Punched & Ruled

www.lifelounge.com.au; Photographer João Pina has travelled from Afghanistan to Portugal and back again to create his diverse, insightful and thought-provoking portfolio. The series Violence in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil isn’t all doom and gloom (though, be warned, there is some pretty gnarly gore in the collection), instead it shows the many faces of the city. In a country often perceived as full of corrupt officials and drug barons, Pina shows the beauty too – mothers with their children, parties, dancing, laughing – that survives amongst the infamous guns, drugs and death. More at joao-pina.com.

From Beautiful/ Decay; A rogue with an eye for salvage – and the ladies – Ray: A Life Underwater is an affectionate portrait of one man’s deep sea diving career, told through his extraordinary collection of marine artefacts. Like a modern-day pirate, 75-year-old Ray Ives has been scouring the seabed for treasure his whole life.The former commercial diver has plundered the deep for over fifty years, bringing to the surface anything that glittered — even gold. In a shipping container near the water, Ray tends his museum of cannon, bottles, bells, swords, portholes and diving gear. 

http://vimeo.com/28404579

From www.slamxhype.com;

Pete Brook is the editor of Prison Photography and the man behind an amazing project that saw him interview American prisoners about their photography. His amazing photo blog has sparked a lot of attention since it began and The New York Times took it upon themselves to find out more.

What is your interest in prisons? How did that happen?
I don’t think I would have cared about prisons had I not moved to America. In the summer of 2004, I was finishing up a year-long master’s in museum studies at the University of Manchester, in England. I was looking for an excuse to come to California. I had a girlfriend at the time, and I wanted to be in California with her whilst I was doing research.

So I was looking for a subject. I found out that San Quentin Prison had a small prison museum and it became the subject of my thesis. In order to give analysis to the narrative at that very small, volunteer-run prison museum, I had to learn quickly what the politics and the realities of prisons in California were. I realized that what existed in this museum and what existed in reality were two completely different things. It occurred to me that this was a human rights abuse. Here and in plain sight. Financially, it doesn’t make sense; morally it doesn’t make sense. It fascinates me that there is a prison system with 2.3 million people in it and no one seems to see that as a problem. At what point was that normalized? After the prison population was quadrupled in 30 years, when did everyone accept that as O.K.? At what point did the alternatives not matter and not get to the table?

Why did you start the prison photography blog?
When I first arrived in the States I was working as a photo researcher. I just started bookmarking prison projects. And then when I moved to Seattle three years ago, I decided it was about time I bit the bullet. I wasn’t sure if there was something meaningful to be said. I wanted to challenge some of the statements that are made about photography — that it can change things, or show us things we wouldn’t otherwise know.

When you deal with prisons, you’re dealing with closed systems. These are effectively disciplined spaces. And that discipline attends to the imagery that is released. Prison photography tests a lot of the claims made by photographers — or certainly claims that were made in past decades. I think it might be changing. I think people might have lower expectations of photography’s power these days.

Full article @ www.nytimes.com

Great images at Quite Continental c/o www.missmoss.co.za.

A vintage Tesco’s Supermarket popped up at Goodwood Revival, with vintage packaging filling the shelves. @ www.notcot.org.

At www.presentationhousegallery.org; The series of photographs on display graphically documents Clark’s exploration of the underworld of drug use, sex and violence in his hometown, Tulsa, Oklahoma from 1963 to 1971. Clark first gained notoriety when these images were compiled as a photo essay in his independently published 1971 book Tulsa. Now regarded as a classic photography project, Tulsa has been acclaimed as a powerful and highly personal social documentary, still emulated by art and fashion photographers alike—a reputation due in no small part to its enduring capacity to shock. The sleazy and poignant aspects of the lives portrayed draws the viewer into a prurient and compassionate relationship with the images.

Forty years later, the Tulsa photographs have not lost their impact. Shot using available light, Clark’s images range from shadowy black and white nighttime scenes of heroin injection to portraits of small-time thugs with guns, the compounded bleakness of which is only offset by the occasional teenage makeout session. His striking refusal to moralize allows for the invasive camera to capture an intimacy only possible between peers in a social scene. The exhibition will also include a projection of a 16 mm film from 1968 shot in the midst of this scene that Clark only recently unearthed. This is the first time this film has been shown in Canada.

