Bertien van Manen: Let’s sit down before we go - wayneford's posterous

Photographer Bertien van Manen in wayneford's posterous:

I have to like the people I photograph. I need to feel an attraction, a fascination.

I feel the same way. Luckily, I've had a connection with most of the people I've photographed over the years, but there have been a few occasions when we just didn't click. I don't know what it is or why it happens, but if that attraction and fascination are not there, the resulting photographs show it. There's something missing.

This attraction is not necessarily physical. It's relatively easy to find a pretty person and really not that hard to get them to agree to pose for a photograph. Most people are flattered that you want to shoot them. The pretty ones tend to like it.

No, it's more than just looks. It's a connection that goes beyond that. It's an admiration for the other person, who they are, what they do, what they believe in.

Kiss by photographer Andy Barter

I just discovered, via The Curious Brain, this beautiful series titled "Kiss" by photographer Andy Barter. It's a series of portraits of two people kissing shot from above. All different couples in race, sex, and age. Go have a look, you won't be disappointed.

Fotoshop by Adobé

A very interesting parody by Jesse Rosten about Photoshop and what can be done with it.

Stanley Kubrick’s New York | VandM

Stanley Kubrick is one of my favourite filmmakers. There's no doubt he was a gifted storyteller and his vision led him to direct some of the best films ever made.

But before getting into the moving image, Kubrick was also a talented still photographer. As VandM's explains:

Even at the age of 17, Kubrick was an immense talent. In 1945, for $25, he sold a photograph to Look magazine of a broken-hearted newsvendor reacting to the death of President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A few months later Kubrick joined Look’s staff to become the youngest staff photographer in the magazine’s history. He continued to work for Look until 1950 when he left to pursue filmmaking.

VandM and The Museum of the City of New York have gone through thousands of Kubrick's negatives and selected a series of 25 photographs to put up for sale. Amazing work.

The iPhone Lens Dial

Over the years there have been a lot of photography related accessories for the iPhone. Everything from stands, tripod-like gadgets, and even lens mounts. Some are a bit too ridiculous and some are pretty cool.

Here's another one I just came across at Photojojo. The iPhone Lens Dial. It's a gimmick, but it could be fun to play with. Here's how they describe it:

The iPhone Lens Dial boasts three optical-quality coated glass lenses: Wide Angle, Fisheye, and Telephoto. All wrapped up in a slim aircraft-grade aluminum jacket equipped with two tripod mounts (for portrait or landscape shots).

I'd like to see this as a built in feature of the iPhone. Imagine a small rotating dial on the iPhone that allowed you to choose between 3 lenses with different focal lengths. It'd be great to have a wide angle, a normal, and a telephoto lens built in.

Today's Pictures: New York After Dark

Night photography is one of the styles of photography that I really like. This gallery titled New York After Dark and produced by Kate Phillips, has some amazing photographs by various Magnum photographers.

Stop-Motion Music Video by Kina Grannis

Michael Zhang at PetaPixel on a stop-motion music video shot over two years with 288,000 jelly beans:

This music video for the song “In Your Arms” by Kina Grannis is a stop-motion animation done with a background composed of jelly beans. It’s a crazy project that required 22 months, 1,357 hours, 30 people, and 288,000 jelly beans. They could have used CGI, of course, but each frame was carefully created by hand and photographed with a still camera.

Pretty amazing.

Steve McCurry's Iconic Retrospective

Steve McCurry is arguably one of the most respected photographers today. His work for National Geographic is legendary and his books are inspirational and beautiful.

If you're close to Santa Monica, California, the Peter Fetterman Gallery is exhibiting the work of Steve McCorry until the end of November. If not, still click on the link below to see a selection of great photographs by him.

via: My Modern Metropolis

Editing Your Portfolio by Zack Arias

Zack Arias on editing your portfolio:

A printed book is a thing to take pride in. There’s something tangible about it that holding an iPad doesn’t compare to.

It's a great article in which he talks about how to edit your portfolio. He suggests a specific approach that I like. Sorting through thousands of photographs to pick your best ones is an extremely difficult task, but defining how to present them (in which order, which ones go with which, etc.) is even harder.

I need to spend some time reading his article again and making some notes. This is something I've wanted to tackle for a while, but it's been daunting.

And I completely agree with him on the print vs electronic format. Websites and iPads are very cool, but there's something about a printed book.

Ultra Sleek Button-Less Camera

Interesting design for an Ultra Sleek Button-Less Camera. Jacob Paul Wiegmann at My Modern Met writes:

The Rotor 360 camera, designed by Charlie Nghiem, is beautifully simple in its execution of design. By removing the buttons for menu options and instead replacing them with a rotating column of choices, Nghiem has improved the interface of the modern digital camera.

It looks beautiful, although I'm not sure what it would be like to use in real life. If those dials are easy to rotate when you need to but don't move easily by accident, it could be a winner. I'm all for manual controls in my cameras.