Whether you’ve been in Peekskill for ten minutes or for ten years, you are probably familiar with the mysterious, interactive sculpture on the Peekskill Wat
Serge Onnen’s sculpture remains alive and well in Peekskill
Artist’s climate change sculpture near Salisbury Cathedral sparks criticism from residents
Hilary Jack says she hopes the controversy around her work, showing a house falling into the sea, will help bring attention to the issue of global warming
Your camera is good enough to create photos for NatGeo!
Even if your gear is modest, if it’s been made in the past 10-15 years, it’s good enough to create photos for National Geographic. No, really.
Why am I saying this?
The camera we most likely own, even if it is 10-15 years old, is a sophisticated bundle of equipment. It has the capability to take sharp, beautiful, emotional, evocative photos. And it’s considerably more capable than most of the cameras that National Geographic photographers have used throughout its history.
That’s right. Your camera is good enough to create photos for National Geographic.
Gear Acquisition Syndrome
When we’re deluged with so many advertisements touting the latest and greatest, we might begin feeling like it is necessary to purchase a new fancy camera to “take our photography to the next level.” And sure, new gear can help, especially if it’s holding us back. But let’s be real here. So much of the time, our gear is not the main thing holding us back. It’s us.
The point here is not to be anti-GAS (Gear Acquisition Syndrome). The point is to realize what a great camera we already have in hand. And more to the point, it’s to maximize that camera’s capabilities rather than automatically dismissing it.
If you’re not quite convinced yet…
Meet Stephen Alvarez. He’s a full-time photographer for National Geographic. Most of the time, he used one of his three Canon EOS 5D Mk IIIs and a pile of lenses and computers.
Nokia approached him with an assignment. It would be a three-page photograph on the inside cover for the 125th anniversary edition of National Geographic.
And they wanted him to use a smartphone.
That phone was, at the time, a Nokia Lumia 1020, which was in preproduction at the time, and would be unveiled July 2013. With that, Alvarez photographed the American Southwest during a ten-day trip. Find out more and see some of the photos here.
Oh sure, but that’s just one example, right?
Nope. There’s more, of course! Michael Christopher Brown was covering the Libyan war in 2011. He did so with his smartphone.
“You know the biggest advantage is that you can forget about the science, the math and the camera. You can forget about all the controls. You can really focus on the creative process and focus on what you are photographing, you know, the experience you are having while you are photographing.”
Michael Christopher Brown
Here’s another example!
Ivan Kashinsky is another photographer who prefers to use a smartphone. He photographs for National Geographic and Time magazine, and often photographs with an iPhone.
And yet another example, although not with smartphones!
I have a photo in National Geographic Books. High up in the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest in California, I created a night photo with a Nikon D610, an entry-level DSLR, and a $40 handheld flashlight, which I used for light painting. You can read more about how I photographed this here.
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Some more thoughts
The above photo was featured on the National Geographic Editor’s Choice Photo of the Day. However, it’s another example of a modest camera getting it done. In this case, I used a 2010 Nikon D7000 cropped sensor DSLR and a Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens with a $40 handheld flashlight to create this photo. Is it pristine? No. But is it good enough to get featured and look good? Apparently so.
Much of the photography world, and certainly the marketing, has moved on to mirrorless. And with great reason. Mirrorless is the future, and has many features that are extremely useful that DSLRs cannot do.
But of course, that doesn’t mean we still can’t create amazing photos that grace the cover or the inside of National Geographic. Almost assuredly, our camera gear is not holding us back from this.
Let’s do this.
Curator eyes fellow Indigenous perspectives
Words like “variety” and “innovative” will hopefully describe the afterthoughts on Korea’s first-ever exhibition on Native American arts, an associate curator at the Denver Art Museum who helped organize the show said.
Dakota Hoska — who holds dual citizenship from the US and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota — said visitors to the exhibition “Cultures and Histories of Indigenous People in America” would be able to discover the talent the Indigenous people had, building something from nothing.
“We’ve got everything from baskets to these giants and really beautiful huge wooden masks, and so just seeing the variety between like what the material cultures were between tribes is going to be really impressive for the audience,” Hoska said Wednesday, a day after the National Museum of Korea opened the four-month exhibit as part of the two museum’s joint efforts to boost ties.
Hoska, on a weeklong trip to Korea ending Friday, added, “You’re going to see some of the artwork, like the use of porcupine quills and the use of seal gut to create something so beautiful,” calling using quills and gut as “one strength, especially of Native artists all throughout time.”
