Likeability
Happy Friday
The one and only Augusta, my inimitable niece, as captured by Michelle Warren.
Hedi Slimane
Just came across these on Hedi Slimane’s photo diary (profiled with some of my fave pics of his back here)…
Mary & Leo
Don’t you hope you’ll be spending weekends as one half of a sweet pair like this when you get to their age? Mary and Leo, married 60 years, captured by famous wedding photographer Jose Villa.
Hockney
Vanity Fair: “The Top Ten Most Stunning French Actresses”
Not in their same order, as I’ve moved Audrey Tautou, star of my favorite movie (Amelie), to the top of the list, but here they are. Don’t French women just have a different quality than American women? Something more naturally, effortlessly enchanting?
Above, Audrey Tautou, according to VF, at her sexiest in in Coco Avant Chanel (2009), so good.
Brigitte Bardot, “” in God Created Women (1956).
Eva Green, “” The Dreamers (2003)
Emanuelle Beart, “” Manon des Sources (1986)
Marion Cotillard, “” La Vie en Rose (2007).
Jeanne Moreau, Elevator to the Gallows (1958).
Sophie Marceau, “” La Fille de d’Artignan tied with Beyond the Clouds
Catherine Deneuve, “”, Belle du Jour (1967).
Aissa Maiga, “” Bamako (2006).
Isabelle Adjani, “” Queen Margot
VF slideshow here.
Classics >> Elliot Erwitt
To jumpstart your weekend, a few photographs by Elliot Erwitt, whose images capture such a wonderful joie de vivre…
Here’s to a weekend of such moments…
Wonderment for your Monday
Loving this project…
French journalist, environmentalist, and photographer Yann Arthus Bertrand started an image bank called Altitude Agency, for which he commissioned and assembled over 500,000 aerial photographs of the earth.
Then, alongside UNESCO World Heritage, he gathered the most beautiful images into a project called The Earth From Above (la Terre vue de ciel).
This one is a shot of an underwater plant that is only visible
when a certain tide changes the water level in the Loire River.
These images were put into a book with the same name, and they were additionally shown in numerous free exhibits, in which the images were printed on giant posters and hung in public places like on the gates of the Luxembourg Gardens in Paris. I love that the public got to see them…
A wonderful reminder of how incredibly beautiful our world is…
“Real People” ad campaigns
Have you noticed this trend? I feel like I’m seeing it everywhere… brands asking blogger-photographers, as well as just normal photographers, to create ad campaigns of “real people” wearing their products.
There’s actually no reason “real people” should be in quotations, except that in the case of Tod’s and Cole Haan, if you’re wearing the shoes on a daily basis, you might be real, but you’re not exactly a plebian, so saying “real people” might overextend the point. So really, by “real,” I mean, non-actors/models.
Here, a Tod’s campaign by wonderful photographer Eliott Erwitt.
I feel like it’s a way of brands attempting to become more real and human to people. Like the idea of the Creative Director becoming the human face of a brand, or knowing the “story” of a company and its materials, knowing who the photographer is and who the subjects are makes you, as the buyer, feel somehow closer to the brand, like it is more accessible to you.
Instead of advertising images just appearing like magic on a magazine page, you have a sense of how the image was created, which makes it feel more authentic, and, as a result, leads you to feel that the ad is more believable.
For this Cole Haan campaign, the brand asked Todd Selby, of The Selby, to photograph people who inspire him wearing Cole Haan shoes.
Interesting the way this is bringing the whole photographer-blogger thing full circle, since I guess we wouldn’t have really known these photographers in the days before blogs.
Like Scott Schuman, for example, was already a fashion photographer, but now we know who he is, so now it’s like, “Oh look, these brands are using that photographer we like,” when really, they’re just capitalizing on the fact that we know who they are now by publicizing who the photographer is. It’s working out well for the photographers who have created blogs!!
The Americans
I seem to be going in themes this week… yesterday, “golden age,” and today, Americana. First L.L. Bean, and now this great exhibit…
Inspired by Robert Franks’ “The Americans” project from the 1950s, which I saw and thoroughly enjoyed at the Met in the fall, Brit Jacob Perlmutter set out to create his own version of a photographic journal of America as it is today.
He spent three months on the road, aiming to capture images that get beneath the surface of popular culture representations of the country, and these are the resulting photographs.
As he said, ‘I went to America with a set of images in my head and came back with another in my hand.’
Aren’t they amazing??
They really do read as being so honest, with a photojournalistic quality to them.
All images from Jacob Perlmutter website.
Unfortunately for those of us stateside, the exhibit will be in London. Hopefully it will come to the US at some point! If not, I’ve got my eye on the catalogue from the exhibit…
Discovered via Curated.
