Smokin’!

Posted By Mark on Dec 7, 2014

Floral Photography By Emi Nakajima

Posted By Mark on Nov 18, 2014

Another photographer I’ve come to appreciate from Google+ is Miyagi prefecture-based Emi Nakajima. Despite my fondness for street and industrial photography there’s still plenty of room to love photography of flora, whether taken with a macro lens or not, and with Emi hailing from Japan you know to expect gorgeous bokeh and occasional soft focus with high key. These first two photos show how different the leaves from possibly the same tree can look depending on the quantity of them and the amount of background light that comes through. I love the deep warmth that comes from the lower picture but no more or less than the more sparsely-filled photo above which seems to carry with it a quieter feel. I’m always happy to see a bit of lens flare or light leak and this one helps to pick out the bokeh too in this much cooler photo. What’s also nice – and most likely a happy coincidence – is how the circular bokeh patterns mimic the fruits on the tree branches. This shot by Emi is actually a crop of an earlier photo she’d taken and it’s a better composition for it in my opinion. Beautiful depth of field and a nice contrast between the richness of the flower and the pale background. I’ll be honest: I didn’t know marbles grew on tree. But now that I do know that this is a lovely, almost surreal shot from the Japanese nature photographer. And to finish from Emi’s collection a fruit in a natural cage. I love the detail in this picture and the glow from the bottom of the flower that lends this an ethereal feeling. If you’re on Google+ or just interested in seeing some more gorgeous, floral photographs then check out the rest of Emi Nakajima’s...

Lyme Regis

Posted By Mark on Nov 16, 2014

Lyme Regis is a small, coastal town in Dorset, England. The town's name literally means "misspelt, small, green, citrus fruit named Regis" and it won it in a game of poker with twinned Yorkshire village Lemmin Geoff. Lyme Regis is part of the south of England's famous Jurassic Coast, an area that stretches from Exmouth to Swanage most notable for existing simultaneously in our time period and a pleasant Thursday in the early spring of 153 million years ago. Lyme Regis is popular with tourists wishing to kill dinosaurs in Earth's distant past, skin them, eat them, then sell their cleaned skeletons in the town's many fossil shops. #dorset #thecobb #sooc #justkiddingaboutitbeingsooc   Google+: View post on...

The Invention Of Punk

Posted By Mark on Oct 21, 2014

Pete Bennett

Posted By Mark on Oct 18, 2014

Pete won Big Brother in the UK in 2006 since when he's written books, performed as a solo artist and with bands, got married, is getting divorced, and generally done all the other sorts of things that celebrities do. In addition to all that he campaigns for Greenpeace and it's in this capacity that my colleague and I spotted him in Chichester this week. I snapped a photo at distance which was spotted and this led to the amiable chap popping over to have a chat. Following some general chit-chat Pete then proceeded to tell me in fairly graphic detail how orangutans were sometimes shaved and prostituted out to perverts. I know how to bring out the odd in people. Very disturbing, and I suggested that he not lead with that story when approaching the old dears in the street to see if they wanted to sign up with the environmental organisation. I'm pretty sure he was going to, though. Breaking the habit of a lifetime (I'm very backward at coming forwards) I then asked if I could take a picture and he happily agreed. In hindsight perhaps waiting until after he'd finished his carrot might have made for a better street portrait shot. #StreetPhotography #StreetPortrait #StreetPortraiture #BigBrother #Celebrity   Google+: View post on...

Ridgid Tools Calendars

Posted By Mark on Oct 18, 2014

I’m not sure what route I took while clicking along the information superhighway (are all the kids still calling it that these days?) but I ended up in a little town of George Petty pin up girl artwork, liked what I saw, asked around, and then stumbled upon a calendar he’d produced for a company called Ridgid. You know how it is then; you have a few drinks and before you know it you’re staring at another calendar, only this one’s from the 1970s, not the 1950s, and you’re quite impressed by just how things have changed, yet stayed the same. All of which is a poorly prosaic way of saying I’d like to showcase some of those images from the calendars right here. It’s the sort of thing I do. These images came from these two Flickr albums: 1975-6 Ridgid Tools Calendar and Blog Photos but there are plenty of other sources. 1953 Calendar The 1953 calendar for Ridgid Tools is the one by artist George Petty. The 1950s was a time of innuendo. Why look! It’s a small woman with a large tool between her legs! This woman is touching a knob at the end of a long shaft. What can the underlying message be? Astride a tool, ready to get it all lubricated while a knob is pressed up against her backside. Filth! Well now, that posture can’t be good for her back. Health and safety rules were clearly different back then. And working with machinery in ballet shoes? Things really have changed. 1975-76 Calendar The two year calendar for Ridgid Tools was photographed by Peter Gowland. Gone was the subtle innuendo of earlier years; in the 1970s the important thing was to show some skin and encourage blue collar workers to pin the calendar on the wall and get that brand name screwed into the brain. Of course, if you could get a woman to get her hands gripping the rod of some tool then that was good too. The challenge with the 1970s photos is guessing just what the actual tool is that’s being promoted. Take this one, for example: if I didn’t know any better I’d assume it was some kind of plasma weapon as used by warrior women of some pretty awesome bikini planet. “I need to measure something curved, something that would easily cover a person, but is there such a tool? Hang on! Didn’t I see the perfect thing on my Ridgid Tools calendar? I did!” Another mystery tool that I’m going to assume is a high tech bit of equipment for clubbing fish to death because why else would...