Giancarlo Mori | Blog

Photoshop iPhone App

If you have an iPhone and find its camera software limited (I do) try Photoshop for the iPhone. Crop, rotate, flip, color adjust, convert to B&W, add blur, vignette, and more in your iPhone. On the fly. For free. And it has built-in sharing with am existing Photoshop.com account. Learn more and try it at: mobile.photoshop.com/iphone.

LACMA Reading Room Online

LACMA has just created an online portal for its extensive collection of exhibition catalogs from the past. On Jan 25th the first set of electronic catalogs was put online in a dedicated section of lacma.org.

Check it our here, and read about it at UNFRAMED, the museum blog.

The Legacy and Return of Eero Saarinen

Time Magazine honors Eero Saarinen, one of my favorite architects this week. You can read the article here and watch a video by Time art critic ... Lacayo here.

The elegance and beauty of Saarinen's work is a testament to the grace and boldness of great architecture.

   

 
   Here is the Ingalls Ice Rink at Yale University (© Hely-Hutchinson for TIME)

Iannis Xenakis - The Mathematics of Beauty

Does beauty respond to mathematical rules? Is there an mathematical pattern to what we find esthetically pleasing? I think so. My interest in abstract forms is purely visual (my current photographic project centers on the abstract visual qualities of natural forms; more on this soon...) but I have been interested in artists and thinkers who have attempted to quantify that regularity in mathematical terms for a long time.

Iannis Xenakis was one such thinker and artist. As an engineer, a musician, an architect, and a mathematician, he explored the underlying patterns of beauty and worked with giants like Le Corbusier and Messianen. Now an exhibition of over 60 works on paper by Xenakis including sketches, architectural drawings, and mathematical notations is open at the Drawing Center in SoHo with the title: Iannis Xenakis: Composer, Architect, Visionary from Jan 15 till Apr 8.

Art in America has an interesting piece on it: The Mathematical Mind of Iannis Xenakis by Brienne Walsh. Synthetic and mainly historical in its approach, but worth reading.

   

 
   Iannis Xenakis in Paris, around 1970.

      A sketch by Xenakis from The Drawings Center's show.

The Independent Photo Book

If you like photo books as much as I do, or even if you're just serious about photography, check out The Independent Photo Book blog. A new creature of Joerg Colberg's (of Conscientious fame) and Hester's of Mrs Deane, the blog presents new independently published photo books and zines not available through the the commercial book circuit (including online stores.)

Visit it often. It's well worth your time if you want to  stay current about photo books' evolution. Innovation will likely come from some of these independent producers.

WestPrize 2010

The WestPrize 2010 winners were announced last week. Very eclectic and original choices... none I truly feel drawn to.

Congratulations to the winners: David Almeida, Miyo Yoshida, Ryan McLennan, Revital Falke, Nathalie Alony, Leah Bailis, Sarah Kabot, Kevin Cyr, Julie Weitz, Sharon Levy. See their work Prize's website at:

http://www.westcollection.org/West_Collection/Home.html

Note that while I was an entrant of the 2010 Prize, I like to think that the result are not affecting my views.

Marketing On The Social Web - The 5 C's

More on the subject of marketing in the age of social media... From Mike Fruchter, Director of Digital Strategy at Pierson Grant Public Relations and host of the Social Media Marketing blog,  the 5 C's of social marketing:

"The foundation and core of what social media is, consists of the five C’s. Conversation, community, commenting, collaboration and contribution. These are the five fundamentals that companies and marketers must understand to be able to successfully market on the social web."  (Mike Fruchter)

The full post is worth reading (here.) It touches on how social media, Facebook, Twitter, etc. can help brand building and self promotion, but also their rules of engagement.

I am still learning about it all, digesting it, and trying to reconcile the time spent on making art (where I really want to be) with promoting it (where I know I need to be more), but this has "inevitable" written all over it...

PhotoShelter Report: Photographers and Social Media

PhotoShelter has a very interesting (free) report on their site about social media for photographers. A bit long (55 pages) but definitely worth the read.

Key Topics:

• make the most of Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and blogs
• unlock new marketing opportunities
• learn from others' success
• use metrics to optimize and get results.

Enjoy and share.

Note: I have no business or personal connection with PhotoShelter.

 
 

Photo LA

Last week, from Jan 14th to the 17th, the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, downtown Santa Monica, hosted the XIX Annual Photo LA. You can peruse the official site here. 

Others have written about all of the surrounding events, from seminars on collecting to lectures with star photographers, and portfolio reviews (a few links at the bottom of this post.) As a photographer, I was interested in spotting trends in the market, and and these are my quick impressions from that angle...

Right from the start the event felt smaller. The venue is cozy, lacking the sprawling feel of previous editions... the sense of an industry in crisis was tangible from the beginning. The general sense - and others have picked up the same scent - was one of a more introspective Photo LA: B&W was prevalent, both in contemporary works as well as in classic/vernacular ones, and missing where the walls after walls of the very large color photographs that we have seen in the past as the staple of the event. There were a few exceptions, interestingly many of them from abroad, but most boots were showing smaller prints, classically in feel, classically framed, some of them impersonally classically composed and inspired too.

I for one, was happy to see such a reversal of trend. The end of the ubiquitous monumental color print's age is not one I will decry.

A few other Photo LA 2010 reports and commentaries (more coming soon...)

@ LensScratch

@ The Onine Photographer