Uptown in the 612

Pops clued me into this exploratory photo blog of uptown Minneapolis, near where I grew up. I stole this pic from there, and am pleased that some person on the interweb is practicing photography by documenting the seasons and scenes that are familiar to me. Nostalgia mixed with beauty is a pretty good thing for a Thursday morning.

Random shots

Here are some shots from my holiday travels.

Our 44th president

I love this photo of Time magazine's recently crowned Man of the Year in college. [from Time via Boing Boing.]

Los Angeles Jungle

Snapped this cool shot during a hike in the Santa Monica mountains on Sunday. Looks more like the Brazilian rain forest or somewhere in SE Asia. It was this fog that uncharacteristically hung out in LA for a couple days and blocked my attempts to see the planets align. Blast! I can only hope I will be around for the next alignment in 2052, because these insignificant occurrences in astrological motion are representative of so much more for me!

Robert Johnson

In 1938 Robert Johnson was murdered at the age of 27. For years there were only two known photos of Johnson, one of the best known blues musicians in history, also rumored to have sold his soul to the devil to play guitar. That may have recently changed, thanks to an unexpected source - eBay. There's an amazing story at Vanity Fair that talks about Robert Johnson, his legend and how the below photo came to be found. The rumored Johnson is on the left.
You may also remember a bit of Robert Johnson's story from "O' Brother Where Art Thou?" one of my all time favorites. You can see the original two photos on SuperTouch but let the intro by writer Frank DiGiacomo reel you in to the Vanity Fair piece...

In the seven decades since his mysterious death, bluesman Robert Johnson’s legend has grown—the tragically short life, the “crossroads” tale of supernatural talent, the genuine gift that inspired Dylan, Clapton, and other greats—but his image remains elusive: only two photos of Johnson have ever been seen by the public. In 2005, on eBay, guitar maven Zeke Schein thought he’d found a third. Schein’s quest to authenticate the picture only led to more questions, both about Johnson himself and about who controls his valuable legacy.

The Big Picture

I've found myself back on the Boston Globe website time and time again checking out photo stories that run on this page called "The Big Picture." Most likely it's because they fit into my bite-sized news gathering routine (mostly done while at the office between emails), maybe some of it is my fascination with photograph and visual mediums, maybe its just the nerd in me. But I found myself there again today looking at a couple of features; one on the Sun, the other on the photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand. I've seen Arthus-Bertrand's coffee table book before, but it's been a while and the photos remain breathtakingly interesting. Looks like he's added to his collection and will be opening an exhibit of 150 4'x6' prints in NYC. Us Californians will have to wait until 2010 when it comes here (probably in Santa Monica, they get all the good outdoor installations).

Canvassing for Obama in the 'Burgh

I have so many incredible stories to tell about the last month I've spent working for the Obama campaign. It's been a ridiculous, random and incredibly rewarding experience. The people I work with are truly driven. The paid Obama staffers bust their ass for basically no money: at least 12 hour days, 7 days a week... for months. The hundreds of volunteers here bust their ass for literally no money, doing any and everything asked of them. My first day here I mopped a basement. Why? People are frikkin' pissed, and fired up. I started here shortly after Palin was picked. Every single day someone would walk in the door and say, "That woman scares me. What can I do? Put me to work. I'll do anything."

I work in that 'enthusiasm gap' you hear about.

But, beyond the vibe and the people... the places. Places I never knew existed or intentionally avoided when I lived at home in high school and was a less worldly/more fearful version of myself. Canvassing for Obama (and perhaps a touch of naivete) is like having a forcefield around you. I have walked through the most fucked up urban ghettos, knocked on the most bizarre doors and injected myself right into hundreds of people's private lives, all without fear. It's about being on a mission and fighting the good fight.

So, above are some photos from my adventure in Pittsburgh. More to come.

Fall Colors

Was just sent some stunning photos from MN that capture the beauty of the fall season. Something I definitely miss after 8 years in SoCal.
Thanks Dad- real subtle.

Pic of the Day 10.6.08

Hopefully this is something to look forward to, it being a Monday and all. (that's "The Beer Store")

TED prize winner and photojournalist breaks global news story visually

James Nachtwey is a photojournalist who won a TED prize to help him demonstrate the power of visuals. The TED prize offers "one wish the change the world" and for James, that means

“I’m working on a story that the world needs to know about. I wish for you to help me break it, in a way that provides spectacular proof of the power of news photography in the digital age.”

