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Binyam Bikila
Handmade Portraits: Sharon Montrose
Photographer Sharon Montrose first picked up a camera in a high school photography class. During a time when most most adolescents are confused and searching for their true selves, Sharon had a passion and drive that gave her clarity: she knew she wanted to be a professional photographer. After a series of failed attempts doing head shots, weddings, and family portraits, she decided that she needed a break from photography in order to maintain her love for the medium. She grudgingly went back to waitressing.
It was around this time that everyone in Sharon’s family acquired a dog. Sharon started shooting portraits of these new additions and soon realized that she had finally found her ideal subject: animals. This was a new kind of challenge with considerably less control than shooting people. You can’t pose or style an animal: you just have to go with the moment and capture the best image they present.
This revelation led Sharon down the path toward commercial photography for pet food companies and industrial advertising, but she continued to conceive and style personal projects as a creative outlet.
At Etsy, Sharon found an audience for her work, as well as a community of like-minded people. Sharon prides herself on selling small prints of her fine art at affordable prices and hopes to continue this animal series as long as she can find new and interesting animals to shoot
Handmade Portraits: Nanopod
Tosca Hidalgo y Teran’s artwork comes from a place which we rarely dare to explore. Some would see it is dark and frightening, while others would view it as essential and primary. The theme of death often resounds, as demonstrated in her one of her first pieces, which functioned as time capsule, coffin and vessel. She brings her visions to life through glass blowing, flameworking, fusing, and glass casting.
Putting aside her dreams and inner turbulences, Tosca draws inspiration from a diverse range of sources: the fantastic visions of 19th century naturalist Ernst Haeckel, 21st centurytranshumanists, ancient myths, science fiction andBuckminster Fuller. She also finds inspiration in the confines of philosophy and science, as well as the book Art and Fear by David Bayles and Ted Orland. Music and sound function as accompaniment, and she creates a soundscape upon the completion of each piece, collaborating with her companion Andrei Gravelle (who made the music featured in this film).
INTO THE HASSELBLAD - PORTRAITS
Ever since Pendle was a boy he dreamed of owning a Hasselblad 500 series. He loved everything about the camera, even the square format. When He turned professional He couldn't afford one and it didn't suit the type of work He was doing.
In August 2009 Pendle played around with something called TTV photography, where you shoot through the viewfinder of an old vintage camera to give some cool results. He even wrote a blog about it here At the time Pendle also played around with creating a video through the viewfinder but just couldn't make it work due to light issues and reflection into the top.
Then a few weeks ago Pendle spotted an excellent film on vimeo called 'Paris Through Pentax' It immediately went viral and became a Vimeo Staff Pick as well. They wrote a blog about the film and it showed how they cut out the reflections into the viewfinder by using a black card. This gave Pendle the idea for this film.
He've taken this one step further in that and put a film into the Hasselblad. The shots you see here are digital scans of the negative film He used. So a perfect marriage of digital and traditional film.
In his cartoon movie, The Idea (1932), Berthold Bartosch personified the concept of idea by a naked woman. Idea and/or woman whom the dictatorships condemn but who survives those who dispute her and to those who die to defend her. Since a few years, womens assist the increasing use of nudity by women who claim their rights : movements as Pussy Riot, Femen, Free the Nipple, or Aliaa Elmahdy, while a rise of the conservatism continues. The nudity as vector of ideas, used outside the established erotic codes, calls out and still disturbs in 20th century.
Video Portraits aux nues
Typewritten Portraits
Álvaro Franca
In 2013 Álvaro Franca developed a methodology for creating grayscale images with the letters in a typewriter, he then made portraits of six of my favourite authors who worked on type writers. This video shows the process of typing out the portrait of american writer Jack Kerouac.
Shot with time lapse software on a smartphone.
500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art: Philip Scott Johnson
Another stunningly good morph piece! I'm sure even art historians would find informative things in those transitions. Very interesting segue from Nouveau to Abstract, for instance, one of many
Portraits of Sydney
Film about a street photographer, shoot during the Vivid Sydney light festival, with the Magic Lantern RAW video hack on 5D mark III.
Lens: 70-200 f2.8L, 50 f1.8mkII
Video Portraits by Danrubin
Bobby Anwar is an Instagram photographer who is travelling across Europe to portray the stories of local instagrammers on their own turf. He met up with Dan Rubin a London-based instagrammer who shares his passion about London and photography
Video Portraits by Timothy Ryan
A series of video portraits filmed with a Panasonic Lumix GH1 and the 20mm/f1.7 pancake lens. Edited with Adobe Premiere Pro. Graded with MBL. 720p60 slowed in post.
