Arts Visuels >> Classics >> Jacques Henri Lartigue

De De (his cousin), Diving with Water Ring, 1911

I am totally enamored with Jacques Henri Lartigue and his work.  Born in 1894, he received a camera for his seventh birthday, and from then on essentially kept a photo diary of his life.  Fascinated by the things most young boys are interested in, including cars, dogs, his family and friends at play, aircraft, many of his most famous photographs were taken during his childhood.

ZYX24 Takes Off, 1910

My Hydro-Glider with Propeller, (Self-Portrait), 1904

Zissou, 1911  (How hilarious is this image??  Have you ever seen someone look so serious (or fully dressed) while in an intertube?)

Grand Prix de Circuit de la Seine, 1912

Apparently, Wes Anderson is a big fan and has modeled many of his characters and images after Lartigue's work, including Max from Rushmore.  Also did you notice the photo of Zissou?  Bet that's where he got Steve Zissou's name!

As he continued to document his surroundings and outings for his entire life, he later took many photos of fashionable Parisian life and French vacation spots, but I'll save that era for another day.

Today, I'm loving the joie de vivre, humor, and idiosyncrasies captured in his childhood photographs.

Can you believe his technical capability at such a young age?  This was before digital made everything look good, y'all.

Must See >> Bruce Weber's "Haiti/Little Haiti"

Bruce Weber, a part-time resident of Miami and full-time fashion photographer, shifts his focus in a new project about his neighbors in Little Haiti for his first museum exhibition, "Haiti/Little Haiti," which opens this month at MOCA Miami. 

 Apparently, the exhibition, which contains photos from 2003-2010, is partly as a reaction to the disproportionately aggressive deportation efforts that have been aimed at Haitian residents of Miami.  I love that Bruce is using his status to bring awareness to such an issue!

Fashun >> Kate, Fur, Stripes, Rolls

Tastemakers >> Gwyneth

Love this shot of Gwyneth from Vogue... and really love those PJs!  I'm a pajama set fanatic and particularly like sets that look like men's pajamas.  Here are the ones I'm currently wanting.

Masters and Their Crafts >> Richard Avedon

"Fashion is one of the richest expressions of human desires, ambitions, needs, frailty, insecurity, security.  What we wear is an indication of our sense of ourselves."

I particularly love his portraits:

Tennessee Williams, New York, 1969

Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Waldorf Astoria, Suite 28a, 1957

Beckett, Paris, 1979

Brando, New York, 1951

Duchamp, New York, 1958

Cole Porter, New York, 1950

Dylan, New York, 1965

Captured >> Upstate Hoedown

Ok so it's not actually a hoedown, but I can't get over how FUN this wedding looks, as captured by Josie Miner.  Yes, it partially has to do with the fact that they are gettin DOWN on the dance floor, but I also love the style of the photography... a little bit more photojournalistic than a lot of wedding photography.

Ok actually I love everything about it, because the outdoor dance floor with strings of lights is pretty great, and this band below looks pretty classic.

Click through for more...

Yes to All >> Tom Ford

The Tom Ford SS'11 show.  Instead of models, he had beautiful women who inspire him modeling the clothes, including Julia Restin Roitfeld, Julianne Moore, Daphne Guinness, etc.  Love that idea.  No photos were allowed during the show, so that the collection is a surprise when it comes out, but just these photos of the entrance are enough to make me swoon.  When he does something, he does it right, no?

[photos by Hanneli]

Arts Visuels >> Classics >> Peter Beard

Fashun >> Bruce Weber for RL

My favorite shot from a new campaign for Ralph Lauren's new Big Pony fragrance shot by Bruce Weber.  See more images from the campaign here.

Wonderment >> Sound Becomes Sculpture

A wonderful little piece of wonderment for your day... 

Above, an ad for the new Canon Pixma printer, below, the making of the ad. To create what you see above, they put drops of paint on a membrane over a speaker, and then when they played a sound through the speaker, it made the paint bounce up, and they caught the action at 5,000 frames per second.  That's a lot of frames per second.

The result is ultra-clear slow motion video of tiny bits of gelatinous color exploding into the air.


Canon Pixma: Bringing colour to life from Dentsu London on Vimeo.

The ad itself is wonderfully captivating, and the making-of film, if it's publicized, will be an interesting combination of the two trends I've been talking about on this blog related to advertising... the short film approach (Chanel, GANT) and the "real people" approach (Tod's by Eliot Erwitt and Cole Haan by the Selby), where the photographer him/herself is known and hyped (not just a tiny credit somewhere), and the subjects are real people who use the product (not actors) and are identified.  In this case, it's not exactly the first or the second, but still carries the themes of a well-crafted story and a behind-the-scenes, "we're not a nameless, faceless corporation" tone.  Interesting here that they even reveal who the advertising agency behind the project was...

[By Dentsu London]

Thomas Pink debuts "The Informal Collection"

Love the happy-go-lucky English weekend-y lookbook for Thomas Pink's new collection...

"Conscious of the ever blurring line between dress up and dress down, Thomas Pink has created the Informal Collection."

[Thomas Pink]

[Oddly can't find who 

the photographer is!]

Boast is Back

Iconic seventies tennis brand Boast is being relaunched with the help of Partners & Spade, who art directed these awesome photos by Susanna Howe.

Partners & Spade also helped produce this animated video about the history of Boast and its founder, Bill St. John, the tennis pro at the Field Club of Greenwich.  

I'm pretty taken by Partners & Spade (and, well, all the Spades for that matter)... they crush it every time.  See past post on Partners & Spade here.

Happy Friday

The one and only Augusta, my inimitable niece, as captured by Michelle Warren.

Yes to All >> Monday Necessities

[From Me to You]

Pretty People + Pretty Bikes

1: Sally Singer (editor in chief of T Mag) via Paper Mag
2: Jim and Kim Mimran of Joe Fresh and Pink Tartan via Common Elite
3 & 5: The Sartorialist
4 & 6: unknown (Garance?)

Fashun >> Hedi Slimane

Just came across these on Hedi Slimane's photo diary (profiled with some of my fave pics of his back here)...