I’ve seen some of this footage before but never heard the commentary. The narrators go into some really interesting detail on the tech involved in capturing the film footage of Shuttle launches. Most of the footage is for review purposes but some is purely documentary. All of the footage is beautiful though. It amazed me that they still used film all the way up until the end of the Shuttle program. They’re also shooting at higher frame rates so you get some great slow motion in there.
The lenses used range all the way up to a 4000mm, 250lb., catadioptric for the medium range tracking system. The Shuttle program was undoubtedly one of the greatest technical achievements humankind will ever produce (and I’m guessing the last of it’s scale), so I suppose it’s fitting that it was documented with a 100+ camera array of some of the most sophisticated optics available.
This was part of a DVD put together detailing some of the best footage from the later Shuttle launches.
NASA has a great collection of historical photographs detailing their exploits over the years. Break out your Epsons and clean up your source imagery folder, these are all high-res and downloadable. Your tax dollars at work.
You may recall the post I did a while back on Daily Book Graphics. Well apparently I misidentified several of those images as vintage covers when in fact they were modern works by designer Julian Montague who is part of the Buffalo based design duo Frazer / Montague.
When I first saw the Icon 4×4 CJ series a while back I was temped to post but never got around to it. Seeing their new 1964 Bronco reproduction tipped the balance though and I had to get these up here. Icon create idealized versions of a few of the great 4×4 of yore (Bronco, CJ, and FJ) with a modern slant and an eye for detail. Don’t ask how much they cost unless you’re reading this on the front deck of a yacht or all your emails end with “Sent from a horse”. Nike was somehow involved. Also, you get a free shoe with one of them apparently.
More pics and some insight into the process of designing the Bronco can be found here
So I came across this great collection of vinatge ski posters a while back, but unfortunately they were all watermarked. I really hate watermarks and try to avoid posting images containing them at all costs; but these were just too good to pass up so you’ll have to try and see past the giant “ORIGINAL SKI POSTERS” and enjoy the underlying greatness. Growing up in Sacramento I always had a thing for 70s ski culture — Tahoe was a short drive up the mountain and a lot of the style and imagery tricked down into the valley. A lot of these perfectly capture the spirit of those times for me.
So, as you may have guessed, these are all from the Original Ski Posters site, where you can purchase many of them. Sadly, these watermarked Jpegs are as close as most of us will ever get to these as they start at around £500 and go upwards of £3000. there is an open image directory here where you can grab all the images with a utility like Downthemall. A couple seem ripe for watermark removal and some of the resolutions are high enough to get a good print out of.
Some vintage WWII / 40’s era Kodachromes. Always amazed at the color and detail of these. Images like these are a stark illustration of the limits of technology. Or at least of what we consider technological progress. True, photography has become more convenient and cost effective, increasing availability and enabling more people to participate. I think on the whole this is worth the cost of the death of film. But the sad truth is that the kinds of images you see above are a dying breed. In fact, I have not personally seen anything approaching this kind of quality come out recently (please correct me if I’m wrong, I’d love to see people doing stuff like this currently).
Although these shots are all beautiful, they don’t hold a candle to William Eggelston’s brilliant work which occupies the same kind of color space in my mind.
On a side note, I just got to Barcelona! One of my favorite cities, so happy to be able to relax here for a few days after our long European tour.
To cap off our European tour, our friends at Miscelanea in Barcelona will be hosting us for a small show this Thursday (1-3-12). Only 80 spots available! We’ll have a lot of poster prints and Tycho vinyl there as well. Hope to see you there…
This promises to be the most visually stunning film of our generation. Panos Cosmatos‘ new film, Beyond The Black Rainbow, feels like the best possible conglomeration of 2001, Electroma, and A Clockwork Orange. Can’t remember being this excited about a movie in a long time, hopefully it will make up for the huge letdown that was Tron.
Posted this from the Airport in San Francisco en route to Amsterdam or start of Tycho European Tour; would have been nice to have this to watch on the plane…
