My Pummelvision from Thomas Hawk on Vimeo.
My friend Lee turned me on earlier today to this new site called Pummelvision. It converts your entire flickrstream into about a five and a half minute rapid fire slide show and then posts it to your YouTube or Vimeo account. Pretty fun stuff. Mine is above. It’s a bit disorienting, but interesting.
Check out his route here. Video combined stop motion and time lapse. How they made the video here. It sounds like they didn’t really walk across America as much as they filmed a video simulating the idea. I’ve always thought I’d like to walk across America someday. I rode my bicycle across America from Oregon to Delaware when I was 15.
This past weekend I had a great opportunity to co-host a photowalk with photographer Marc Silber down at the Peninsula School in Menlo Park. We put the photowalk together as part of a video interview that Marc was doing with me about my photography including lots of tips, techniques and comments by me on my own personal photographic style.
SanDisk is sponsoring Marc’s show and in addition to my own interview, Marc has 29 other great interviews up with some of the top photographers out there shooting today in pretty much every genre. The interviews are generally short, 5 to 10 minute in length and offer you wonderful insight and tips on how to improve your own photography.
Thanks again Marc for having me on your show. You can check out the video we did together here. If you have any questions feel free to post them in the comments and I’ll answer them there.
In 2007 Photographer Bill Wadman traveled around the United States and Europe with a single mission. Each day he photographed, edited and posted online a different portrait of a different person. It was a mammoth effort meticulously followed that resulted in one of the most authentic collection of portraits I’ve ever seen. The result, entitled simply 365 Portraits is a significant and beautiful collection of images. I was honored to have been included as a subject in Bill’s Project and think the photo that he took of me is one of the best I’ve ever seen. While Bill shot some famous people in his book (like Astronaut Buzz Aldrin) I found some of his most compelling portraits to be those of everyday people as part of their everyday lives. Here are some of my favorites:
Land Surveyor A.J. MacBrien
A nude of Sarah Lizbet
Teacher Barrie Mann
Writer/Poet Sarah Herrington
Lover and Contrast of Graph Paper Regina Sampels
Racer Beth O’Brien
Photographer Smoothdude
Baby Jonah Max
Octogenarian Hiker Betty New
Singer Songwriter Jocelyn Ryder
Overthinker Alexis Levinson
Video Blogger Ze Frank
Editor of Poz Magazine Regan Hoffman
Workaholic Amy Prole
Bill has now finally released his book of these portraits. The book will be an initial limited edition run of 500 numbered and signed copies. The book is hard cover with about 250 pages showcasing these amazing portraits and Bill is selling them for $120 each. There is a July 20th pre-order deadline. Here is your opportunity to own a unique and interesting early edition work of art from an emerging American photographer and to support an artist directly as well. I just ordered mine 30 minutes ago. Congrats on your project Bill and congrats now on the book — a remarkable work and a labor of love for sure.
America Is F*cked…….(Graphically at least) from Jess Gibson on Vimeo.
Warning: The above video contains graphic language. If you are offended by profanity you might want to skip it.
My Motel America set was featured on Digg over the weekend. In the comments someone linked to this great video (above) about the death of a neon motel sign.
The video is a short interview with Aaron Draplin talking about a 28 foot motel neon sign that he recently purchased on eBay while he was drunk for $300. In his rant he cringes at the crappy $15,000 ugly plastic sign that the new motel owners put up in it’s place.
So much of American neon is disappearing every single day. Over the past few years I’ve literally watched dozens of signs disappear before my eyes. Personally I’m trying to photograph as much neon as I possibly can. My Neon Days and Neon Nights set currently has 2,656 images of neon in it. I’ve been trying to get out on the road as much as I can and travel to as many new American cities as I can to try and photograph as much neon as possible.
When I was in Chicago earlier this month I shot a ton of the neon in and around Chicago. I shot this one motel sign on a vacant lot. The entire motel had been razed and the only thing left standing was simply it’s old sign. The highlight of my trip was stopping by The Neon Shop, AKA Fishtail Neon, and spending time there with it’s owner Tom Brickler. Tom had some great signs in his store and invited me in to the back room of his shop as well and showed me some fantastic old signs that he had there. It was really a treat.
I’ve created a collection of my neon images as well that tries to break down neon signs by geographical areas. I’ve still got so much work to do in adding more neon images to my library, and unfortunately every day it seems like more and more signs are snuffed out of existence.
Earlier today I joked when I wrote about Hunch that the first question I wanted to ask Hunch was what City should I visit next to shoot neon signs in America? Tom Spaulding, a prolific neon photographer himself said Wildwood, NJ.
What do you think? Where’s the next City I should visit in America to shoot neon?
My Pal Smoothdude made the above movie using xtranormal’s text to movie service. Apparently the free movie making site has been around for a while, but this is the first time I’ve heard of it. Looks like a fun way to make your own movies on for the web. I will say that adding guacamole for $1.50 does seem a little pricey for me, even in NY prices.
I had a lot of fun a few weeks back out at the Golden Gate Bridge doing a video interview about my photography with Marc Silber for his new photography series Mark Silber’s Photo Show. We talk about my style, my equipment and what personally motivates me in photography. Thanks to Marc Silber for having me on his show and to Rocky Barbanica for doing a great job as usually filming and editing while out at Baker Beach at the Golden Gate Bridge. You can watch the video directly over at Marc’s show here.
Sandisk is sponsoring Marc’s new show and I think it’s really great that they are willing to invest in social media this way. I’ve personally used Sandisk cards for many years and think they’re great! You can follow Marc’s blog here and his great new video series here.
The shot above is one of the shots I got of the Golden Gate Bridge while out shooting with Marc.
Marc Silber is out with two great new photographer video interviews.
The first video is a short one with pro photographer Chase Jarvis who talks about how important it is to just get out and take photos with your camera, no matter what your skill level and that it’s fine to simply shoot in program mode if you don’t know what you are doing. Too many people who take up digital photographer become intimidated by the complicated technology that sometimes comes along with the DSLR and photo processing world. Chase reminds us that far more important than any of the tech or nerd stuff is simply that you are out there with any camera framing images.
The second video interview is a longer one and is with Senior Surfing Magazine Staff Photographer Jeff Flindt. Jeff is credited with 20 surfing cover shots for various surfing magazines. Surf photography is a whole genre in itself and it’s great learning about how Jeff has succeeded in that arena.
Chase Jarvis Tip for Photographers: Don’t Nerd Out, Get out and Shoot! from SilberStudios.Tv on Vimeo.
Surfing Photographer Jeff Flindt Shoots the Curl from SilberStudios.Tv on Vimeo.
Photographer Zack Arias has a thoughtful and inspirational video that he made about his photography. This is one of those videos that you will definitely want to watch through to the end. It changes course pretty significantly about 1/3 of the way into it. Do yourself a favor and click on the full screen togle for this one.
(Thanks, A Photo Editor!)
