Human Clock

I wish I'd stumbled upon this earlier, but now I finally have and can share it with you all. It's a photo project/website/application called the Human Calendar. With photos of various people holding pieces of paper pronouncing the month, day of the week, and numerical day, they face different directions when the date changes so that they are all looking at the person holding the current day. You can even get a smaller version to put on your myspace if you'd like! Click on the image to check out the website to read about how it came to be, who the people in the photos are, and see the calendar in action every day.

Periodic Table Printmaking Project

The Periodic Table Printmaking Project is a collaborative work by 96 artists. Together, they created 118 prints, each one pertaining to a specific element on the periodic chart, via any medium - woodcut, linocut, monotype, etching, lithograph, silkscreen, or a combination. Together, the piece was meant to promote both science and art, and I for one think it's genius. Individually, I don't love every single one, or at least I wouldn't pick them out to hang on my wall, but together, it's quite the unique collaborative work.

Self-taught photo feature.

Came across this artist's shop page when perusing back posts on the Urban Outfitters blog today. She describes herself as a mostly self-taught photographer with some nurturing and training from two family photographers. Based out of Florida, she takes beautiful, simple photographs of vintage trinkets, natural objects, and flowers thus far. Her images look incredibly vintage for being so modern and I am completely in love with them.

you = NYLON

At NYLON yesterday I went through some reader-submitted "street style" photos. Although there weren't too many sent in, those that we got were pretty decent so we put together a gallery and posted them on the site. For a header, I made this:

Amazingly penned pictures.

I came across this on BoingBoing today and this guy's work is amazing. Juan Francisco Casas creates large-scale works of art using only a ballpoint pen in his latest series of work. The graphics are so starkly perfect, they look almost like photographs themselves.

More NYLON goodness.

Kind of a slow day for me here, but here are a few more pieces of my photoshop work you can check out.



This one I made the image below, but if you click on it, you'll see a larger one. I didn't make that one.

John Oliver rocked the house down.

So last night was another Human Giant show at Upright Citizens Brigade. Basically they're showing clips from the show's upcoming second season (without finished effects) and the cast does a few skits (although this week Aziz Ansari was the only one there, but he still held his own quite well for being left all alone by Rob Huebel and Paul Scheer) while a few guest comedians do stand-up as well for a few minutes a piece. This time around, the star of the night was definitely John Oliver - correspond comedian extraordinaire from The Daily Show. He was gut-wrenchingly funny from start to finish. I only took one photo because I was just enjoying myself too much and we were sitting in the front row so I didn't want to be too obnoxious at the time.

More things I made for NYLON last week.

It's another one of those posts. It's just one long list of the graphics I made for NYLON last week that are online thus far.

Here they are and feel free to click on any one of them to see the actual content associated with it.

Something I'm extremely proud of.

I made this graphic for NYLON, with the guidance of "well we have some pictures of the Absolut bottles, and maybe some stock images of trees to portray the eco-friendly aspect? I don't know, play around with it and see what you can come up with!"

And I came up with this:

Puzzles pieces and neon lights.

Kent Rogowski is a photographer and artist. His latest new project is called Love=Love and it's quite a thing to see. According to the artist:

"Although puzzle pieces are unique and can only fit into one place within a puzzle they are interchangeable within a brand."

He took various flower, sky, and landscape scenes and pieced the juxtaposing puzzles together to create whimsical new concoctions that are quite a thing to see.



And as if this isn't enough, one of his other projects, very simply titled Neon has to be one of my favorite new things. The signs are simple, but each with such a beautiful message to them.

Eclecto Wares

In a pretty neat assemblage of recycling, art, and fashion, the company UPPERCASE makes many cute and unique goods from items such found ("rescued") books and recycled vintage fashion mags. From these basic materials, they create quirky adorable notebooks, buttons, purses, pouches and more.

Like these:


I came across this company via getTrio's daily e-newsletter but their website is also chock full of things to buy, read, see, and learn about. It's a great little site to check out just to discover things you probably wouldn't otherwise stumble across.

A Birthday Poem

This "poem" brought to you by Mr. Chris Zawadzki:


23 years ago, Kelly emerged from Vaginaland
Kicking and screaming, like she was in a fetal band

In her younger days, she hit balls and played with oars,
Wrote messages on dollar bills and made fun of whores

Now, she says things like OMG, ROFLMAO and For Realz,
Has JD blackouts and loves bento box meals

In 23 years, Kelly will be writing copy or taking photos
Or fronting a band called The Galapagogos

Whatever she may do, or whoever she may be
She is already a kick-ass chick at 23.

