Le Météore de la Nuit

There are countless images of the Eiffel Tower, but I love when it appears like an imposing spaceship from a faraway place, no doubt struggling with French to warn anyone looking up from their déjeuner.

Rene-Jacques, Tour Eiffel 1947

George Garen, La Tour Eiffel 1889

The airship Le Jaune by the LeBaudy brothers glides by the Eiffel Tower in 1903

Blue Marble

Five hours after their launch into the Apollo 17 mission, the crew of the spacecraft took a photo of our humble planet. It wasn't the first photo of Earth seen from space, but it was spectacular in its beauty and familiarity.  There's Africa, Saudi Arabia and Madagascar suprisingly huge amid all the cloud swirls. Apparently, there's a cyclone visible in the Indian Ocean, a storm that brought flooding and havoc to Tamil Nadu in India several days later. 

Apollo 17 crew, Blue Marble (1972)

In Night View,  Berenice Abbott's lens becomes a bird's eye over a Manhattan cityscape that is pure magic. We are floating high above the cacophony of honking horns, sirens, squealing elevated trains, wailing musicians and buzzing neon lights.

Berenice Abbott, Night View (1932)

How does a thing so complex, with parts so at odds with itself, with so many random bits and pieces, so much noise and drama and absurdity, and devastation and need and mystery....how can it even function?  It helps to see a bigger picture....with a telescopic lens if possible.  How is Night View like Blue Marble?  They are awe-inspiring. Awe is a good way to start a new year.

Happy New Year!

Reference material

Exterior shot of The Lake Pub from The Returned (Les Revenants).

Fabrice Gobert is both writer and director of the French television series, The Returned. To create the eerie music so intrinsic to the mood of the episodes, he offered Dominic Aitchison from Mogwai some direction. He listed films that had music he liked, and also shared photos by the American photographer Gregory Crewdson. The influence of Crewdson's vision is striking.

Photos below, by Gregory Crewdson

The King Down Under

Before the stardom, the army, the goofy movies, the entourage, the spangled suits, the karate moves and Las Vegas, there was an ambitious young singer from Memphis, Tennessee. 

Elvis at 21, an exhibition of photographs by Alfred Wertheimer

at the National Portrait Gallery in Australia

until March 10, 2014

Truly, madly, deeply

As part of their senior thesis exhibition at Musashino Art University,

Saiko Kanda and Mayuka Hayashi created portraits of couples

using a CT scan  and x-ray machine.

Eerie and spectacular!

Traffic

Berenice Abbott, Seventh Avenue Looking South (1935)

Beppe Giacobbe, from Clang! Clang! Beep! Beep: Listen to the City (2009)

Shine

In 1947, Stanley Kubrick shot a pictorial, The Shoe Shine Boy for 

LOOK magazine.  Kubrick followed 12-year old Mickey as he made his rounds shining shoes for 10 cents a pair. With nine brothers and sisters, the money he makes will help his family, but he treats himself to an occasional hot dog.

Just 19-years old, Stanley Kubrick wasn't much older than Mickey. 

all photos by Stanley Kubrick for Look magazine

Fictional food

 A few of Dinah Fried's "Fictitious Dishes"

Fried painstakingly creates meals from text, with a flair for styling

using interesting cutlery, tableware and props.

...the old man held a large piece of cheese on a long iron fork over the fire, turning it round and round till it was toasted a nice golden yellow in color on each side.

Heidi, Johanna Spyri

It was made of small juicy clams, scarcely bigger than hazel nuts, mixed with pounded ship biscuit

and salted pork cut up into little flakes: the whole enriched with butter, and plentifully seasoned with pepper and salt.

Moby Dick, Herman Melville

After I had left the skating rink I went to a drugstore and had a Swiss cheese sandwich and a malted milk.

The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger

Homage

The lighting remains diffused, the young girls are dressed in traditional school uniforms, the decor is distinctly Asian not European, yet Japanese photographer Hisaji Hara has carefully recreated the paintings of Balthus with exacting detail.

A Study of Happy Days, 2009

Happy Days, 1945

A Study of Katia Reading, 2009

Katia Reading, 1974

A Study of the Salon, 2009

The Salon, 1941

The lights, the night

New York at night  as captured by photographer Ted Croner

Capturing Igor

The composer Igor Stravinsky posed for many portraits in his lifetime.

Jacques-Emile Blanche, 1915 

 Pablo Picasso, 1920

 Robert Delaunay, 1918

Richard Avedon, 1969

Albert Gleizes, 1914

Through the lens

Playful trickery in photography

Nameless

Yesterday, I was bagging cherries at a farm stand in Indiana. I asked the woman working the stand whether the gas station across the road had reasonable prices. She gave me directions to another station in the area, where she filled up, that absolutely had the best price. I asked the name of the station but she honestly couldn't remember. I thought about the places I've seen so often that their particular details blur. A station, a restaurant, a grocery store become a mass of light, color and shapes. Places you go to, that you can provide directions for, but otherwise have no name.

All photos by William Eggleston

Show of hands

 Hands of Maynard Dixon and son, Dan, by Dorthea Lange

 Jean Cocteau's hands, Berenice Abbott

Georgia O'Keeffe's hands, Alfred Stieglitz

Say cheese

A few gems from the Tumblr:

Black and WTF

Some pics are worth more than a thousand words.