Now that all the fanfare surrounding this article has all but died down, I think it’s apt to discuss one of the reasons why it was able to gain such a crazy amount of momentum – the cover. Of course I’m completely biased but I think this is one of the freshest images to hit the stands in recent memory. Designed by Brazilian graphic artist Pedro Inoue, the cover’s stark aesthetic instantly distinguishes it from the surrounding design-puke of your average magazine rack, while the portrait communicates an unnerving, but attractive blankness. The man responsible for this vision of the hipster-christ is German photographer Olaf Blecker, master portraitist and pioneer of the “raw” approach. He did a great interview with The F-Stop in which he states:
There is no general message. I work as an amplifier. Often I will not know much about the person I am shooting. I have a photographer friend who does a lot of research, but I think, ‘Why should I read anything?’ I have antennas. I feel it anyway. They just have to sit there. I think everybody has these antennas. In German you would say, menschdenken, which is the knowledge of man. Some people say I’m a little bit beastly. Not evil. I think evil is too much. Some people say I’m not nice to people. I don’t want to be nice. I was told that everyone was talking about who they would want to be photographed by at my agency in New York. One person instantly said, ‘Not by Olaf Blecker’. I think that’s quite funny. I don’t take it personally. Many people don’t like themselves in my images. I admit, I wouldn’t like to see myself like that. It’s not beautiful. I am good at making people more intense, but I’m not good into making them look beautiful. It’s not my goal to make people as beautiful as possible.
Some examples of his work after the jump…
Lyle Owerko, a Canadian photographer/filmmaker currently working out of Tribeca, has some very nice shots of boomboxes over at his portfolio site. Famous for his timely photographs of a disintegrating World Trade Center on 9/11, Owerko’s “The BoomBox Project” delineates the much-celebrated portable soundsystem format as a tool of cultural revolution and a “symbol of rebellion”. (more…)
Filed under: media, photography, vancouver | Tags: fashionable subsistence, netherlands
I wrote the feature for the just released ‘food issue’ of The Block. The subject of the article is Maurice Scheltens – an exceptionally talented Dutch still-life photographer. If you dig photography, stillness, life, food, or a combination of all four – check it out.
You might have seen his human skateboard bit, but there is much more to Adam Pesapane, aka PES than vicious lip grinds. Click.
Have you ever wondered what you might look like if your sexual habits were, mmm, liberalized? Of course you have. Now, through the miracle of modern internet technology, you need not lay in bed and fantasize any longer. Taaz.com allows you to easily upload photos and magically transform your portrait into that of your secret transvestite alter-ego. To celebrate this fabulous new gizmo, The PBLKS is throwing the first ever Van-Tran Superchallenge.
Here’s the deal: go to the website, get busy and when you’re done, send a before/after photo to publics.info@gmail.com. Submissions will be judged on merit by a panel of Vancouver’s up-and-coming amateur transvestites. The winner will receive a prize package that includes: a small bowl of Phở from Pho Kim Penh Xe Lau (500 W.Broadway) and a six-pack of Pilsner: “the beer that sparks pride in the down to earth values that endure in Western Canada”.
The PBLKS was given exclusive access to the studio of installation virtuoso Danny Vermette last week and it was an enlightening experience, to say the least. Reputed to be a notoriously reclusive art-hermit, Vermette’s creative methodology has been shrouded in secrecy ever since he stormed onto the scene in the early days of Vancouver’s post-9/11 ‘cartoon realism’ renaissance.