Happy Birthday KID!

Nylon Tuesday.

Another day at NYLON and there was PhotoShop work aplenty to do.













R.I.P. Heath Ledger

Activist Art meets Commercial Art

I stumbled across the latest from activist Italian artist Graziano Cecchini today while I was catching up on posts at BoingBoing. Anyone here in the U.S. who has heard of him, has probably heard the name in association with a stunt that took place at the Trevi Fountain last October.



The water in the fountain was dyed red and a box of leaflets was found nearby which claimed "the red paint was a protest for expenses incurred in organizing the Rome Film Festival and symbolically referred to the event's red carpet." (source) Cecchini was blamed for the event which caused the water in the well-known tourist hotspot to look almost like blood when he was identified by a security camera, but was never charged since he denied involvement.

His new artistic protest also resulted in a splash of color in Roma. Half a million colored plastic balls were dumped down the Spanish Steps, with many finally filling the Barcaccia fountain at the bottom. (source)



This time, the work of artistic expression (or vandalism, depending on your perspective) took place as a statement on the worsening waste situation which has been causing health concerns in Naples over the past 6 months.(source) In my opinion, it's a beautiful alternate display of protest. Walking around New York City, you can regularly see people with picket signs or the giant inflatable rat which signifies a strike, but to see something like this is truly a different statement, one that is difficult to ignore both as protest, and art.

There are videos of the protest all over YouTube but I kind of find the photos a bit prettier.


On a similar artistic note, this protest reminded me of the Sony Bravia commercial, and then a few minutes later I saw a new one on tv!

The first commercial is set to the tune of Jose Gonzalez covering The Knife's song Heartbeats and shows the release of bouncing rubber balls in San Francisco (a preplanned, and city-OKed event, much unlike the Cecchini protest). It's a lot of fun to watch, not to mention I love the song.



Then today I saw the new Sony commercial, this time using stop-motion graphics (which apparently took 3 weeks to create/film) of multi-colored rabbits jumping around New York City, culminating in a purple wave and finally breaking into flipping cubes. Also pretty fun to watch.

Photowalk #1

My friend Marc and I went for our first weekly "photowalk" today. We met up around 3pm at Union Square and strolled around Chelsea and SoHo until it got dark, kept walking, and then finally split around dinner time. Although we probably both got more exercise than we did photographs, it seemed like a good start to - hopefully - a new tradition that will keep us both shooting, even in our free time.

Click on any of the images to see the full album.

I'm a hustler baby.

I am sadly addicted to Simian Mobile Disco's song Hustler. I saw the music video before I'd listened to the album and it's hilarious and genius. Now, when I hear it, I can only picture that video and I can't help but put the song on repeat at least 3 more times. I don't usually sit around and watch YouTube videos, but this is definitely worth checking out, both for the song itself and the visuals.

What I did at Nylon today.

I did a massive amount of design work today. It was Photoshop Friday and I went all out. It's kind of amazing the amount of graphic design work I've been doing at this job considering I originally wanted to go to college for graphic design and now I'm doing it all day long, with no degree, just teaching myself as I go.

Here are some of the things I made today and you can see them on the website just by clicking them.

Cloverfield

We went to the midnight premiere of Cloverfield last night. Luckily the movie is only about 80 minutes long since midnight showings are hard to stay up for after a full week and before you get up a few hours later for work.

The movie itself was amazing. I'm a big J.J. Abrams fan (ie. I'm obsessed with Lost and never ever want it to end) so this review may be a bit biased. I walked in expecting to love the movie and excited to see what the monster really looked like. My number one recommendation if you see it would be to not sit too far in the front. The shaky camera effects make it a bit disorienting at times. The whole movie is supposed to be a recovered video tape found in Central Park after a monster attacks New York City and Manhattan has to be bombed to get rid of it. It begins with a going away party, but when the attack begins the party scatters. Some try to cross the Brooklyn Bridge in the mass mandatory evacuation, but when one of the guys gets a voicemail from the girl he's been in love with for years saying she's in her apartment bleeding badly and doesn't know what to do, he and several others attempt to make it through the most treacherous part of town to get to her.

One thing I loved was the reality of it. Sort of like Blair Witch, without the obnoxiousness and obscurity of it. You actually see the monster, you see people die without it being too bloody (it is PG-13 afterall), but you are always conscious that the story is being captured by an amateur with a handheld camcorder. There is no distinct resolution to the movie and if you're the type of person that hates leaving a film with questions unanswered, this one will probably make you furious. The effects are impeccable as is the acting - by actors no one watching will probably know. I would 100% recommend this movie to anyone even slightly interested, but I can't guarantee they'll like it, as I don't think this style is for everyone.

