Spanish photographer Alvaro Sanchez-Montañes decided to explore the abandoned homes and ghost towns of the Namib desert after reading about the deserted diamond mines in Namibia. His photo series Desert Indoors documents the magical beauty and solitude of the abandoned houses which have gradually been reclaimed by the Namib desert.
Travelling the world over the last decades, photojournalist Steve McCurry has shot some of the most compelling photo portraits of our time. He is best known for his picture of the green eyed Afghan girl who stared out from the front page of National Geographic in 1985.
Here are some of my favorite pictures of Steve. Be sure to visit his website and his blog to get inspired by so many more great pictures.
A retrospective of his work is currently on show at the Birmingham Museum & Art Gallery, where he spoke about his methods and in more detail about a number of his pictures:
When walking in the street I’m opened up to a certain kind of person, a person who will speak to me in a very profound way, and once I find that person, I get very excited. I suddenly get very enthusiastic, and I think my enthusiasm is infectious and suddenly we have this chemistry, this sort of bond where I’m so enamoured with them and how they look and how the present themselves.
It’s actually a really quite an odd thing to walk up to a stranger and yet within a matter of seconds to be able to try and persuade them to actually stop what they were doing and to allow me to take their picture. I’ve sort of developed a way that is in part showing respect, plus there’s an element of humour to try and defuse the sort of embarrassing, awkward situation.
Read the full interview at Viewfinder.
Check out the full 50 picture gallery with links to their sources at bluefaqs.
Here are some nice artworks based on a new Arabic typeface designed at Font Shop International headquarters in Berlin by Muiz Anwar. Muiz Anwar, born and raised in Manchester, UK, started to explore the arabic roots only after the events of 09/11 (to read the full story about the background of his work, check out the Q&A with him by Ibraheem Youssef).
Unfortunately, I couln’t find any evidence if the typeface is already finished or still under development. If you know more about it, please let me know.
‘Oh! Mai Mai!’ is an experimental new typeface by Panamanian designer Jorge Artola. You can download the free font at the Oh! Mai Mai! Website.
You can also see some sketches that document the development process of the typeface at Behance Network.
Ever felt overwhelmed by the sheer number of different coffee specialties on any bar’s menu? This guide by Plaid Creative will help you pass as a real coffee connoisseur next time.
Via The Modern Gentleman.
The German designers initiative S•E•E•D•REBELS (“sustainable • ethical • ecological • design”) gives us another great example that business cards can be both resource-saving and creative. Stamped on cardboard, ink made of paint leftovers and self-made, the cards are a real eye-catcher. Well done!
In December 2009, German photographer Markus Schwarze decided to take a picture of an unknown person each day of the year 2010. I especially like the way he uses a shallow depth of field [German: “Geringe Tiefenschärfe”] by choosing fast lenses [“lichtstarke Objektive”] and his post-processing.
Follow the photo project at Picture of the Day.
For German readers: in the lasted “View Spotlight” there is an interesting feature about Markus’ work.
Another great example of time-lapse photography is the music video for the song “Her Morning Elegance” from the album “The Opposite Side of the Sea” by Israeli singer, songwriter, playwright and theatre director Oren Lavie.
American photographer and filmmaker Sean Stiegemeier shot this impressive time-lapse photography of Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcanic eruption on May 1st and 2nd, 2010.
So I saw all of these mediocre pictures of that volcano in Iceland nobody can pronounce the name of, so I figured I should go and do better. But the flights to get over took forever as expected (somewhat). 4 days after leaving I finally made it, but the weather was terrible for another 4. Just before leaving it got pretty good for about a day and a half and this is what I managed to get.
Wish I had more time. I missed all the cool Lightning and the Lava of the first eruption. But I figure this will just be a trial run for another day.
If you are interested in the background of time-lapse photography, take a look at the excellent tutorial by BBC photographer Timothy Allen and watch the following behind the scenes video from the BBC’s documentary Life to see just how far it is possible to push this art form (commented by the remarkable David Attenborough).