I like this picture, it reminds me of something.

I was looking for some vintage stock photos today and came across a group on Flickr with a focus on collage imagery. You have to join the group to view/download the images. Within the group you can view the vintage tagged photos. As always, make sure you read the copyrights for the images as each photographer has their own terms of use. Most all the images are free for personal and commercial use; however, you cannot repost the images on your website for download or sale.

Another good resource is the How to find images on the internet post.

Some logo concepts I was working on recently

This was shot from a car in upstate New York this past winter. I kinda wish it was snowing now instead of the dumb humidity we have going on today. Need to crank out the air conditioners in our second floor office. Yuck!

We was up on a mountain.

This is when shit started to get pretty hairy.

Now this was the inevitable whiteout we drove through that day.

Finally the day broke through and it stopped snowing. The clouds looked pretty cool.

Every night she comes
To take me out to dreamland
When I’m with her, I’m the richest
Man in the town
She’s a rose, she’s the pearl
She’s the spin on my world
All the stars make their wishes on her eyes
She’s my Coney Island Baby
She’s my Coney Island Girl
She’s a princess in a red dress
She’s the moon in the mist to me
She’s my Coney Island Baby
She’s my Coney Island Girl
Tom Waits

As the summer has finally come the thoughts of amusement parks and getting outside for some adventures is always exciting. I saw an old rerun of the show Artstar that featured Steve Powers who paint signs at Coney Island for free to preserve the integrity of sign painting and history it has had there. It made me think of Tom Waits, who we’re going to see in Jacksonville, FL in July.

Powers started his sign painting quest in 2003, so it’s not something new - you can read the New York Times article that covered it, Flash, Dash and Now, Art. Also, visit Powers’ Gallery and check out his showcase.

I rounded some images of hand painted signs from flickr, click on a photo to jump to that photographer’s page. More photos after the jump.

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As a follow up to our previous post, 1/6 World; Going Down in History: This American Life, we revisited Mark, his characters and the world he created to share his work with others. Some of the images are Mark’s photographs, some are just frames from the video. Note that some of the imagery is violent.

UPDATE: Since we discovered that the name used in the show was altered, we found that Mark does share his photography with other 1/6th scale action figure enthusiasts. You can find his work, photos and descriptions of the work, on this site, The Ultimate Soldier. You’ll have to search through the photos for hogie309 to find his work, but there’s also plenty of other cool photographs from other artists as well to check out. Also a quick google search provided links to galleries and events that he has participated in. - Nicole

Click on a thumb to view detail — there are more images after the jump.

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This was a collaborative design effort between Nicole and I. It’s kind of a day and night motif. I dig the final result; and they look nice printed too. Check out Kathy’s music on myspace.

We are fans of This American Life. Last night we watched a new episode with the theme “going down in history.” Each episode has a few different stories all with the same theme. This episode showcased high school year book photographs, two inmates who tried to escape from prison using a dental floss rope, and a man who recreated WWII fantasy scenarios at 1/6 scale. This is a man who I cannot find any publication about; who creates stunning scale models. This man is an artist. His name is apparently Mark Hogancamp.

This man was severely beaten by a group of men outside a bar which left him with brain damage. His photographs were then taken as revenge plots against the men who had beaten him. Using 1/6 scale WWII model action figures he would live out his fantasies. He would use bright red nail polish for blood. He would fantasize with action figures in his own little 1/6 scale town that he built in his backyard. There were bars, houses, stores and roads; all with lights and perfectly to scale. His photographs are amazing. He would re-create fantasy love interests in a model home using an action figure that surprising looked just like him. He explained how the women with green hair from the future would visit him and would snap soldiers necks for him; showing how much she loved him. The photographs were amazing. The construction and detail is impeccable. This man is alone living through these fake action figures. He talks to no one and lives in a small mobile home spending all of his time in the 1/6 world that he created.

I wish I could find information about this man. I wish I could see more of his photographs taken with a small cheap consumer camera. I wish I could hear him talk about his photographs.

All I was able to find were these two sentences. “The second profiles a man who, after a brain injury resulting from a vicious beating, turns to World War II re-creations using scale models, incorporating revenge fantasies that he discusses freely. It’s a sad story, and as powerful as almost anything I’ve heard in years of listening to - and now watching, with growing admiration” - “This American Life.”

UPDATE: We collected images and put them in a new post, Mark Hogancamp Photos. Thanks Jim for the corrected name and we appreciate the info you’ve provided, especially since it seems the This American Life really edited his story to appear much different. I think it’s great that he shares his photography somewhere and I look forward to finding more out about the 1/6th action figure community. - Nicole

…and why did you block your number?

California Supreme Court overturns gay marriage ban

Congrats California - one small step to equality for all… now we just need the rest of the states to follow suit and stop discriminating against same sex marriages. I know my girl Mary is overjoyed; you can help support her in the Maryland area by visiting Maryland Equality and getting involved.