The TED site also teases

James Nachtwey is preparing to reveal his photographs, which highlight a shocking and underreported global crisis. Over the past 18 months, the TED community have been working with James to gain access to locations he wished to photograph, and to prepare spectacular plans for unveiling these pictures.

So they've created the above embeddable link and the news story will go live on Friday. Check back here then.

Itty Bitty Pictures

My first corporate friendly post is going to be about a photo contest for tiny things (like the soy leaf above). If you ever wanted to see what a mouse's brain or vitamin C look like magnified by an incredible amount, you can preview and vote for your favorite images here. Not all are nano-photography, but they are close enough for me. Below are drops of water floating on a mylar sheet.

My Yearbook Pics

School picture day was always a nightmare. Don't believe me? Check out these Sexy People. Also, when you have some time, do you and your friends a favor and go yearbook them.

1950

1976 19801988

Shout out to Timz Take for the sexy people.

Hubble anniversary

ABOUT THIS IMAGE:

In commemoration of NASA's Hubble Space Telescope completing its 100,000th orbit in its 18th year of exploration and discovery, scientists at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, Md., have aimed Hubble to take a snapshot of a dazzling region of celestial birth and renewal.
Hubble peered into a small portion of the nebula near the star cluster NGC 2074 (upper, left). The region is a firestorm of raw stellar creation, perhaps triggered by a nearby supernova explosion. It lies about 170,000 light-years away near the Tarantula nebula, one of the most active star-forming regions in our Local Group of galaxies.
The three-dimensional-looking image reveals dramatic ridges and valleys of dust, serpent-head "pillars of creation," and gaseous filaments glowing fiercely under torrential ultraviolet radiation. The region is on the edge of a dark molecular cloud that is an incubator for the birth of new stars.
The high-energy radiation blazing out from clusters of hot young stars already born in NGC 2074 is sculpting the wall of the nebula by slowly eroding it away. Another young cluster may be hidden beneath a circle of brilliant blue gas at center, bottom.
In this approximately 100-light-year-wide fantasy-like landscape, dark towers of dust rise above a glowing wall of gases on the surface of the molecular cloud. The seahorse-shaped pillar at lower, right is approximately 20 light-years long, roughly four times the distance between our Sun and the nearest star, Alpha Centauri.
The region is in the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC), a satellite of our Milky Way galaxy. It is a fascinating laboratory for observing star-formation regions and their evolution. Dwarf galaxies like the LMC are considered to be the primitive building blocks of larger galaxies.
This representative color image was taken on August 10, 2008, with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2. Red shows emission from sulfur atoms, green from glowing hydrogen, and blue from glowing oxygen.

Jupiter

Ran across some stunning images of Jupiter and her moons on the Boston Globe web site today.

Funnel cloud

Crazy picture taken by a woman in Iowa during the recent storms. See more on the NYT blog.

Famous photos recreated with Legos

This guy has created a flickr set of photos recreating famous images from history (or recreating the scenes of famous photos and then photographing them). I picked this awesome shot of Diego Maradona's 'Hand of God' goal from the World Cup back in the day to illustrate, but there is more.

Haunting Beauty

Why is it that when we see extraordinarily strange things, we often describe them as beautiful? Im referring to those glowing organisms in the deep ocean or intricate flowers in the jungles (basically everything featured on Planet Earth). This is also true with humans as well, as the extremes of the human race - the worlds tallest, smallest, blackest and whitest people are consistently ranked on pop culture's ubiquitous benchmark of beauty.

Inanimate objects are subject to this too, in fact it was a series of extrodinary shots of one of the most peculiar buildings I've seen recently that got me thinking on this path.

I couldn't say it much better than the guys over at Pruned. So if you find the images striking, are interested in how they relate to the US Government's now defunct Safeguard program, the site's architectural influence and other musings, definitely read more here.

Also check the actual site visual on google maps.

Nano photography

This post harkens back to my very first blog entry and can serve as an update on some of the crazy cool visuals made by nanotechnology. Wired has the slide show here.