Inspired by a recent episode of Roman Mars’ wonderful podcast 99% Invisible, I sought out a few images of WWI-era “dazzle” ship camouflage. Rather than blending a target with its surrounding colors and textures, dazzle (aka “razzle dazzle” or “dazzle painting”) deliberately caused ships to clash with the sea and sky, creating eye-aching shimmer effects and making it difficult to discern the craft’s direction, speed, and distance. The hope—and it was a hope, as dazzle inventor Norman Wilkinson’s theories were never properly proven—was that the bedazzle’d ships would so confuse enemy submarines that their torpedoes would never meet their mark. The nautical old guard, as one would expect, rejected Wilkinson’s sweetly cracked vision; the artists of the era’s burgeoning Cubist movement, however, were utterly delighted.
January is already gearing up to be a huge release month, Ducktails has moved onto Domino Recordings, Toro Y Moi is still on Carpark and A$AP Rocky debuts on a major. Probably one of the most exciting January’s for releases in years for indie.
Also, I attached a rework I did of Slowdive. Happy New Year!
In other news Jay-Z is scoring the Great Gatsby, all the baby boomers are probably thinking… “well when I die, I won’t miss the earth as much as I thought I would.”
UK born photographer Eliot Lee Hazel takes gritty and cinematic photographs that are well composed, stylish yet with a raw edge. His images are like fragments of dreams or stories told, triggering the brain to start associating. Hazel’s images can be compared to cliffhangers, raising more questions than answers. He has worked for various musicians like Morcheeba, Yeasayer and Basement Jaxx, to name a few.
We’ve entered a strange territory in photography, where the software benefits & ubiquity of a mobile operating system like Android, meet the hardware of a decent point and shoot. I’ve been testing the Samsung Galaxy Camera for the last month, so I figured I’d share a few thoughts.
A smart camera.
This is, first and foremost, a large point and shoot camera. As camera software goes, Android 4.1 Jelly Bean is a breath of fresh air. This is a huge win over any custom OS that attempts to reinvent the wheel. You can install any app available in the Google Play store, from Instagram to games to Wifi-tethering apps. The touchscreen is also amazing. It’s huge. With the camera app open, it makes every type of photo easy to see, frame & capture.
For a phone-less camera, it’s super connected.
Because it comes with GPS, Wifi & 3G connectivity, it makes sharing your photos while you’re on the road really easy. In fact, I’d call it a potential lifesaver. You can set it up to auto-upload to Dropbox or Google+, so if you lose your camera, you’ll still have your photos. Or you can use it to Skype the Icelandic police when you lock yourself out of your car at dusk, in a sand storm, in the middle of nowhere. True story.
Optical zoom is great. Photo quality is so-so.
At 16 megapixels, it outputs photos larger than what phones currently can, yes, but are they better? Not entirely. The lens and 21x optical zoom give you more versatility than a smartphone, but if you examine the photos below closely, you’ll see some JPEG compression and color fringing. For $500 bucks, it’s certainly not as good as you’d find in another equally priced point and shoot camera.
The camera comes pre-installed with the Photo Wizard editing app, which is sufficient for some, but you’ll probably want to install PicsPlay Pro if you want more control & full resolution exports. It’s the best Android photo editor I can find.
Awkward to hold when you type.
You’ll be using the touchscreen keyboard just as much as you would when operating your standard Android phone, which means you’ll want to hold the screen like a phone, which also means you’ll be holding a camera in a way it wasn’t meant to be held – lens to palm. Not ideal. Thankfully this one has an automatic lens cover.
A note for heavy Instagram users…
The zoom lens opens and extends every time you activate the camera, so if you’re indecisive like me when choosing a photo to post to Instagram, you’ll find the camera opens and closes repeatedly. One of those nobody saw it coming kind of things.
Overall
There are some usability & quality issues between hardware and software that need figuring out, but the Galaxy Camera is pretty killer considering all you can do with it (hat tip to Android). It’s more camera than smartphone, but when you consider portability, smartphones may still win in the end once smaller, mobile sensors catch up in quality.
The guys over at Dream Chimney are the guys that you imagine when you think of a group that has the vinyl collection people only dream about. So who better to go to for a mix when everyone else is making mix? these gentleman.
Shigeto recently returned the favor of a remix swap that Sun Glitters did from him for Lineage. The turn out is a housey feel good early night jam.
Always dreamy not matter if he’s sonically speedy through a song or touching down in the airy end, a great one from Lone.
This probably the least dark Grouper song we’ve heard in a while, still hazy still true to her sound.
Melody’s Echo Chamber is honestly the closest thing we’ll have to Stereolab and Broadcast, this should be up there with Tame Impala for great psychedelia in 2012.
