When photography stops to tell the concrete reality and try to represent a concept, when the image alludes to something, it becomes visual narrative, surreal and fantastic, a concept art. A very young artist, spokesman of this photographic genre, is the American David Talley, founder and creative director of Concept Collaboration, a worldwide movement dedicated to conceptual photography. With a touch a bit emo(tional) and an image processing similar to the dark one of Tim Barton, his goal seeks to highlight “the darkest moment before an explosion of light”. Through the use of the movement and the rarefied atmospheres, David translates the emotions of real life in photographs from the positive impact that try to capture vulnerability and disturbances. Every place, every natural element help him enrich his narrative skills and provides in visual emotions. The reality, after all, is only a starting point.
As I was buying a whole new bunch of Christmas presents for my team, I finally came to the “music gear”, and in the process of doing research, I stumbled across an extremely interesting video. Eminem’s record-breaking diss track, “KILLSHOT,” was the final salvo in his late-summer feud with Machine Gun Kelly. The scorching song was a direct response to MGK’s own diss track, “Rap Devil,” which was in turn prompted by the shots Eminem took at the Cleveland rapper on “Not Alike.” Production on “KILLSHOT” is handled by IllaDaProducer, who also placed several tracks on Eminem’s most recent album, ‘Kamikaze.’ The Florida-based beatmaker spoke with Genius about creating the track on the latest episode of ‘Deconstructed.’ Check the method.
For their affiliates, HBO (Asia) creates a calendar highlighting movies and series broadcasted on the channel. Florian was commissioned by Patrick Tan (Art Director at HBO) for the realization of the 12 illustrations. The work speaks for itself.
Danny Jones is a 3D Designer in SF, specializing in 3D interaction and visual design. His latests collections of artworks have been even more stunning that the rest, and his talent is undeniable. Check the method from his latest collection.
Although we’ve covered work from Elizaveta Porodina before, this German artists’ work has never been better or more stunning. With ballet seeming influences, the elegant poses, and illustrious style of work, this collection is nothing to be missed. Check the method below.
They’re fun, open-minded, hard-working, and they make fantastic design. The French design agency Graphéine recently concluded the 2017–2018 campaign for the Saint-Étienne Opera house with designs full of emotion, hence its title émotions partagées (shared emotions). And what’s more, they’ve reason to celebrate since 2017 is their 15-year anniversary. Graphéine’s work begs second and third glances, not only because of the bold typography they incorporate into their solutions, but also because of the daring illusions they pull off, such as their anamorphic graphics for the Lyon St-Exupéry airport.
When it comes to the technical terms surrounding beautiful and colorful art, people aren’t normally too fussed, but when it comes to Ori Toors illustrations, the vector part is important. For anyone not ‘digital art’ savvy, the difference between a jpeg and a vector is essentially that a jpeg is a bitmap based on pixels, that can be seen when blown up too big. But a vector is based on paths that can be stretched to any size. This essentially means that Ori Toors incredible works can be blown up to the size of a building, and still look just as amazing.
Photographers and photo editors rarely capture the unique and captivating images that Poland’s Mateusz Lengling is able to. With what seems like just simple photo slices Lengling’s artwork provides a rich and unforgettable feast for the eyes. Check out a cross section of his work.
These hollow and solid sculptures in the shape of water filled plastic bags examine the boundaries of human perception by manipulating light and space with the optical properties of glass. Made using traditional glass making techniques, this novel approach to the use of the material creates a lens to view the world afresh and the items we perceive around us. The dimensions vary around 12-17” (30cm-43cm) tall x 7″wide (18cm) x 4” deep (10cm) – Available online here
That classic, grainy style of photography that has now become synonymous with the term “vintage”, has never seen a blend much like that of Julian Hibbard. Slight digital additions to his already incredible portfolio of photos make every picture pop. Check the method.
Ilya Blinov is an incredibly talented photographer based in Russia. From fashion, portraits, beauty, and commercials he has been working as fashion stylist for about 10 years in Milan, Italy and Moscow, Russia. This former tutor of Fashion Styling courses at British Higher School of Art and Design in Moscow, he works to find a delicate beauty and vivid expressions. You can see much more of his work here.