The show exploring Native American life and arts through 151 pieces including paintings and clothing offers more, according to Hoska, who singled out how Native Americans could potentially help advance international conversation on matters like environmental sustainability.
“I feel like it’s so easy to kind of leave us in the past but the wisdom and the knowledge that we have can really contribute to the direction of the world in the future,” Hoska said, emphasizing that Indigenous people are a contemporary group.
“I think there’s a lot to learn for Western cultures from Indigenous nations,” said Christoph Heinrich, the DAM director, stressing the Native Americans’ respect for identifying the “need to earn nature and to earn the gifts from nature,” a mindset in increasing demand as countries around the world step up calls for stronger climate action.
Heinrich added that the US museum will showcase white porcelain pieces from Korea next year with moon jars taking center stage. The Denver Art Museum, housing some 300 pieces of Korean art with a separate space for their display, is currently showing Korean buncheong ceramics.
The National Museum of Korea exhibition on Native American arts, held through Oct. 9, will then travel to the Busan Museum for a four-month run ending in February.
Curator eyes fellow Indigenous perspectives
Words like “variety” and “innovative” will hopefully describe the afterthoughts on Korea’s first-ever exhibition on Native American arts, an associate curator at the Denver Art Museum who helped organize the show said.
Dakota Hoska — who holds dual citizenship from the US and the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota — said visitors to the exhibition “Cultures and Histories of Indigenous People in America” would be able to discover the talent the Indigenous people had, building something from nothing.
“We’ve got everything from baskets to these giants and really beautiful huge wooden masks, and so just seeing the variety between like what the material cultures were between tribes is going to be really impressive for the audience,” Hoska said Wednesday, a day after the National Museum of Korea opened the four-month exhibit as part of the two museum’s joint efforts to boost ties.
Hoska, on a weeklong trip to Korea ending Friday, added, “You’re going to see some of the artwork, like the use of porcupine quills and the use of seal gut to create something so beautiful,” calling using quills and gut as “one strength, especially of Native artists all throughout time.”
The show exploring Native American life and arts through 151 pieces including paintings and clothing offers more, according to Hoska, who singled out how Native Americans could potentially help advance international conversation on matters like environmental sustainability.
“I feel like it’s so easy to kind of leave us in the past but the wisdom and the knowledge that we have can really contribute to the direction of the world in the future,” Hoska said, emphasizing that Indigenous people are a contemporary group.
“I think there’s a lot to learn for Western cultures from Indigenous nations,” said Christoph Heinrich, the DAM director, stressing the Native Americans’ respect for identifying the “need to earn nature and to earn the gifts from nature,” a mindset in increasing demand as countries around the world step up calls for stronger climate action.
Heinrich added that the US museum will showcase white porcelain pieces from Korea next year with moon jars taking center stage. The Denver Art Museum, housing some 300 pieces of Korean art with a separate space for their display, is currently showing Korean buncheong ceramics.
The National Museum of Korea exhibition on Native American arts, held through Oct. 9, will then travel to the Busan Museum for a four-month run ending in February.
Manic Street Preachers Photography Book Announced | News | Clash Magazine Music News, Reviews & Interviews
A new book collating early photography of Manic Street Preachers has been announced.
The band’s fusion of left-wing, anti-authoritarian politics, glam metal riffs, and eye-linger made them instant cult heroes, splitting opinion like few other groups in their era. Gaining copious amounts of inches in the weekly music press, Manic Street Preachers quickly built up a profoundly influential visual identity, echoed by thousands of fans.
Incoming tome Little Baby Nothings – the title echoes a song from their debut album – collates work by photographer Valerie Phillips, who shot them countless times during their open era.
A limited edition book published by Longer Moon Father, the idea was sparked into life after bassist, lyricist, and effortlessly stylish gentleman Nicky Wire found some long-lost negatives in his home archive.
Touching base with Valerie Phillips, the book was brought into being through those conversations. The photographer comments…
“When I was a baby photographer obsessed with records and seeing bands, I was asked to get a train to a small town in Wales to take pictures of Manic Street Preachers. I hadn’t yet figured out how to take the kind of pictures I wanted to take. So I made it up. That day. With the beautiful Manics. We were both in our own starting-out all-consuming little worlds and now those worlds collided.”
