Self described surrealist photographer Kyle Thompson has been doing some very interesting work over the past year. He’s a really interesting case of someone simply creating incredible art and gaining exposure based on nothing more than his talent and hard work — and a little internet luck. I first saw his work on Reddit a while back (I know, it’s a veritable wasteland over there but once in a while some truly good things rise to the surface) and while conceptually it was pretty engaging, the execution just wasn’t there. Skip forward a bit and Kyle’s work popped up on again today. This guy has really progressed in a very short time. Check out his original submission and compare to his recent work. Night and day; I’ve seen people spend years traversing the space that separates these two galleries.
Fascinating BBC doc on history of recorded music featuring a whole lot of EMS synths including the Synthi 100 “Delaware” modular system (pictured below). Fun Fact: Years ago I had the opportunity to buy a Synthi 100 system in beautiful condition for a very reasonable price. For reasons I can’t explain now, I passed on it. Honestly, it would have been a nightmare to maintain and very impractical, but look at that thing. I still regret the decision every time I see a picture of a 100. These days my synth acquisition pace has slowed quite a bit, mostly just holding out for a Memorymoog LAMM and a Prophet 5, then I’ll be done.
Timothy Allen brought back some great shots of the abandoned Buzludzha monument in Bulgaria. As you can see from some of the before shots, this monument was quite a sight during it’s Communist heyday. I can’t imagine what it would be like to stand in front of an architectural and artistic work of this scale knowing it’s just sitting there rotting away.
Allen used a microlight to get the aerial shots, pretty amazing imagery and story.
Pope Saint Victor has quickly become one of my favorite photographers to watch. His tones and texture are so ell executed at times I find myself wondering whether he shoots with film or digital. He was recently in Uganda for the Blood:Water mission where he took these wonderful shots.
Incredible shots from Austin Mann taken with an iPhone 5. via Macspoilers:
Travel photographer Austin Mann recently purchased the iPhone 5 and took it for a field test in Iceland. Just as we thought, the camera is pretty awesome. Austin used the iPhone app Snapseed by Nik Software to edit them while others are the raw image. He puts the camera through low light tests that had minimal noise and produced clean jpegs. He also used the panorama mode to capture some of the beautiful mountains and rivers in amazing detail.
You know it’s a great time to be a photographer when a “phone” can create beautiful images like these. Of course, as they always say, it’s the photographer and not the camera… But I have a hard time believing Mann could have made these images with anything older than a 4S (and perhaps not even that phone). And my AT&T contract isn’t up until July! Oh well, will try and score a 5D in the meantime.
Tonight is the final show of the Tycho tour! We’re ending off with a bang at the Doug Fir and Jakub will be joining us playing a set as Heathered Pearls. To celebrate we’re giving away a pair of tickets to the show. Just drop a comment here or on the Tycho Facebook Page answering the following question: What was the name of the first Tycho release?
IMPORTANT: Only enter if you live near Portland and intend to go to the show tonight. Thanks and good luck!
Headed west! Rolled out of Bozeman, MT today — halfway to Seattle for the Ghostly Showcase at Decibel Fest this Saturday (9/29/12) with Matthew Dear and Lusine at Showbox. Going to be a great night, we have a 10K projector lined up so the visuals should be especially intense for this one. See you in Seattle!
I’ve been waiting for a long time for this show and it’s finally here. Wedsnesday will be the first Tycho show in Boulder, CO and we’re all really excited. So excited that I created a poster specifically for the show. This also marks the first time I’ve designed a print from start to finish on the road (been out here for a few weeks now). The show will be with The Album Leaf at The Fox Theater this Wednesday, September 26th, 2012. Details and tickets here, hope to see you out!
We’re in the home stretch of our Fall Tour with only a handful of dates left. This will likely be the last full Tycho tour for a while as I plan to head back to the studio to work on new material. Thanks to everyone who’s made this past year so special, we’ve had an incredible time travelling around seeing so many wonderful people and places. Hope to see you all again soon!