Spanish singer Serafin Zubiri, has an incredible visual designer behind him. The work of Mikel Muruzabal speaks volumes about the talent and sophistication that went into these truly unique photos. Using CGI to adapt the spaces, shapes and colors to each scene, these “floating photos” are absolutely a sight to behold.
With Rogue One: A Star Wars Story having been in theatres for a few weeks now, one of the biggest talking points of the film has been the digital resurrection of the late Peter Cushing as Grand Moff Tarkin. While there were plenty of rumors prior to release about the character appearing in the film, the villain ended up having an unexpectedly sizeable role as a secondary antagonist.
Reactions to the use of Cushing’s skeletal visage have ranged from praise over the effects to derision over morality, though the team behind the film maintains that his involvement was imperative to the story, given Tarkin’s position as Commander of the Death Star in Episode IV. “If he’s not in the movie, we’re going to have to explain why he’s not in the movie,” said Lucasfilm story development executive Kiri Hart to the New York Times. “This is kind of his thing.”
Industrial Light And Magic worked on Tarkin, with permission and input from Cushing’s estate. Actor Guy Henry portrayed the character on set, with his facial performance replaced by a digital recreation of Cushing in the film’s final cut. The team at ILM used archived daily footage from A New Hope to study and simulate the facial tics of Cushing. “When Peter Cushing makes an ‘aah’ sound, he doesn’t move his upper lip,” explained ILM chief creative officer John Knoll. “He only opens his jaw about halfway, and makes this square shape with his lower lip, that exposes his lower teeth.” Before these nuances in Cushing’s face were accounted for, the team felt like their creation resembled a relative of Cushing, and not the actor exactly. However, their first rule was that “realism trumped likeness.”
While ILM was certain they could pull off Tarkin as a fully-realized character in the film, there were back-up plans just in case, though it would have resulted in a significantly reduced on-screen presence for the character. “We did talk about Tarkin participating in conversations via hologram, or transferring that dialogue to other characters,” Knoll said.
Some of the criticism stemming from the use of Cushing’s likeness in Rogue One was that it opened the door to using the digital appearances of deceased actors in other films. Knoll, however, said he doesn’t see that happening, with Rogue One acting as a special cirumstance. “I don’t imagine that happening,” Knoll said. “This was done for very solid and defendable story reasons. This is a character that is very important to telling this kind of story. It is extremely labor-intensive and expensive to do. I don’t imagine anybody engaging in this kind of thing in a casual manner. We’re not planning on doing this digital re-creation extensively from now on. It just made sense for this particular movie.”
Los Angeles based beauty photographer Julia Kuzmenko McKim has an incredible portfolio of diverse styles and designs, but her collaboration with make up goliath Vlada Haggerty titled “Stripes & Polka Dots” hits the spot. Featuring models Eugena Washington and Ekaterina Koba, both the styles of make up and photography are remarkable.
Floral Beauty featuring Katty Ukhanova with floral designs by Yasmine Khatib. Make up by Mia Yang. Hair by KIYO Igarashi. Styled by Julie Matos. Shot by JUCO
Somewhere in the city of Badajoz, Spain, Lola Dupre is taking the style of collages to an entirely new level. Her incredible warped and twisted creations, are a step beyond “caricature” and are an entity of their own. Lola’s arsenal consist of scanning, a digital camera, scissors, and paper adhesive. Check out her work below.
I’ve always loved candid videos of people doing ridiculous things, but now that Pokemon Go is out, the videos are coming hard and fast. Pokemon Go, as you might have heard is an augmented reality game on Android and iPhone. The game was released on July 6th and has become an overnight success. Now, there are more people playing this game than the total number of active users on Twitter. Like the rest of the world, Salomondrin has caught the Pokemon Go bug too. So, he went Pokemon hunting in his Porsche 918 supercar.