Nicky Wire pens the introduction to the book, and an excerpt has gone online:
“It was a bitterly cold day in late winter March 1991 – Vox magazine are coming down for a photo shoot – like everything back then it feels important and vital – then a ball of American energy bursts through the door – wide eyed optimism and thankfully some severe sarcasm are quickly evident, It doesn’t take long to realise that some magic is happening.”
Little Baby Nothings is limited to 2000 copies and is available on its own or as part of a bundle with a small run of t-shirts (the t-shirt is also available on its own via Manic Street Preachers website here).
Very limited copies of the book will be available on the forthcoming Manic Street Preachers sold out joint headline tour of the UK with Suede.
Dogwood Arts installs new ‘Art in Public Places’ outdoor sculpture exhibition, expands program
Knoxville — Earlier this week, Dogwood Arts began installing the 2024-2025 Art In Public Places Sculpture Exhibition that includes 30 new outdoor sculptures across Knoxville, Oak Ridge, Maryville, and Alcoa.
Take an Exclusive Look at Slawn and Avant Arte’s “Ugly Bastard”
“You guys inspired me to make a sculpture in my image, this is the ‘Ugly Bastard,’ say hello.”
Pageant queen, makeup artist breaking barriers as Indigenous women in beauty industry
Ashley Callingbull is a woman of many faces. She’s an actress, model and pageant winner, will soon be an author and is getting ready to compete in Miss Universe Canada for the second time.
She’s been in the pageant world since she was 18 years old. The 34-year-old has faced racism and other barriers but has accomplished many great things and is helping break barriers for other Indigenous women.
Callingbull has appeared in the Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue and in ads for Reitmans, and Hillberg and Berg.
She said it took a lot of passion, drive and determination to get to where she is today. She didn’t look like other pageant girls with her dark skin, dark hair and “native nose,” but said she knew she had to get past that mindset.
“As an Indigenous woman, I had to fight even harder to be in these spaces,” she said.
WATCH | Indigenous women stake their claim in beauty industry:
Beauty queen and model Ashley Callingbull and makeup artist Nicole Akan are two young Indigenous women breaking stereotypes in the beauty industry.
Callingbull said that when she first started out in pageants, she heard racist comments about Lysol and welfare. But after local media reported on some of these comments, Callingbull started seeing more and more Indigenous people in the crowd cheering for her and offering their support.
“I feel like society’s view of Indigenous women in beauty has changed, but not enough,” she said. “There’s more progression that can definitely be made.”
Callingbull is busy prepping for the finals of Miss Universe Canada. If she were to win and go to New Mexico to represent Canada in November, she would be the first First Nations woman to do so.
“I always want to encourage people to love and appreciate themselves for the way the creator made them,” said Callingbull.
“I feel that we were made this way for a reason. We should be thankful for that and to live fearlessly to never let fear stop you from chasing your biggest wildest dreams.”
Bringing out inner beauty
Nicole Akan uses her business Daybird Beauty to teach holistic beauty and how to use makeup to enhance what the creator gave you.
Akan works with the Fort Qu’Appelle Tribal Council during the day, and does makeup services during evenings and weekends.
She also teaches makeup workshops to Indigenous women, young and old.
Akan said Indigenous women wear many hats in their community and often don’t have time for self-care.
“My favourite part about doing makeup is seeing their smile. It’s just so amazing,” she said. “It’s the first time they’re witnessing their own beauty.”
Akan said she has had women in the workshops who were in their 70s and had never worn makeup before.
“That just felt like such an honour,” said Akan ” Whenever I do somebody’s makeup, I look at it as if it’s like an energy transfer.”
Akan’s favourite part is giving her clients the mirror to take a look.
“I always said if you look good, you feel good,” said Akan. “Makeup … doesn’t take away your inner or true beauty, it helps with confidence.”
Cheryle Crowe, 62, is one of the women Akan has done makeup for.
Crowe, from Muskowekwan First Nation, was attending a Mother’s Day event in her community when she came across Daybird.
Crowe said she was hesitant, but after watching other ladies get their makeup and lashes done, she decided to give it a shot.
“When I was done with the makeover and how I looked, I said, ‘Oh my God, that’s me,'” said Crowe. “She really made me feel good that day.”
Crowe said she is happy to see a company like Daybird Beauty teaching makeup lessons in communities.
“I told her, ‘I wish I could take you home with me so you could do this to me every morning.'”
Dix Park to welcome troll sculptures
No, we’re not trolling you. Artist Thomas Dambo is set to build two troll sculptures at Dorothea Dix Park in October 2025.
