ongoing disaster

bobbycaputo:

The Body in Nature: Unusually Beautiful Photographs

Photographing the nude is just about as old as the camera itself… from cheesy pinups to surreal body landscapes, the form has been explored in just about every way imaginable. That’s why, when I ran across the work of Arno Rafael Minkkinen I was truly blown away. His work is filled with almost magical abstract forms created using just creatively positioned figures in the landscape and his well placed lens… nothing more. Each photograph is a revelation, something to decipher for its mysterious form and appreciate for its lyrical beauty.

Making these images even more astounding, most of them are self-portraits. Minkkinen says he does this because of the often underestimated danger in creating such images (which sometimes involve hanging off cliffs or staying under frozen snow for long periods). He also uses no assistant to position himself in the shots, so he must click the shutter button and accurately dance himself into position in just 9 seconds before the shutter fires. For more difficult shots he has sometimes employed a long cable release which he throws out of the scene before the image is taken.

Perhaps this is the element that makes Minkkinen’s images so incredible: he whole heartedly embraces reality. He has been working since long before photoshop and uses the image as it was taken by the camera with no manipulation of the image. He explains his thinking:

“If you are going to be under the snow, be under the snow. ‘Out of limitations new forms emerge,’ Georges Braque said. My translation: know what you will not do. For me this means embracing reality as a collaborator in the invention of the image, not overlaying multiple images to create such impressions. In the end, my negatives will never give away how I made any one of my photographs. They will always print with the same information as found in them the day the negatives were made.”

(via theshadowofexistence)

lomographicsociety:

Photographer Makes Tintypes Out of Old, Rusty Cans

While the “tin” in tintype gives a clue on the taking medium of the age-old photographic process, it seemed to have sparked an interesting concept and idea in photographer David Emitt Adams. Take a look at his interesting work after the jump!

Traditional tintypes involve developing images over black iron plates coated with collodion and photosensitized afterwards, but photographer David Emitt Adams came up with a brilliant idea to make unique tintypes: he used old, rusty cans in place of the iron plates.

(via polaroidtransfers)

mpdrolet:

November, 2005

Hannah Starkey

collectivehistory:

Armaments manufacturer Alfred Krupp who allegedly used slave labor to make weapons for the Nazis, contacted the famous Arnold Newman for a portrait in 1963.

Upon finding out that Newman was a Jew, Krupp refused to let him take the photograph. Newman insisted to have Krupp look at his portfolio before making a final decision and after seeing Newman’s portfolio Krupp accepted.

On July 6, 1963, they went into a factory in Essen which belonged to Krupp, where Newman decided to make Krupp look as evil as possible under the eerie demonic lighting of the factory.

When Krupp first saw the portrait he was livid. Newman was more tongue-in-cheek:  “As a Jew, it’s my own little moment of revenge.”

Sources: 1, 2

mpdrolet:

João Atala

mpdrolet:

Thomas Krauss

mpdrolet:

Stacy Kranitz

devidsketchbook:

CAMERA OBSCURA BY  ABELARDO MORELL

Photographer Abelardo Morell - “I made my first picture using camera obscura techniques in my darkened living room in 1991. In setting up a room to make this kind of photograph, I cover all windows with black plastic in order to achieve total darkness. Then, I cut a small hole in the material I use to cover the windows. This opening allows an inverted image of the view outside to flood onto the back walls of the room. Typically then I focused my large-format camera on the incoming image on the wall then make a camera exposure on film. In the beginning, exposures took from five to ten hours”. [see more]

(via nihil-est)

mpdrolet:

From Everybody Knows This is Nowhere

Andrea Gjestvang

anythingphotography:

Mind-Bending Photo-Manipulations by Erik Johansson

Erik Johansen’s pictures are worth more than a thousand words. The German born, Swedish based photographer enjoys nothing more than manipulating the mind with his tantalizing visual imagery. His vivid imagination and surreal forms create brilliant pictures of surreal moments, all with a hint of the believable. Originally a computer engineering student, Johansson currently works on personal projects as well as commissioned ones.

(Continue Reading)

(via itsprobablysomeone)

vanished:

Chema Madoz

(via itsprobablysomeone)

mpdrolet:

Rolph Gobits

timelightbox:

Photograph by Dmitry Kostyukov for TIME

After the FBI announced that two brothers from southern Russia had bombed the Boston Marathon, the world’s attention quickly turned to where these brothers had come from — a lush strip of highlands called Dagestan. Photographer Dmitry Kostyukov reports from the Russian republic.

warwithinaframe:

Gang members of Mara 18 at Centro Penal Quetzaltepeque, El Salvador. August 16, 2012.

Tomás Munita