Jerry Falwell died last year, and for most people it was a good thing. His sermons were subversive and often spoke out against homosexuals, feminists, pagans, and anyone else that didn’t fit in with his religious views as the factors for a deteriorating American society. You know that people like him exist, but why is it that the most ignorant and hateful people get the most attention and those sharing peace and love are so easily written off?

Recently Falwell’s sons, Johnathan and Jerry Jr., have been in the news since they have continued the tradition of being ministers and preaching to their congregations. Although they have extreme pressure to live up to their dad’s legacy, we can only hope that they fail miserably in continuing a tradition of spreading hate and ignorance.

The news buzz reminded me of this great songwriter, Frank Hoier, and his performance of “The Death of Jerry Falwell.” Watch the video and then check out Frank’s myspace page through the link above.

I know I shouldn’t be so glad that someone’s dead
I know that man was as dangerous as a half a loaf of wonder bread
But when you use your time on our beautiful earth
To preach of what a person’s worth
By who they love or how they pray
Then I will view your final day
As a victory in the battle for truth, and
I’ll sing hallelujah Jerry Falwell’s on that black train
and rides in the caboose
Frank Hoier

Hilo Chen was born in 1942 in Taiwan and moved to New York in 1968 after living in Paris. This series of paintings depicts beautiful women sun bathing on the beach. Yes, I said paintings! It’s amazing how he captures the photo realistic details like water droplets and lighting of the skin. His work is represented by the Benarducci Meisel Gallery. Click the read more link to see the rest of the paintings - note that the images after the jump contain nudity.

Hilo Chen, “Beach 149″ 2005, oil on canvas, 36 x 48

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These are some boards from a project I worked on for Hamilton Watches. It’s an in-store installation that loops. It’s about a minute and a half and I’m quite happy with the results. I used Trapcodes Form to generate some cool lines that sort of look like watch bands.

Click on image to see the details.

But still rocks out like a motherfucker. Walk it off deaner. Walk it off.

Via brownie troop :

Well, turns out that Ween Europe 2008 isn’t that much different than any of the other Ween European tours. After our set at the ATP Festival the other night in England, we were hanging out with the Meat Puppets on the festival site. Read the rest of this entry »

A rough thought exercise in understanding relational wealth:

The average poor citizen of the Third World earns $730 per year.

Working poor Americans make about $16,000 per year, or could eat almost 22 third-worlders (although you wouldn’t know it from life-expectancy).

Middle class Americans make about $57,000, eating about 3.5 working poor, or 78 third-worlders.

Upper class Americans make about $500,000, eating almost 9 middle-class, or 31 working poor, or 685 third-worlders.

Bill Gates is worth about $58,000,000,000, eating about 116,000 upper-class citizens, or a little more than a million middle-class, or 3.6 million working poor, or 79.45 million third-worlders.

John D. Rockefeller, at his height, adjusted for 2007 dollars, was worth over $318,000,000,000, eating 5.5 Bill Gates, or 636,000 upper-class Americans, or 5.58 million middle-class, or 19.88 million working poor, or 435.6 million third-worlders.

That’s a lot of tasty tasty third-worlders.

okay, maybe not.

this is how I like my photos to look.

found this concept on a fellow mographers website. Pretty funny if you ask me.

Check out this nice collection of advertisements from back in the day. Some great stuff in here.

Egg-cellent

Yay for bacon!

Haley rocking out - the lower left shutter didn’t open, I wonder how cool the shot was…

These are some recent photos with our ActionSampler camera. I forgot what a pain in the ass film can be - mainly because I took the roll to CVS and they didn’t print all my photos, or they did, and then they threw out all the cool prints. Next time I’ll have to explain to them that I DO want the half light exposed color shifted mess that they would normally throw in the trash. I scanned these in on a regular flatbed but I’m probably going to get a film scanner with the slide attachments - then I’ll be able to hopefully pull some of the shots that didn’t get printed.

I hate bees. They really freak me out and I’m paranoid about being stung if I see one. Although annoying, not nearly as scary as hornets and wasps. At least when the bee decides to sting you it’s volunteering its life to save the nest or whatever. Hornets and wasps are just evil - we had one in the house a few days ago and thankfully Haley killed it before it started flying around and causing me to freak out.

But on a larger scale, bees are necessary for all the delicious fruits that we enjoy. And they’re disappearing, fast. It’s been in the news and scientists have issued their warnings, but most recently Häagen Dazs has stepped up and produced a website calling attention to the issue. Help the Honeybees - a cute interactive flash site that aims to highlight the fact that without bees, there will be no naturally flavored ice cream. It’s sad that it’s going to take that type of public awareness for a change in thinking about our environment, but it’s not really that surprising. We look to the media and advertising to keep us informed about what we should care about and it’s about time that they take a greater social conscious into consideration. Burt’s Bees has also put together some good information on the Colony Collapse Disorder and they’re helping to fund The Honeybee Health Improvement Project.

These sites have a lot of information about what you can do to get involved, but on a very basic level you can start by planting flowers and garden plants that bees like. You can see the Dummies Guide to Planting Flowers for Your Bees for details.