“To celebrate Youth Music’s 10th Birthday, 70 of the world’s greatest musicians and visual artists have created a groundbreaking body of collaborative artwork based on Rankin’s iconic portraits of musicians.
As part of National Youth Music Week 2009, Youth Music will take over Phillips De Pury London for a festival of art and live music featuring performances from Destroy artists.
Original works by Damien Hirst, Douglas Gordon, Debbie Harry, Michael Stipe, U2, Mat Collishaw, Marianne Faithfull and many others will be auctioned to support the UK’s biggest music charity for young people.”
View the Gallery to see the original Rankin photo and how it was ‘destroyed’ by another artist. I think students would enjoy a project like this by using celebrity photos from magazines or even taking and using photos of themselves, which a partner could then reinterpret. I may consider this when I do portrait painting with grade 6 students next semester.
This whole Rankin approach sounds similar to a portrait party.
I’ve been seeing a lot of good photo related stuff on the blogs that I subscribe to and they reminded me of this one, which I keep forgetting to post. Why not David Hockney yourself with Hockneyizer? It’s free.
I am really loving this little application and not just because it is free (download and install required). I’ve had it a while now but haven’t gotten around to using it. My loss. NameChanger is designed for the sole purpose of renaming a list of JPG files effortlessly. I love it to keep my photo library organised via titles, which makes it easier to do searches. Sure, iPhoto has a batch change option, but when I drag the photo to my desktop or send it as an attachment, it annoyingly reverts back to IMG3354.JPG. With NameChanger, I no longer have this problem. I was going to make my own tutorial but macintoshtipz has done a pretty good job. See it in action below.
As mentioned in his tutorial, it is better to change the name before importing into iPhoto. However, your camera may be set to import directly into iPhoto automatically. If so, create a folder on your desktop. Drag your photos from iPhoto into this folder, then delete the photos from iPhoto, NameChange them and re-import.
*Don’t forget to empty your trash from iPhoto. A lot of people don’t realise to do this!
Photojojo has Refractographs: How to Take Photos of Light Reflections. It looks simple enough and I may give it a try towards the end of the school year when both myself and my students have some extra time. It may be an easy way to introduce abstract art and finally, do some photography. It also looks easy enough for elementary children.
I wrote about tilt-shift before here. Another tool that I have had time to play with is TiltShift Generator. It’s easy to use, allows you to play with some of the adjustments and is web based (you can also download local versions onto your computer too if you wish). And yes, it also works on the iPhone. (BTW, my example below is not so good)
I have tried to use hugin, for stitching photos together to make panoramic ones, but found it a little frustrating. ArcSoft’s Panorama Maker 5 Pro is fantastic. The downside is that it is 79.99 USD. However, if you are cheap like me, you may have several of your photos already taken. Download the trial version and start stitching the photos together. It is very simple to use. For the image above, I used five photos.
You simply upload the photos and click next.
The photos are then processed…
…and then previewed to you.
All you have to do now is simply click ‘Save As.’
I must admit, I am now considering to purchase it. There is also DoubleTake for Mac (€17.95). Has anyone tried this one or know of others?
I love Animoto! I was importing several hundreds of holiday photos into my photo library about to make an Animoto video and thought I’d give Stupeflix a try.
Stupeflix is a “…web service that turns your pictures, videos, and text into professional videos.” It’s free but requires registration. To be honest, Animoto looks better but, Stupeflix also allows you to import video into the slideshow and allows more freedom with music and (dull looking) titles. It also lets you control and edit a little more unlike Animoto. Once created, viewers may freely download the video.
However, they do not offer embedding. Meaning, you would have to download the video and then upload it to YouTube etc. to share (they do allow emailing, Facebook & URL sharing though). It’s in beta mode now but if they add a few more slick transitions they may have a winner. You be the judge.
Two stumbles today. The first is on Daikichi Amano, a photographer who mixes the macabre, horror and manga through portraits. Then there is horror writer Koji Suzuki (author of Ring) who…
…has teamed up with a Japanese paper manufacturer to have his latest stomach-churning novella published in a very convenient form – on toilet paper. Story here.
Read only once? Buy your own multiple rolls? Not bad for approx 210 yen (2USD). 12 normal rolls would set you back between 250-400 yen here in Japan. Disposable book or proper recycling?
TiltVieweris a free, customizable 3D Flash image viewing application. Very cool.
Will Lion uses it to gather and present digital bytes (pictured below).
Select a photo and click the arrow. This flips the picture and shows relevant info. Click on “View image info” and it will bring you to the Flickr page.
Could be a very nice way to display student work or an alternative way to give presentations. Since I am on the topic, you may also be interested in CoolIris or DestroyFlickr.
View the Gallery to see the original Rankin photo and how it was ‘destroyed’ by another artist. I think students would enjoy a project like this by using celebrity photos from magazines or even taking and using photos of themselves, which a partner could then reinterpret. I may consider this when I do portrait painting with grade 6 students next semester.