Some small things

Yesterday I ran into John Hensley as I left Nylon to take some photos of a storefront (that will be my first photo byline actually printed in the magazine by the way!). John plays Matt McNamara on Nip/Tuck and has been the butt of many jokes ever since I started watching the show. For some reason, he has always wierded/creeped me out. Isn't he just a weird looking, never really aging, and slightly Michael Jackson-ish looking guy?



I know it's not just me that has enjoyed seeing him play a crackhead in the show this season (which I am SO glad is back as of last night!)

On another, completely unrelated note, I went to the Bumble and Bumble school today and had my hair cut by Richard Corio (well kind of, most of it was done by his "teacher" to be quite honest). My hair has been growing out for a long time and was pretty flat and boring at this point. The haircut was entirely free (except I chose to give my dude a tip) and now my coif looks like this:

Another day, another Nylon album.

Today in the office we got the new Urban Outfitters/Nylon Magazine T-shirts in and had a photo shoot so that we can immediately start promoting them!

I did another "behind the scenes" shoot and the images are already up on the website here, but there are of course some images I had to cut out and they were all cropped from my original sizes so the complete album can be seen here on my flickr.

You are beautiful.

I came upon this art project without even realizing it a few years bask on a sudden spontaneous trip to Chicago. You Are Beautiful is an inspiring project that promotes a beautiful message and I've adored it ever since I saw its message lightly spraypainted on a sidewalk and was touched by it.

Now, I've just read about something similar through CoolHunting called the Thank You Project and it's pretty adorable. Business cards, postcards, and a stamp with the sweet, simple message, to spread to people who've touched you in some way, or just reach out for whatever reason you can think of at that very moment. Surprise someone by leaving one of the cards in an unlikely place for someone to stumble upon. It's just such a fun idea.

(Full disclosure: For anyone who didn't know, I started a project of my own a few years back, when I was getting over a particularly bad relationship and trying to find my ground again as a person. I've tried to keep it fairly silent and only tell a few close people, but since it has so much to do with these projects I guess I'll just come out with it. I walked into an art store and bought a bright pink felt pen and ever since have written the words "CREATE SOMETHING BEAUTIFUL" on some part of almost every dollar bill that has encountered my wallet. I've kept track of most of these bills and thus far have put several hundred out there. When I started, I tried some other sayings as well, but ultimately stuck with the one I felt the most connected with. And I've always wondered if anyone has found, noticed, or read them, anywhere, ever. Kind of like this Thank You Project, you really have no idea how, or IF, you can touch or inspire a complete stranger, and in some ways, it's that mystery that makes it all the more beautiful.)

China Bans Free Plastic Bags

I love to hear about the steps that major industrial countries in the world are finally taking to combat pollution and global warming. San Francisco (of course...) was the first to do something similar in the U.S., but they're not alone. China has now announced that starting in June, stores will no longer be allowed to disperse plastic bags for free with purchases. If you don't know what kind of environmental impact these bags have on the environment, and why this is such a major step for a country of this size, or any for that matter, then you should definitely check out the article on treehugger.com. Hell, I encourage you to just skim it even if you do already have an idea the kind of impact these shopping bags that collect in your pantry or just go straight from store to garbage bin once you get home have on our planet.



I encourage everyone out there to make a small investment in some canvas bags and help cut down. Everyone can make a difference. It's just a small effort.

Free Kimya

One of the truly great things about where I live would be all the great opportunities around me every day of the week. If I had more free time, I could easily go to a different concert, art exhibit, or random cultural event every night (or day if I could be independently wealthy of course).

A favorite place of mine that's just a few blocks away from our apartment is Sound Fix Records, an awesome little indie music shop with a small cafe/bar area back room. Not only do they often have every CD you've been trying to find but just can't seem to locate in the regular giants (ie. Best Buy, Target, Circuit City, etc.) of media retail, but they regularly have FREE shows in that lovely little back room. The artists are typically in town on tour, and are playing other shows before or after their stop at Sound Fix that cost money, and may quite often be sold out by the time you even find out they'll be happening.

Tomorrow, I'm going to go see Kimya Dawson at 8pm and I'm very psyched about it. Former singer in The Moldy Peaches, she's released several solo albums, and recently did the entire soundtrack for everyone's latest favorite movie, Juno. This show is actually the CD release party for that movie's soundtrack (which I didn't realized until I just went onto her website now).



Come join me!

