Subway Art Crime

I love photography, graffiti (if it's artful) and trains so I bought a book about graffiti (see below) and it's great. There's lots of graffiti near train stations (see image above), adding to the train station lure. I wish I had the idea first to write this book.

The only graffiti artist with whom I'm familiar is Keith Herring. The book Graffiti World introduces readers to many of the greats of art crime.

Here's a Publisher's Weekly quote about the book: "The work is beautifully photographed throughout; multiple pieces by each artist are laid out appealingly over verso-recto spreads, along with a paragraph by Granz detailing the artist's origins and the main thrust of the work (and occasionally a photo of the artist him or herself)."

By the way, I took the photograph above in a Rome train station.

La Concha Motel Sign is a Wreck

I've been photographing signs for years. Many of the signs that I have photographed have either been torn down or a total wreck. I took this picture of the La Concha Motel sign about 6 years ago. Today the sign is a sight for sore eyes, still there but barely recognizable.

The motel itself was made up of four swooping shells below which contained floor to ceiling glass.

The motel was designed by Paul Williams, the first African American member of the American Institute of Architects. His work included more than 3000 buildings including million dollar estates for Frank Sinatra, Lucille Ball and Zsa Zsa Gabor.

Photo Sets Review

Photo Sets

Photo sets are one of the most important elements in photography. You can match photos in many ways. Here are some that I've posted before:

Sequence sets

Color and Object Placement

Color (Red)

Color (Yellow)

Protest

Old Photos

Night

Fox Television Network Makes Hall of Shame

Usually I post a photo that I personally have taken on this blog. Today I offer, instead an exception and bring you an outstanding piece of art, Noah Kalina's photo-a-day video. A parody of the video was shown in a Simpson's episode, which Fox produces.

I say pay the guy a dollar for each YouTube visitor he's had watch the video. If that were the settlement, he'd have made (as of today) $8,403,548.

Now, if Noah's video isn't a picture of himself each day for the past six years (say, he took 30 pictures the same day and posed those as a photo a day several times throughout the project), then he should have to be put in PopPhoto's Hall of Shame.

Thanks to PopPhoto Hall of Shame for this delicious information.

Napo Lodge in Amazon offers Misty View

Photo looks like a painting because of the 1/100 shutter speed, letting color and haze soak into the picture.

Napo Lodge in the Napo Wildlife Center is sheer heaven from the food in the open dining area to the observation tower where you can see abundant wildlife.

There are ten cabins in the lodge, each secluded from the other and all having a view of a beautiful lake.

The entire facility is eco-friendly and includes every amenity you can think of--nets over the beds to keep bugs out, overhead fans, porches with hammocks, outstanding meals and a great library.

The guides that work here are ultra-accommodating and super-nice.

The picture above was taken from the top of the hill of the lodge at 1/100 second shutter speed, a long enough shutter speed to take in the moist haze and Amazon color to make the image look like a painting.

Check out my other post about traveling to the Wildlife Center. All the info about it is there.

Shanghai Bridge

Shot at f/11, 1/800 sec, ISO 400

This is the Nanpu Bridge, which links Puxi to Pudong. You can see the bridge on this map.

Here's some stats on the bridge:

* kind-cable-stayed bridge
* length-5.185 miles
* height-492 feet (150 m).
* designers-Shanghai Municipal Engineering Design Institute and Buckland & Taylor Ltd. * traffic 1991-15,000 to 17,000 vehicles/day
* traffic 2006-120,000 vehicles/day.

Believe it or not, I took this image from a moving taxi. As you get on the bridge the road goes in a circle. I kept snapping my camera till I got a good shot.

Smiling

Thought this sign from Japan was amusing, maybe something to do some creative mind-tripping with. Hmmm, should I make generalizations, use a little linguistic thinking?

There's a part of linguistics called kinesics, which is nothing more than body language.

In Japan they bow; they also don't smile as much as Americans do. My best guess about why they included the English word "smile" on this sign is that they wanted to do something "American," something brash and daring.

People in Japan don't always smile when they're happy. Sometimes they smile when they are covering up shame to save face. Saving face is very important in Japan. People there just don't like to lose their dignity, especially in public.