Music:
Ben Harper - Happy Everafter In Your Eyes
Heath Ledger asked Ben Harper to write a lullaby for his first child. This is the song that resulted.
Cool Hunting Video: Photobooth
Co-founder of Photobooth. Photobooth serves as both a retail space for classic camera gear, a gallery and most interesting a tintype portrait studio.
Portraits of Poverty: Reginold Beckford
"Poor doesn't necessarily mean, miserable."
Gary Knight, photographer and cofounder of the VII Photo Agency
Gary edited a short "portrait" about Reginold with some of the video Kristyn Ulanday and he shot for AmericanPoverty.Org Documentary.
The following is an excerpt about interviewing Reginold. It is from the blog he started writing during the filming process
"Today I looked a man with nothing in the eyes and listened as he told me he was happy. Maybe he thought he would would leave the shelter in two to three months, once his paperwork is worked out. Or maybe, deep down inside, he knew he would never see his birth certificate from Jamaica.
This would be his temporary home, forever.
He would pause often and look out the window, taking in a deep breath, as if the hardships of his life weighed down on his lungs. He had said as much as he could about the last question and was waiting for the next.
His face illuminated when I asked him about his daughter. She kicked him out of her place almost two years ago. They hadn’t talked, but he missed her. He was sent to the hospital to get evaluated for diabetes and was taken to the 4th or 5th floor—he couldn’t remember. As they were doing tests a nurse walked in. It was his daughter.
That is happiness. That is real.
What made you happy today?"
Handmade Portraits: Behida Dolić
Behida Dolic was raised by a community of crafters, kilim makers, and furniture builders in her small northern Bosnian village, but she found her passion in millinery. After studying at the San Francisco Art Institute, she landed in Hudson, New York , where she opened her own brick-and-mortar hat shop.
Handmade Portraits: Mabel Pike
With a deep-seated passion for beading, Tlingit Native elder Mabel Pike is dedicated to passing on the traditions of her clan's culture
Ristan Perich: Breathing Portraits
Breathing Portraits
Speakers with subaudible waveforms, capturing the movement of their subjects' breathing patterns during sleep
Portraits
Forrest MacCormack
A series of video portraits shot with the Canon 5D Mark II
shot in Raleigh, NC during late June, 2011
Camera and editing: Forrest MacCormack
Lenses: Canon EF 50 mm f/1.8
Canon EF 28mm f/1.8 USM
Mayfest Portraits 2011
wonderful people on a wonderful college day
Handmade Portraits: Wood Mosaics
Robin and Kathy Tucker of woodmosaics stopped working in town back in 1986. After Robin's intricate wood-inlayed work was featured in The Best of Missouri Hands catalog and commissioned by Ralston Purina, they were on their way to full time crafting. Influenced by Amish quilt patterns, Robin's excellent woodworking uses exotic natural woods that range from Satinwood from Sri Lanka to Purpleheart from Central and South America. All of the wood is completely natural, with only a clear finish added to punctuate the beauty of the wood's innate color.
Kolkata Portraits
Kolkata is the city of contradictions, at once both utterly romantic and terrible, this city defies explanation.
Part one in a series of video portraits on Kolkata India.
Shot on a canon 5d mark II with magic lantern, using a sigma 1.4 50mm and a canon 2.8 16-35.
Cropped to anamorphic 2.35 in Final Cut. Graded with Magic Bullet Looks.
Handmade Portraits: Greg Beauchamp
Greg Beauchamp’s peaceful demeanor and clear, shining eyes are striking to first behold. Living in Venice, California, he is known as an extraordinary advertising art director and conceptual artist, but if you ask Greg what he does, he will say that he makes simple things. “It is easy to decipher, when you keep it simple.”
With conviction, Greg remarks, “Creativity can solve anything. It can turn an idea into a gathering, a thought into a school, a life into motion.” Channeling his idealism, Greg highlights straight-forward, positive and loving messages in Xylene transfer prints for his Etsy shop, beauchamping.
NYC Stories: Portraits
Video & Music by Silent Portraits
This video was part of the initial content set developed to showcase a new LED display in Times Square, and it's ability to support rich color, high detail, full-frame video and animation in a unique portrait aspect ratio.
Portraits
Kieran Ball shots of his family and friends at annual Chinese new year party. worked pretty well on most people but completely loses it at some points when the movement is too pronounced.
