Great New Artists

It is rare that one finds a stock photographer whose work displays artistry. But that’s just what Jason Hawkes’ aerial photography does. His website http://www.jasonhawkes.com showcases some of the best of his work including the London at Night series which were the first that caught my eye.  He has 25 books to his credit and is one of the most successful commercial aerial photographers in Europe but if his work looks familiar to you in the US you would be right because he has been commissioned for American Airlines, BP, Mobil and Nike among other international clients.

Many people are fascinated by aerial photography and after looking through a lot of books on the subject it is easy to start seeing the same images over and over but what is different about his work is his use of naturally occurring patterns in the scenes he photographs. He is great at using rows of boats, buildings and even breaking waves to create diagonal, vertical and horizontal compositions that vary throughout every photo he creates.

Particularly fascinating are his pictures of cityscapes. He doesn’t  just take a picture of a skyline from above or famous buildings (though there are plenty of those too) he finds the angles and shapes that are often over looked in this kind of photograph and emphasizes them. There’s no wonder he gets so much commissioned work as well.

This is an article I wrote for another blog that didn’t get published so I thought I would let it live here. :) 

 The Little Mermaid: A Comparative Review

By Whitney Moore

For a lot of people of my generation Disney’s The Little Mermaid was their first introduction to Mermaids. I was four when I was introduced to the concept and art surrounding the Mermaid myth when this movie came out. I cried when it was over. I didn’t want to leave that world and I suppose in some ways I still don’t. I still love the sea and sea creatures both real and fictional and I have even started a new series of paintings in my gallery based on the sea.

But what was it about this particular rendition of such an old and in some ways ancient story that affected me and so many others?

Disney’s version of The Little Mermaid is based on the story by Hans Christian Anderson written in 1836. In the Disney version Ariel is the little mermaid who dreams of a life on the surface because she can look up every day and see the light from above. She even goes up to the surface and sees a British Royal Navy ship one night furthering her desire to explore this strange land. But in the original story the Little Mermaid has no knowledge of the surface because she lives so far under the sea that even “church steeples piled one on top of another…” could not reach the bottom. Instead a mermaid has to be 15 years old before she is allowed to go to the surface and the original Little Mermaid has to listen to stories of the surface dwellers that her sisters tell her. So it seems that like everything Disney does The Little Mermaid was adapted to be more accessible to audiences and the artists working on the animation alike but this is not necessarily something to be held against Walt Disney.

It has become popular to say that Disney’s adaptations of classic stories is an abomination to the original writers but the vision of the Disney company has been to bring classic stories and ideas to the attention of new audiences. If anything the worst they can be accused of is getting children interested in literature. The Little Mermaid is a great example of this. The period costumes of the human characters and the songs that are reminiscent of 1950’s musicals are just two of the ways audiences can explore beyond the movie.

The encounter with the witch who gives her the legs is one of the most accurately portrayed parts of the story. In the film the classic deal with the devil is portrayed in the context of a creepy undersea cave inhabited by a large octopus who tells Ariel that she has a potion that will give her the legs she has always dreamed of but in return there is a price. In the original story the Little Mermaid has the most enchanting voice in the world and so Disney saw a perfect opportunity to give Ariel some of the best songs early in the movie. So it is truly a tragedy when this deal is done.

Overall I think this is a fitting reinterpretation of a classic story which will get children interested in this rich tradition of art and literature.

This was just crazy enough for me to love. Paleontology and art collide with artist Hyungkoo Lee whose work was featured in an exhibit in Basel, Switzerland (the land of my people) which runs through August 31st.

The South Korean born Lee uses Paleontology techniques to sculpt what the skeletons of cartoon characters may look like. Such renowned figures of Western pop culture as Bugs Bunny, Donald Duck, Tom and Jerry and Wyle E. Coyote are on display suspended from wires in poses typical of their environment in life (Tom is still unable to catch Jerry).

The stranger the better, rock on.

See the pictures at the Telegraph website. 

I know this is not exactly professional but: OMG cutest pictures ever!

And the most creative child photography I have seen in a long time. Of course I am talking about another German photographer (and also wondering how many there are that are this brilliant).

After years of not being able to find ANY new photography I like I have found two in the same week. This one I like for a totally different reason than the last. The series “Dreams of Flying” is one that everyone can relate to. All of the pictures are staged on the ground with Children posing as superheroes, divers and other fantasy characters and photographed from the air. It’s one thing to see a great photo manipulator make people look like they are flying or to stage someone as flying on wires but it’s a totally  different thing to see an artist use something so common (the ground) in such an uncommon and creative way. This series is a book but for me I can’t think of anything better than seeing these visions of dreams in my own fantasy playground–the computer screen.

His website is great too.

Funny name, great photography.

German born photographer Holger Pooten is one of the best new photographers I have seen in a long time. It is rare when I find photography (outside of fashion photography) that elicits emotion these days. Somehow he gets away with highly stylized fashion-esque photography in the realm of advertising. The best answer I can offer for this is that it’s because he works in London because you would never get away with that here.

His work explores objects and emotion as if they are one and the same. Including one picture which I found I related to particularly well of a girl sitting on the bed  looking at her laptop (guess where I’m writing this). His work is just as personal whether it is for his portfolio or for one of the high profile clients he has worked for. And who says you can only have a few pictures in your portfolio? His website has the most portfolio pieces I have ever seen for a photographer or a designer.

