William Klein & Daido Moriyama Exhibition - Tate Modern

I finally found the time to go to see the William Klein + Daido Moriyama Exhibition at the Tate Modern and it was well worth the visit! Both photographers were very inspiring. It was definitely my kind of photography, gritty, blurry and contrasty... excellent work.

Below is a video of Daido Moriyama from the Tate Modern website. There is also a video about William Klein, but for some reason the embed code would not work, so here is the link to the page: http://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/exhibition/william-klein-daido-moriyama if you want to take a look.

Polaroid Time Zero - stunning range of photos

Polaroid Time Zero

I find this series of photos so stunning! I think this effect is achieved by using out of date polaroid. Here is a link to the Flckr account: Gentleman Amateur/Polaroid Time Zero.

Weekend photo project at 500px - long exposures

Bangkok Traffic by mark burban I love this photo by Mark Burban it is featured on the 500px website. He says that it was created by taking 9 seperate long exposures and stacking them in photoshop which resulted in this final composition.

Little DIY tip from Lifehackers website

I thought this was such a simple, but neat little tip from Lifehackers website.

We've always got lots of these little bulldog clips hanging around at work and I've got lots of interesting postcards that I've got laying around that will look so much better standing up on some clips! :) If you check out the website link above, they've got lots of other great uses for them.

One day on Earth screening

The feature length documentary of One Day On Earth will premiere on 22nd April, 2012 - aka Earth Day. The most recent global recording took place last November (11/11/11) and was a massive success, collecting video from every country on Earth! I was lucky to have been given a dvd for Christmas and it was awe inspiring!

A behind the scenes look at Aardman

I came across this YouTube video and found it really interesting as I know that Aardman do not allow any visitors to their studios due to privacy issues around their work, so it was great to be priviliged to take a peek at their sets and models! The narrator from 'hey you guys' is a bit stilted, but its still worth watching!

Finding inspiration from Traci Bautista for my Prague journal

I have just returned from a College trip to Prague. We took the animation students to visit the Hafan animation studio (which was amazing...), the Mucha Museum and the Barrandov Film Studio. It was a great trip, albeit a bit of a whirlwind visit! We were told while we were at the visit to Hafan animation studio, that they do workshops to create puppets and a short stop motion animation - I did some searching online and found the details for these on the puppets in Prague website.

Some gorgeous stop motion characters - Hafan Animation Studio

During the visit to the Mucha museum, I purchased a handmade journal and have been trying to create a journal of the visit. It has taken ages to get back into a creative vibe, and my first attempts at this were torn out by myself as the pages just did not do the trip justice - so today I have been trying to get some inspiration. I initially visited Danny Gregory's website and after lots of different links from various journal blogs and web pages I stumbled across Traci Bautista and felt truly inspired - this may have been due to me having an affinity with her style and also my wistful yearnings to be able to live a creative life as she does! Below is a picture of some of her artwork. 

Traci Bautista undertakes lots of 'Collage Unleashed Workshops', which she does all around the World. Below is a slideshow of some of the artwork created in her workshops.

The Illusionist (2010) Directed by Sylvain Chomet

I was lucky enough to have been given 'The Illusionist' (2010) as a Christmas present and must say it was excellent - the animation, the background scenery and the narrative - nothing was a let down for me - I absolutely loved watching it. 

Above are some still shots from the animation, where you can see the beautifully drawn and atmospheric scenes.

The animation is based on a script by Jacques Tati. Director Sylvain Chomet gained permission to adapt it into The Illusionist from Tati's family and Chomet based the main character Monsieur Tatischeff on Jacques Tati himself.

'The result is utterly distinctive and beguiling, with its own language and grammar of innocence: gentle, affectionate, whimsical, but deeply felt and with an arrowhead of emotional pain.' (Bradshaw 2010).

I agree with the above quote entirely - I could not have put it any better myself! I borrowed this quote from a blog that I came across and where I viewed a really good review - Lavey's Blog.