The thing that I really like about Shutter Butter is that the photographer is given audio space to put context to the images. You’re not only seeing gorgeous imagery, you’re getting to know the photographer that captured the image.
I do believe that audio can be distracting and can unnecessarily “color” the images. Non-narrated slideshows, gallery shows, monographs etc… all have their proper space. But once in a while it’s nice to get behind the imagery to understand the process.
Montanaro Gallery in Newport Rhode Island, is having an art exhibition called Toward The Great Expanse that features the surf/water inspired work of Ty Williams and Julie Goldstein. The pieces are beautiful.
The Montanaro Gallery site has what looks like all of the pieces from the show, up on the site, in nice big jpegs. Very thoughtful of them, for us left-and-down-coasters. the name of the show couldn’t be more perfect for the flavor of art.
Vincent Skeltis was asked, informally, to re-design Foam (a surfing mag for girls). Skeltis has posted the brief, current/projected readers, the latest cover and a few of the covers from his re-design process. He’s asking people to comment on what he’s done so far (with the disclaimer that the logo is still very rough). Skeltis is letting us all in on his process, which is awesome. It can also be a double-edged sword, so in that sense he’s being very brave (and silently hoping no one skewers him, anonymously, in the comments).
Skeltis has some amazing photography and art-direction over at his portfolio site. I’m sure that whatever designs he ends up presenting, regardless of how they’re eventually implented (or not), his art-direction will be top-notch.
[via APE]
– Update: It seems that Foam had Skeltis pull down the blog entry. understandable. well, I guess i’ll leave this up for posterity sake.
Shakas & Singlefins is the blog of Ryan Tatar. If you’re in to photography and surfing, chances are you’re already hip to it. This guy churns out beautiful surf culture inspired photography by the pound, continuous daily updates of low-key california wave sliding gorgeousness directly to your rss reader.
The thing that I find most interesting about Tatar’s work is that although surfing is definitely a focus, it’s not the lion’s share of imagery, the subtle details surrounding the act of surfing are just as important. This idea is central to my own work on the subject as well and though I see tons of awesome surfing-related photography, Tatar’s work is truly more about the entire culture and process as a whole, rather than the isolated act.
If you don’t know, now you know.
Update: Ryan has just debuted an online store for purchasing his photos, over at his portfolio site. Shelter Surf Shop in Long Beach CA will be carrying some exclusive prints, so go support a fellow surfer/photog. I’m hoping to score a print of that blue-green/metallicy silhouette shot from his Drift Surf Mag feature. righteous.
A-Side Studio combines beautifully subtle graphic design, illustration and photography. Their work is tight and laced with surf/skate inspiratory vibe. They art-directed a new surf culture related book project coming out called The September Project:
During the month of September in 2006 two dozen creatively driven surfers took residence in a house on the west coast of Ireland. The September Project documents the collective experiences of this place and time by means of photography, illustration and words.
plus lots of good goofy skate/surf/design snaps at their blog.
Insight has some killer art-direction going on for their new shortboard catalog. Really left field. I wonder who’s behind it. I’d buy a set of prints of these.
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.
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.
Most of you know I’m not connected to the internet. I’m actually a barnacle encrusted sea hermit, living in the secret caves near El Paredon / Dinosaurs with nothing but a hacked Commodore 64 for occasional blog access and a wicked quiver of wave riding apparatuses. While I’ve been in my cave, I totally overlooked Drift Surf Magazine the “environmentally friendly surf magazine” and have just begun to sift through their site (nice design!). I stumbled upon their surf blog directory and was particularly impressed at the breathe of interesting surf-based blogs I had never seen before. It’s a great resource, for sure and the mag looks nice too. We’ll have to check it out*.
– *Ok, i’m referring to myself in plural, either I’m trying to be a magazine writer, or I have truly lost it
Vice has a pretty cool internet-based video site thingy called VBS.tv and it has tons of content. I’d love to be watching this stuff from the comfy confines of my couch, apple remote, front row and my flat-screen. Hook it up Vice Peoples.
One of the VBS channels is a surf culture oriented, documentary-style series called Hi Shredability* and if you’re a surfer connected to the internet, chances are you’ve already seen it. If not, it’s a pretty good source of non-commercial surf-docu content and interviews. Episodes almost always feature underdog surf culture luminaries like Alex Knost, Mike Cunningham, Robin Kegal, Kassia Meador, Dan Malloy etc…
VBS just posted the final 3rd installment of the Thomas Cambell series and I’ve been waiting for it to go up to post this (as i’m not much of the cliffhanger kinda guy). What I really took away from his series was how surfing, art making and filmmaking are essentially the same thing, there are no distinctions for him. It’s all really just about: doin’ your own thing. and just trusting that it’s all gonna come together in the end. For Thomas it always seems to.
Hi Shredability host Tyler Manson on Thomas Campbell’s working process:
The state of Thomas Campbell’s desk says a lot about his work habits. It is covered in scrapes of paper, paint, photos, leaves, pieces of thread, books, doodles, and cups full of brushes, pens, and pencils. The pile is six inches deep and covers the entire desk, spilling onto the walls and floor and growing by a factor of 12.5 percent every day (we guestimate). He is working on so many different projects all at once we’re not sure how he keeps it all straight. Some end up getting finished, framed, and hung on a white wall, while others are dropped to the floor and maybe picked up days or years later and turned into something totally new.
Thomas Campbell episodes: 1 | 2 | 3 | his website
– *with a name like “Hi Shredability” the series creators must have a well-placed sense of irony
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.
Powered by WordPress and my own home-rolled flavor of the Qwilm! theme. I call it the QPwilm! theme and you can download it if you'd like. This is my 4th iteration past the publicly available QPwilm! theme.
