mexico, albeit not officially supported by any of the major carriers.
I thought I’d follow up with some up-to-date facts:
These are what 90% of the commenters seem to be saying. But no one is commenting on how the iPhone works once you actually get it up and on to the network. And more importantly, how much it costs to use the iPhone.
What I’m interested in are the following:
Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve just started work on a new project tentatively titled “Albañiles” which, in mexico, is what they call masons or the guys who work with concrete. Here a few test images. Rather then a finished product, these are more sketches to see what works and doesn’t. more on the flickrstream. suggestions are welcome.
Hi, my name is Ed Fladung, I'm a recovering web-designer who moved to Mexico about 4 years ago. Learned to surf, got married and bought a nice camera. This is my weblog/photoblog. It covers broad subjects like becoming an ex-pat, surfing, photography, graphic design, music, art, architecture, living in mexico, all things Apple and WordPress related, etc... You can find more about me here. I hope you enjoy.