Video Portraits” by Saam Farahmand - NOWNESS
Director Saam Farahmand captures his friends getting down to their favorite tunes in his ‘blue box’ as part of his ongoing project. This clip features New York-based writer Karley Sciortino who says, “His only real direction was, ‘Drink this glass of wine and do whatever you want.’”
veryone has a song they love to dance to. That universal truth was director Saam Farahmand’s starting point when he set out to capture his friends moving to their favorite tunes in his ongoing project Video Portraits. Farahmand dips into his personal rolodex for subjects—a wide ranging group including The Misshapes’ Geordon Nicol, artist Matthew Stone and Soulwax’s David Dewaele––then films them dancing in his "blue box." The resulting footage is projected onto a wall as he deejays. For today’s NOWNESS edit, Farahmand handpicked a sampling of ladies getting down that includes The Big Pink’s Akiko Matsuura and New York-based writer Karley Sciortino. “His only real direction was 'Drink this glass of wine and do whatever you want,'" says Sciortino. When not filming his friends, Farahmand shoots spots for commercial clients such as Guinness and Nokia, and music videos for the likes of Klaxons, Mark Ronson and The Business International, and Hercules and Love Affair.
Handmade Portraits: Brown Rice Family
In the year 2000, a Japanese student (Yuichi) met a Korean student (Joe) at the City College of New York, studying sound engineering. They were both musicians, interested in healthy food and healthy music that could lead to joyful living. For Yuichi, “you are what you eat,” and the better the food, the better you can produce and create. They decided to form a band called the Brown Rice Family, a world roots band who “delivers the message of unity and diversity to the people.” From Japan and Korea, they believed that the “most natural way is the most civilized way” and they gathered musicians from Haiti, South Africa, Nigeria, and Jamaica. Following the concept of “one world” music, their sound is a mix of reggae, ska, rock, African/Jamaican traditional drums, and dancehall. Sometimes they call themselves a “world roots band,” a reminder to the world that we are just one big family with a common “vibe.”
Handmade Portraits: StellarQuilts
Sometimes we encounter the most surprising individuals. Jimmy McBride, also known as Stellarquilts, was on a short visit to earth when we crossed his path. Jimmy spends his time transporting salt and vinegar from planet to planet, but his favorite pastime is creating and reveling in the comfort of quilts. These textile wonders reflect the cosmic landscape that float past his spaceship’s window: galaxies, nebulae, black holes — even the Milky Way. Jimmy has opened the pod bay door and invited us on an unbelievable voyage.
Handmade Portraits: USB Typewriter
When 25-year-old engineer Jack Zylkin came across a vintage typewriter left curbside for the dump, he couldn't allow such a spectacular machine to be trashed. After briefly displaying it on his mantelpiece, he decided try to put it to use, hauling it down to Hive76, a hackerspace he founded in downtown Philly. Their motto? "Make things awesome by making awesome things." Egged on by his tech-savvy buddies, Zylkin soon developed the USB Typewriter, a modified machine which leaves the typewriter looking, feeling, and working like a regular typewriter - attached to a contemporary computer. In his own words, his invention is "a groundbreaking advancement in the field of obsolescence." With this new gadget, Zylkin collides old technology with new, offering an authentic vintage typewriting experience combined with a modern computer's functionality and convenience.
Handmade Portraits: The Beerhorst Family
Wherever Rick and Brenda go with their six kids, they inspire curiosity. From un-schooling to art-making, it's life as usual for the Beerhorst clan
Silent Portraits 'Mama'
Video & Music by Silent Portraits
Portraits
Kieran Ball shots of his family and friends at annual Chinese new year party. worked pretty well on most people but completely loses it at some points when the movement is too pronounced.
THIS IS MY COURT.
This royal court of kings, this blood-stained ground,
This city cauldron, this throne of Mars,
This street sanctuary, and combat zone,
A fortress, inside a citadel, raised to stand,
Against adversaries, jesters, pretenders,
Against true players and those who merely come, to play.
This fighting pack, this world all its own,
This game of hours, dark nights, threatening dawns,
Which serves as refuge, home and shelter,
Or as a rampart defensive to the squall.
Against the tyranny of outcasts and outsiders -
This arena.
This battleground.
This square of dirt.
Give me my robe, put on my crown,
I have eternal longings to be king.
Handmade Portraits: Jason Tennant
Sculptor and painter Jason Tennant hunts through the woods of upstate New York for the materials and inspiration of his wild yet graceful pieces
Test Shoots
© 2014 by BINYAM BIKILA / BINYAM BIKILA PHOTOGRAPHY / ADDIS VIBE LONDON ENTERTAINMENT