The Mueck Exhibit at the Brooklyn Art Museum

by Erik Olsen on

Yesterday, I made way way rather randomly over to the Brooklyn Art Museum .We’d taken a nice walk through Prospect Park, delighting in the unseasonably warm weather, and there it was, the Art Museum, calling my name. It had been a while since I spent time looking at art…with the exception of seeing some stuff at Christie’s…and since there was a photography exhibit going on with the work of Annie Leibovitz I figured I’d check it out.

But in one of those lovely, unexpected turn of events, it turned out that, IMHO, the Liebowitz exhibit was crap, BUT another exhibit quite took my breath away.

That exhibit, by the sculptor Ron Mueck, was like nothing I’d ever seen. Mueck is famous …or at least known…for known for his extraordinarily lifelike, but often larger and/or smaller than life, renderings of his people who are almost all naked, with shriveled, snail-like members, and which are often placed in some state of utter misery, loneliness, desolating, abandon. There were just a few of these sculptures on hand at the museum, but lifelike is an understatement. I swear to you these works of art were breathing. I swear to you they were watching me. It was amazing, and I highly recommend you check out these odd, but exhilarating works.

If, you live in or are visiting Brooklyn, that is.

Photo of the Day (11/12/2006)

by Erik Olsen on

Today’s Photo of the Day is one that I probably should have left for Neil to select because he actually lived in Dublin for a while. But too bad. It’s mine. It’s a simple concept, and one I’ve seen before in various posters you can buy (even in Dublin). It’s a sequence of colorful doors, in this case of Dublin homes, but despite its simplicity, I really like it.

The array of colors, especially the orange one, is quite mesmerizing. And as a nice touch, the photographer, Mister Rad, left some people in one of the shots. I imagine that the facades of these homes are all quite similar, and so the people who live in them sought to use the color of their doors to differentiate the homes in the neighborhood. Just my suspicion, but cool whatever the case.

Cinematical Reviews A Good Year

by Erik Olsen on

I am a devoted, passionate fan of Ridley Scott’s films. Sorry to say, but like many guys, I have watched Gladiator, oh, probably 10-15 times. I can’t say why exactly I so love this film, other than the fact that there is something about it that is very stirring to my genetic heritage with it’s scenes of vigorous carnage and dudes battling it out with spears, clubs and all manner of killing instruments.

There is also a heart-lifting underdog theme in the film that just makes me all giddy. But that aside, it seems as though my favorite director has got a new film out based on, of all things, a Peter Mayle novel. Sounds squishy, doesn’t it? Well, according to this fine review of the new film, called A Good Year, over at Cinematical, it is squishy. The film is about some hard-driving stock-broker who has to choose between the vigorous city life of London and a mega-bucks career and the possibility of living the easy life (and running a vineyard) in Provence (Mayle’s familiar territory).

Definitely NOT your typical Ridley Scott fare. As Cinematical puts in “A Good Year seems a little too delicate a soufflé for Scott, who seems to be more of a meat-and-potatoes director.” OK, fine. But does that mean you shouldn’t see it? Well, the film does star Russell Crowe, so even if its a big soft around the mid-section, it probably still worth it.

Photo Tips

by Erik Olsen on

If there’s one thing most every person brings with them when they travel these days, it’s a digital camera. Sure, there are some oddball holdouts, people who still use film, but most of us have not just graduated to digital, but to mega-mega-pixel video.

Of course, that being said, how many people with these fabulous, no-brainer new cameras actually know how to use them? If you take a trip around Flickr (excepting the Gadling Flickr site, of course, which features prodigious talents ;-)) you see that there are a LOT of amateur shooters out there, people who just pint and shoot without much concern for composition or depth of field .that’s fine. Shoot and be happy. I’m all for it. But if you want the best pics possible, the fact is you have to work at it. All of which brings me to a couple of sites that might help you take better pictures.

First of all, Photosecrets offers tips for all sorts of travel photogs from how to get the beset shots to how to get your pictures into the hands of stock photo sites, a potentially lucrative avenue, though one that is very competitive.

Here is a brief list from about.com with links to tips like how to turn day into night and how to use Photoshop (a no-no with many mags and newspapers, tho)

Photographytips offers articles on how to understand light and how to make the best use of your flash…something many people do NOT do.

Finally, if you want to shoot like a master, you should heed the advice of the masters, and there is no better resource for shooting great photos than National Geographic. Nat Geo has put together a superb site helping you learn the techniques that Nat Geo photographers have employed to craft some of the most memorable photos of all time.

And if you are interested in taking a trip with the explicit purpose of learning how to shoot, take a look at this piece over at Frommer’s which offers a list of trips and companies that take people on photo safaris. Heading out with actual travel photographers who know what they’re doing is a great way to get some real experience with your camera.

Happy shooting!

Best Mountain Photos Banff

by Erik Olsen on

Man, we love great photography here. A picture is definitely worth a thousand words, and sometimes a thousand bucks. And every year in Banff, they choose some of the best shots made in the year from far off and distant lands and they are given the prestigious Banff Mountain Photographs award. This year’s crop of winners ranges from the high mountains of Canada to the rusty rocks of Wyoming. It is a superb collection of impressive, inspiring pictures.