daily oskar

i have been taking pictures of oskar almost everyday...and i finally figured out how to post them on a new blog...
http://dailyoskar.blogspot.com/

check it out.

pictures

took more pictures at baby group. good times. check them out by clicking here or here. i took holiday photos of little gabe. what a little cutie!

and our friends matt and rachel, who are just learning how to sew, sewed an adorable quilt for baby oskar. photos here.

and the gingerbread party was hosted for us by our friends neil and monica. more good times. photos here.

woman in a box, left to die

I ran across this photo in these photos from Stéphane Passet. It keeps haunting me.

I found this about the photo on the internet:
"The image shown is of a female Mongolian prisoner. Passet recorded that she had been imprisoned for adultery but historians have cast doubt on this, as Mongolian culture of the time was thought to be tolerant of adultery.

The purpose of imprisoning people in a box in this way was to allow the nomadic people to transport prisoners from place to place. It was 'portable imprisonment'.

People who took pity on prisoners were allowed to leave them food and water and small bowls can be seen in the photograph, just beyond the reach of the incarcerated woman."

A different website said she would be left there to die...out in the Mongolian steep.

What was she thinking? What did she do? How could you just take a picture of her? How long would she last?

lost and found

Remember when I posted that video about the film the guy found in NYC. Listen to what happened:

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/27/134900408/lost-roll-of-film-finds-its-mystery-photographer

the gingerbread party

It was a success again. Check out the pictures here...

one way to cheer up your grandmother

I just love the idea of dressing Grammy up like a superhero. I wonder if she would be game!?!


"A few years ago, French photographer Sacha Goldberger found his 91-year-old Hungarian grandmother Frederika feeling lonely and depressed. To cheer her up, he suggested that they shoot a series of outrageous photographs in unusual costumes, poses, and locations. Grandma reluctantly agreed, but once they got rolling, she couldn't stop smiling.

Frederika was born in Budapest 20 years before World War II. During the war, at the peril of her own life, she courageously saved the lives of ten people. When asked how, Goldberger told us "she hid the Jewish people she knew, moving them around to different places everyday." As a survivor of Nazism and Communism, she then immigrated away from Hungary to France, forced by the Communist regime to leave her homeland illegally or face death.

Aside from great strength, Frederika has an incredible sense of humor, one that defies time and misfortune. She is funny and cynical, always mocking the people that she loves.

With the unexpected success of this series, titled "Mamika," Goldberger created a MySpace page for his grandmother. She now has over 2,200 friends and receives messages like: "You're the grandmother that I have dreamed of, would you adopt me?" and " You made my day, I hope to be like you at your age."

Initially, she did not understand why all these people wrote to congratulate her. Then, little by little, she realized that her story conveyed a message of hope and joy. In all those pictures, she posed with the utmost enthusiasm. Now, after the set, Goldberger shares that his grandmother has never shown even a hint of depression. Perhaps it's because her story serves some sort of purpose. That through the warm words of newfound friends, she's reminded of just how lucky she is to be alive.

We got in touch with Sacha Goldberger, the grandson and talented photographer to ask him more about his background and creative process. He told us this: "I've been photographing for four years now and before that I worked as a creative director. My grandmother is very professional. I'd show her some poses, and she'd propose some of her own. I like to tell stories and I also work with some very creative friends.""

See more pictures here: http://www.mymodernmet.com/

on a happier note: fun fish coffee art

so f**king cool

Wow. So this photographer, Abelardo Morell, turns rooms in to cameras. The results are amazing. (I have inverted his pictures. See the original Summer version, by clicking Summer, and Fall, by clicking Fall.)

See more of his work here...

How it works...from his website:
Camera Obscura
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 allows an inverted image of the view outside to flood onto the walls of the room. I would focus my large-format camera on the incoming image on the wall and expose the film. In the beginning, exposures took five to ten hours.
Over time, this project has taken me from my living room to all sorts of interiors around the world. One of the satisfactions I get from making this imagery comes from my seeing the weird and yet natural marriage of the inside and outside.
A few years ago, in order to push the visual potential of this process, I began to use color film and positioned a lens over the hole in the window plastic in order to add to the overall sharpness and brightness of the incoming image. Now, I often use a prism to make the projection come in right side up. I have also been able to shorten my exposures considerably thanks to digital technology, which in turn makes it possible to capture more momentary light. I love the increased sense of reality that the outdoor has in these new works .The marriage of the outside and the inside is now made up of more equal partners.

random clouds

fun new camera

My friends Mike and Opal had this old camera hanging around. They gave it to me. I took the lens off of my digital camera and put the camera up to the camera to use the lens to take these pictures. They are only the first of many. Fun!!!

pumpkin patch

kids are cute. kids in pumpkin patches become even cuter. kids in striped sweaters with their parents in pumpkin patches are the cutest.

slideshow of arkansas

amazing pictures of bubbles being popped

(c) Richard Heeks, all rights reserved.

Click here to see more of Richard Heeks' photos. They are really amazing. I had no idea what a bubble looked like when it pops. What a fun and creative idea.

stephanie and don's wedding

the final wedding of the season: Stephanie and Don tied the knot. We had a wonderful time in a beautiful place. Click here to see pictures.

coolest picture...I have taken in awhile

Washington, DC in the morning.

on the subject of fun photos

Check out this photo shoot from Harpers in 1963. How did they do it?

oklahoma

Part of the "Year of America" has been getting out there to those friends I have meant to visit for a long time but have not been able to visit. In that vein, I finally went to visit Krista. She has made it to everyplace I have lived since we met but Montana and Germany I think...all that with four kids at home...

Oklahoma was super! Krista and her family live in Stillwater, OK. I had never been to Oklahoma, but judging by the responses I got from people about the place, I was surprised how nice it was. Nothing bad about it. It's middle America, like the rest. Rolling hills, hot, breezy sometimes, oil rigs everywhere. Good times.

I took lots of pictures of Krista's highly photogenic kids...
See pictures here.

shameless electioneering

I want to win this CB2 contest, and I need your vote. Click here to go to their website and vote for our apartment. I called our apartment: dupont home in red and gray.

thanks.

wonderful weekend at the cabins

My good friend Emily had "the girls" up to her cabins in rural Connecticut for a long weekend. It was just wonderful. More pictures can be found by clicking this sentence.

my new favorite picture: by brent