Plus he has given me my favorite quote: “When I need to find new ideas or topics I will take an afternoon off lie on the bed and let my mind wander around, asking myself questions like ‘what is your core interest in photography?’ or ‘why where you so impressed by this image you’ve seen 3 years ago?’ Normally after 3 hours, I have a lot of raw material that I can transform into shoots and there ideas normally stay with me for years, until I finally found the time to realize them.”

OK so obviously I’m being a little tongue in cheek with that title but I do think I’m pretty great. I thought since I am an artist why deprive myself of a little profile action in my own blog?

So where to begin? Well let’s start with why I like art: I have been studying art for as long as I can remember because I grew up with parents who were artists. Both my parents have music degrees and were music teachers before I was born. My mother was also a brilliant (well, is) painter in traditional media like acrylics and pastels. So I have had quite the number of years of training for someone my age. I started proper art school studying Visual Communications in 2005 (I will finish in Dec. 2008) which everyone assumes has something to do with sign language (it’s mostly graphic design).

I started studying acting in high school and have performed on stage in plays and concerts including last Christmas when I was in the choir at one of the Point of Grace Winter Wonderland shows in Greensboro, NC.

I have since focused my attention on being a freelance graphic designer full time including running my own online fashion design gallery Future Tense Fashion My homepage Future Tense features the fashion shop and an artist resources page which is always being updated with new links as well as the RSS feed of my other blog at Wordpress.com.

For now I am seeing where my art takes me and plan to start making and selling brushes and textures for Photoshop artists as well as adding a portfolio to my online website network. I also plan to travel to China next year with my church before studying for a Master’s Degree.

Great New Artists: David Lehre

When David Lehre moved out to California it looked like the quality of his short films would go downhill but they didn’t. David Lehre is a YouTube sensation the difference is in the way he got to that point. Almost overnight his first short “MySpace: The Movie” struck gold (and an audience). As he puts it he was just saying what everyone else was thinking. It was true then and it’s even truer today especially now that sites like MySpace and the problems of internet dating have come to the mainstream media’s attention.

David Lehre started out making movies in high school while he was still living with his parents in Detroit Michigan. While there he and three friends won four new cars by winning the My Entourage contest held by the makers of the hit show “Entourage.” Recently he was chosen to work on a TV pilot for Fox prompting him to move to LA to make films full time earlier this year (2008). He has made several TV appearances recently including Current TV and 20/20. He was also the actor who appeared as the Ashton Kutcher character in the Punk’d parody in “Epic Movie.”

David loves doing parodies besides “MySpace: The Movie” and the My Entourage contest he has done a parody of Rick Astley called “Rick Roll Remix 2008” and a parody of David Blaine called “Raven Blaine (David Blaine’s Brother)” and “Harry Potter’s Magic Wand” which had one of the more adult themes of his early work.  He has even done a parody of a song re-named “Squirrels Chase Squirrels.”

He has been working in the music industry by way of his filmmaking career producing a few high-quality serious music videos for independent bands and artists. These also have led to documentaries in the form of making-of videos to accompany not only the music videos but the filming of his TV pilot and even his trek across the country to LA.

His philosophy of filmmaking is exactly what many independent filmmakers envy: Make movies as quickly as possible with a group of people who just want to have fun learning about filmmaking. After your friends are out of film school with only two movies behind them you have a reel full of great shorts and clips and more short films than you could ever show if it weren’t for YouTube. And if you’re anything like David you also have a great music video, several making-ofs and a profile on Dateline about your small town success. In an age when technology is a 24/7 obsession with the average teen David Lehre is living the American dream.

Move Bounce Shake Music Video

Move Bounce Shake Making Of

Great New Artists is looking for new artists from all genres to participate in this blog. You can be an artist from any discipline including film (even actors), music, visual arts, writing or anything else you can think of to be profile subjects. Whether you have had your big break or no one has seen your art outside of your hamster’s cage we want to see your work.

Great New Artists is a blog which desires to showcase the new and exciting works of the contemporary art scene all over the world. I know you guys are doing some amazing work out there that no one has thought of before so show it off!

Just contact me, Whitney at missfishdesigns@yahoo.com or on MySpace or on The Outer Post just make sure you send a small sample of your work (this can be an attachment or a website address in the message) and include Great New Artists in the subject line.

I can’t wait to hear from you all!

XOXOXO

Graffiti Paris is the new photography book by Fabienne Grevy an art historian. This book chronicles the subject of Graffiti in the city of Paris in the most stylishly classic way that I have ever seen. It depicts examples on walls, staircases in train and bus stations and a variety of other locations around Paris.

Graffiti in Paris seems as ingrained into the heart of the Paris art world as Monet and the Louvre. The art shown in this book is different from the examples I have seen from America. These artists use stickers, posters, photocopies and a wide array of materials to create some amazing work.

Find it on Amazon

This may be the site that subconsciously influenced my idea for this series. I got into CoolHunting.com through their video podcast on iTunes. The big difference between them and me is that they don’t just focus on artists but they have anything that’s cool on their site. Products, exhibitions, artists, architecture (which frankly I can’t stand to write about), music, DJ’s etc.

I personally miss spending hours in my iTunes watching cool stuff but they have video on their site and it looks like they have abandoned iTunes in favor of YouTube which makes sense since RSS feeds for Podcasting is a lot harder and more time consuming.

This is probably the only blog you will see me recommend in my genre like this but since I don’t consider them competition (who am I to consider them competition to me? LOL) I thought it would be alright.

http://www.coolhunting.com