colchrishadfield:

English clouds showing how to properly queue over Hull and the Humber Estuary.

greatleapsideways:

“The function of portrait painting was to underwrite and idealise a chosen social role of the sitter. It was not to present him as ‘an individual’ but, rather, as an individual monarch, bishop, landowner, merchant and so on. Each role had its accepted qualities and its acceptable limit of discrepancy. (A monarch or a pope could be far more idiosyncratic than a mere gentleman or courtier.) The role was emphasised by pose, gesture, clothes and background. (…)

The satisfaction of having one’s portrait painted was the satisfaction of being personally recognised and confirmed in one’s position: it had nothing to do with the modern lonely desire to be recognised ‘for what one really is’. (…)

It seems that the demands of a modern vision are incompatible with the singularity of viewpoint which is the prerequisite for a static-painted ‘likeness’. The incompatibility is connected with a more general crisis concerning the meaning of individuality. Individuality can no longer be contained within the terms of manifest personality traits. In a world of transition and revolution individuality has become a problem of historical and social relations, such as cannot be revealed by the mere characterizations of an already established social stereotype. Every mode of individuality now relates to the whole world.”

— John Berger, “The Changing View of Man in the Portrait” in Selected Essays.

Images in order: August Sander, Young Farmers, Westerwald, 1914; Alex Dellow, Teddy Boys, Tottenham 1954; Robert Frank, Newburgh, New York, 1955; Alec Soth, Josh Joelton, Tennessee; Bryan Schutmaat, Perry, Cascade, Montana

mpdrolet:

Machine in the garden, Tsavo, Kenya, 1971-1972

Peter Beard

PJL: May 2013 (Part 1) →

Curated by Mikko Takkunen, a collection of the best photojournalism around the web from the past two weeks.

greeneyes55:

A sailor repairs a signal flag 1942

Photo: Cecil Beaton

mpdrolet:

Elijah Solomon Hurwitz

The 10th International Conference on Military Geosciences

There are still some places left on this conference.

Speakers will examine the influence of some important campaigns from the past: the Roman art of war; lessons of the American Civil War (in the anniversary year of both Vicksburg and Gettysburg, both fought in 1863); a detailed consideration of both the Boer War and the Great War, examining all aspects from supply issues to the changing face of the battlefield (considering siege tactics, alpine warfare and chemical weapons amongst them); and, significantly, an in-depth study of future wars, from a consideration of flash points, such as water wars, through to the changing face of the modern technological battlefield, with remote weapons and the likelihood of urban battlefields.

The 10th International Conference on Military Geosciences: Rebellions and Military Reactions

Dates: 17 – 21 June 2013
Venue: Aviemore, Scotland

Speakers
Professor Peter Doyle
Geologist and military historian and Visiting Professor in Geosciences, University College London
Dr Tony Pollard
Battlefield archaeologist and Director of the Centre for Battlefield Archaeology, Glasgow University
Dr Marko Bulmer
Has vast experience in pure and applied fields of geology, remote sensing, emergency management, Geographic Information System (GIS), plus instrument design, undergraduate and graduate teaching.
Bryden Ritchie
Former army officer, arms expert and Senior Lecturer, Edinburgh Napier University

The bi-annual conference brings together geologists, geographers, military personnel and historians from across the world to examine the lessons of the past and their application to the future. The outcome of these conferences is a greater understanding of how and why warfare is waged, and what is likely to happen in the future context.

If you haven’t already done so, you can book online today. If you’ve already booked, please forward this email on to your contacts and colleagues who may be interested in attending this five-day conference.

 Price: £390 inc VAT

There will be a special rate for delegate partners wishing to attend the conference field trips only; this will be listed on the website in the coming days. For further details, please email icmg@ntu.ac.uk 

Visit www.ntu.ac.uk/icmg to view the programme, book your delegate place(s) and accommodation.

bremser:

portrait of Yasumasa Yanagisawa

Early one evening we were walking across the pedestrian overpasses that criss-cross near Shibuya station, a busy area during the commute, and discovered Yasumasa Yanagisawa making photographs with an old 8x10 camera. That would be a nice surprise, but his camera was very different - he was leaning over a laptop that was connected to it. Attached to his 100-year-old camera was a typical flatbed scanner, which he was using to make an improvised digital back. I realized I was having an excellent “Tokyo Camera Style” moment and snapped this photo of him changing the back with my Yashicamat. He smiled, and pointed out that my camera was only 40 years old.

Yasumasa Yanagisawa has a blog (in Japanese) documenting the technique and sharing some of the photos he’s taken with this set up, see here, here and here.

Photo of the Week - Finding the Angle | Chase Jarvis Blog →

colchrishadfield:

Night wide angle from London to Newcastle to Wales. Sure can see where we choose to live.