We’ve been big fans of Viktor Miller-Gausa, and his photoshop portraits for quite some time. His work with simple strokes, and expressive ember effects brings a unique, and unmistakable quality to his art. Check the method.
Pioneer is expanding their range of rekordbox dj controllers with the DDJ-RR and DDJ-RB. Both feature two channels while the DDJ-RR includes Deck Select so you can switch between all four rekordbox dj decks at the touch of a button. The controllers introduce buttons for new features in the rekordbox 4.1.1 software update, including Sequence Call, which lets you create and save sample sequences then play them back without touching your computer. The DDJ-RB and DDJ-RR are also the first controllers to support PC Master Out, for playing master output through your computer’s internal speakers or a connected desktop speaker while using the controller for your headphones at the same time. Both new controllers come bundled with a full licence for rekordbox dj performance software.
The DDJ-RR packs in all the traits of a pro-DJ set-up. Stay in control with large jog wheels, illuminating on-jog indicators and customisable multicoloured Performance Pads. You can use the Performance Pads to trigger Hot Cues, Beat Jump, Pad FX and Slicer, plus there’s a button for the new Sequence Call feature. Get creative with Slip Mode and Release FX, and hit the new Sequence Load button to load your sample sequences to the deck to scratch them. Multiple inputs and outputs give you flexible connectivity and the option to use the DDJ-RR with rekordbox dj software or as a 2-channel mixer using multiplayers or turntables.
Rainbows, honeycombs, pixels and even famous Japanese works of art — there’s almost nothing Canadian makeup artist Andrea Reed can’t recreate using a few brushes and a variety of lipsticks. Going by the name Girl Grey Beauty, Reed is known for sharing drool-worthy lip art creations as well as handy beauty tutorials. It’s painful to admit, but her works really made us realize we have no game whatsoever when it comes to primpin’. Reed, among other incredible makeup gurus, really pushes the limits of modern art, showing that it no longer belongs solely in galleries and museums, but can be found in the most unexpected places, even a human face.
Nielly Francoise has been prominently featured on this blog more than once, and the work continues to speak for itself. Check out a new 2016 collection.
While just randomly scouring the internet for anything interesting, Ever Magazine in France had an article titled “She Has Waited Too Long” that caught my eye. Most photos that show off dresses, are merely some nicely made up woman, either cropped from the head up, or contorted into some oddly unusual but artsy position, but when I saw odel Clémentine Levy, something was obviously different. Levy teamed up with make up artist MademoiselleMu for a unique and stylish take on the dress portrait. The make up accentuates the look, and emphasizes the dresses, but is outside-of-the-box enough to catch anyone’s eye. Check the method.
While my interests in the latest James Bond outing ‘Spectre’ were primarily audio based, one can’t ignore the beauty and technically precision of the visuals. One of the least glorified, easily overlooked, but immensely stunning aspects of the film are the digital user interfaces, and operating systems used by characters in the movie. From the technical breakdown of the DB10, all the way down to the maps, and computer screen designs, each screen was painstakingly created from scratch by incredible visual artists. Although these images may have quickly been glanced by movie goers during the film, are all below for you to behold. Check the method.
UI/OS concept design and art direction for James Bond – Spectre. Studio: Method. Creative Director – Simon Cassels
Barcelona artist Alex Palazzi may be just as nostalgic about his past as the rest of us, however, he has the incredible creative skills to bring his memories to life. Below is a great amalgamation of some of the things kids loved growing up. Check the method.
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The Making Of…
For those of you interested in the behind the scenes aspect of Alex’s incredible works, take a look at his step-by-step process on each of the pieces.
In 2014, Dutch newspaper De Volkskrant contacted conceptual design studio Lernert & Sander to create a piece for a special documentary photography issue about food. Lernert & Sander responded with this somewhat miraculous photo of 98 unprocessed foods cut into extremely precise 2.5cm cubes aligned on a staggered grid. Looking at the shot it seems practically impossible, but the studio confirms it is indeed the real thing. The photo is available as a limited edition print of 50 copies printed on 40 x 50cm baryta paper signed by the artists for about €500.
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