Bits & Bobs VII
Photographers
Alex Koloskov goes through the lighting set up he used for a jewellry shoot. Michael Kenna's Hokkaido video, interview and insights from the highly regarded landscape photographer. A couple of photographers who may be somewhat well known: David LaChapelle, Rankin.
Photography
The World Press Photo site is always worth a visit, you could do worse than spend a while browsing their archives - though the site itself is badly dated and is clunky as hell. EnfuseGUI is an open source image blender, for creating better dynamic range. Comes highly recommended but I haven't tried it yet; never been completely enamoured with other similar apps. There's so much trashy HDR out there I simply can't be arsed to even step into that potential cess-pit of delusional creativity - aka personal visions, artistic expressions; usually produced by overly-sensitive fragile souls, pumped up on Flickr favs and righteous indignation, who think photography is produced by strangling pixels till they shit and vomit some festering, glowing arse bile. Collect.give is an idea I can relate to, buy LE prints from photographers who donate to specific causes - the collect.give Facebook page is here. BeforeIDie is almost a lo-fi version of 6 billion others (see below): Nicole Kenney and KS Rives use polaroids and one question to take a look at society.
Web Design
Pete Cashmore, CEO of Mashable, outlines 10 web trends for 2010 on CNN. Most of them are obvious and have already been trending, some for a few years now, but certainly the next 12-24 months a lot of time and a huge amount of money is going to be invested in these areas. For more near-future predictions, Trendwatching's consumer briefing is worth reading, designers get in on the act of guessing what's hot next, and trendhunter keeps you up to date on what's going on.
Design
Really like David Thorne's 'Dear Simon' correspondence with a grabby client - we all have them, to a greater or lesser extent, and it does feel satisfying when they've been told to go fuck themselves. Must be something in the water lately, because The Oatmeal has similar issues about what some clients expect and how they know best; so true. Lovely Package, fnarr fnarr, showcases packaging design, as does The Dieline blog. Dieter Rams, a remarkable designer of unfussy, elegant and intuitive products, offers up Ten Principles of Good Design.
Miscellaneous
A New York Times booklist for Art & Architecture with some titles of interest to photographers. 6 Billion Others is a project developed to show what we have in common, no matter who or where we are, by asking 5,000 people to contribute to a portrait on humanity. Society6 is another pimp your wares site for creatives.