Mac n Manhattan

Yesterday my mom and her good friend Rosemary came down for a visit. Tom joined us for the jaunt as we zipped down and up and down and up again through Manhattan, hitting up some very essential favorite places. First, to Smac for some of the best macaroni and cheese in existence. This time, I tried the goat cheese with olives, spinach and mushrooms. I really think by the end of the year, I'll have tried every set dish they have on their menu. I'm almost there already if you include trying dishes other people have ordered. I only have about 2 or 3 left to go.

After that, we headed uptown to the Whitney Museum to see what exhibits were going on. Some really "interesting" stuff going on up there right now. We took a tour of the Weiner exhibit on the 5th floor, and if we hadn't, I could never have appreciated it as much as it should be. It's some out there, over-thought, ultra-simplistic looking stuff. One of the most interesting parts of the exhibit were the museum's attempts to immerse the entire building in this retrospective, including putting some of it outside, and even making the elevator a part of it, which most people wouldn't realize unless they read about it or took the tour upstairs. Examples:





After we got all cultured up, we down to SoHo to visit Rice to Riches where we actually saw Michael Rapaport fighting with his girlfriend and looking verrry angry about whatever they were discussing.

I snapped a quick picture of some interesting graffiti before bidding the gals adieu.

T.G.I. NYLON

So today I got to try my hand at making ad banners for NYLONmag.com (minus the coding, strictly design layouts). The magazine has a partnership with Urban Outfitters having to do with a series of T-Shirts sold through UO. On the NYLON website, just about the only ads you'll ever find are for this partnership, advertising the shirts they selected to endorse. As part of the new push to update the website, we were given the task of updating all of the ad banners, with other photos from the original promotional photoshoot and a new color scheme. The job was given entirely to me and went through approval without a single problem, posted straight to the website and replacing the old ads.

The banners now look something like this:



and you can check out the website to see all the different ones live.

I Can Has Cheezburger

I've been wanting to do this since I took the photo while I was home a couple weeks ago. All it took was a line of text in Photoshop and finally submitting it to the site. And now, my favorite-est cat ever - Ronnie - will forever live in infamy on icanhascheezburger.com.

Behind-the-scenes at a NYLON magazine beauty shoot

I was asked to visit yesterday's photo shoot with photographer Aneta Bartos for the upcoming March issue of NYLON magazine. The photos are now live on NYLON's website here or you can check out my flickr page for the full, unedited album and a few extra photos!

NYLON magazine's Street Styles

Today I took the first batch of photos for NYLON magazine's Street Styles section on the mag's website. It used to be a hugely popular piece of the brand, even garnering an entire book at one point, but has lately gone withoutbeing updated. Now, I'm stepping up to the plate to bring it back to the forefront. It was gorgeous out today, far warmer than it should be in January so I was sent out on the streets in SoHo for a few minutes and took some snapshots of the hipster kids in their garb. The full gallery of unedited images (since NYLON standard cuts all images into a perfect square, many of their shoes were cut off online) is on my flickr page but you can see the final album on NYLON's website.

Mandate of Heaven's 2008 collection American Dreamers lookbook shot for NYLON magazine

Today we got a new lookbook in for designer Carissa Ackerman's clothing company Mandate of Heaven's 2008 collection entitled American Dreamers. I had to find a fun way to photograph the book for the website so I took it outside to enjoy the sunshine and natural lighting. I tried 3 different setups, but ultimately the ivy option displayed above won. Click on it to see the page, or check out my flickr album and let me know which one you would've picked instead!

A birthday party.

Tom and Alex's friend Lara Longo was having a birthday bash on Saturday night, complete with a schedule of several bars to visit (only 2 out of 4 were actually visited in the end). There were some interesting characters and I'm still enjoying my new semi-fisheye lens so it made for some fun shots.
Check out the clear glasses fashion design student who had 2 drinks then took a nap:

or maybe Brian's new tattoo:

or just Sam the socialite's always awesome face

Happy Two Thousand Great

As I'm sure you all know, it's New Years Day. To celebrate the eve, we had a bash at our apartment and combined it with the neighbors' party on the second floor to make one big ol' shindig. As an early Birthday present, my mom ordered me some fun new essentials for my camera - a new tripod, flash cord, and..... semi-FISHEYE LENS! It was pretty much all that was used all evening, as you'll be able to tell by the resulting photos.

There was Rock Band up here in our apartment on the 3rd floor for most of the night. People floated up and down from floor to floor depending on the mood - to ROCK


or to DRINK.



And as an added surprise, we figured out how to get up onto the roof in time to see the fireworks all around us going off in each of the boroughs at midnight.




Happy New Year!