From www.day19.com; So here’s a portrait we did of director David Lynch. This was shot for the icon issue of the now defunct project of Shepard Fairey and Roger Gastman called Swindle Magazine. We were told we had no more than 30 minutes with Mr. Lynch, not because he was a diva or anything but that he can’t handle doing one thing longer than 30 minutes apparently. We decided to shoot him with 4×5 film, Kodak Portra 160 to be exact with one soft box (like every 4×5 shot we ever shoot). We shot 4 frames that felt great so we asked if he would like to smoke. He said “I would love to, it’s one of my favorite things to do”. He lit up, we shot this one more frame and called it a day because we knew we had it. 5 frames, have never even looked at the other 4. As we were packing up our gear he said “It was a real pleasure watching you guys work” and he walked off. Thank you Mr. Lynch for your time.

We have a very large print of this for sale at the Ace Hotel in Manhattan, the 2nd in the series. The first was purchased by musician Matt Skiba without us knowing.

Great new series idea at www.theworldsbestever.com;

Food and art are two of our favorite things over at TWBE, so we decided to start a new series called “Artist Eats” that interviews artists about their favorite place to eat. Kicking off the series is Los Angeles-based artist Justin Van Hoy, who is known for his colorful designs and rad gallery.

“At the moment I would say I have two favorites,” Justin answers. “Most days I don’t go any further West than Lincoln Heights, where my office is. So these two picks are minutes from the house, office and gallery.”

From Creative Review; Amnesty TV launches this Friday online. Created by a team that includes producers and writers from News Wipe and the Inbetweeners, as well as the illustrators Robert Thompson and Modern Toss, it aims to “use popular satire and entertainment to reach grass roots audiences”. The new channel features an identity created by Anthony Burrill.

The channel will be hosted online on YouTube, and, according to the advance press info, will be a mix of documentary features with campaign stunts and satirical comedy. The aim is to particularly engage with the “online generation”, which judging by the irreverent, pop styling of the trailer below, is presumably a younger audience than Amnesty has reached out to in the past.

From www.fecalface.com; New works from the Italian duo Sten & Lex who create massive murals by using a technique called “hole school” which consists of stencils with many holes of different sizes that all together provide a highly photographic image.

Quercus Books is releasing a 296-page volume on Anderson & Sheppard this October. It’s titled A Style is Born, and looks to be very promising. For those unfamiliar, Anderson & Sheppard has one of the most distinctive cuts on Savile Row (though, technically, they’re located right off the Row, on Old Burlington Street). Their shoulders are soft and their sleeveheads are large. The canvases they use are lightweight and loosely attached, so as to allow greater movement. Together, these aspects give Anderson & Sheppard’s suits a very relaxed look. 

More importantly than that, however, is their signature “English drape” cut, which is a derivation of Frederick Scholte’s original drape style. Here, the chest swells, and extra fabric drapes over the shoulders, creating vertical folds at the ends of the chest. The softly tailored, draped look differs from the more “authoritative,” square shouldered, clean chested tailoring you’d typically find on Savile Row, but it’s a unique, relaxed, masculine style that has made the house famous. write up at www.putthison.com, details at http://www.anderson-sheppard.co.uk/events/our-book.html.www.putthison.com, details at http://www.anderson-sheppard.co.uk/events/our-book.html.

FACITY is an online photo project showing different portraits from cities all around the world on a daily basis . www.facity.com

Urban Travel appears to be one person, from the Netherlands or Belgium, who photographs abandoned buildings.

I N C R E D I B L E.

http://www.urban-travel.org/documents/

found at www.whitenoiseofeverydaylife.wordpress.com

Photographs from one of the many “Tent Cities” in Fresno, CA; a selection of which was published in Time Magazine. These people mostly lived in and area locally known as “Taco Flats”, which was closed after a dispute with the land owner, Union Pacific Railroad. Found at www.behance.net. 

Margaret Howell chooses her favourite design classics and shares her thinking. A sharp read.

  http://www.guardian.co.uk/culture/gallery/2011/sep/11/ten-best-product-designs-in-pictures#/?picture=378744746&index=7

Like Selby, but just for girls.

WWW.CLOSETVISIT.COM.

Matthew Newton and his “Annals of Americus” has become a steady website for me- more smart content, less bullshit product PR crap- and I happily recommend the site and his writings to everyone I come across. In a weird round-about way this is a like a multi layered cross post to something else though- entitled” Joe Carducci on the price of Cheese” – if you dig music and smart writing, go read it. Found @ www.thereferencecouncil.com

WWW.ANNALSOFAMERICUS.COM

Walking In The Metropolitan Wild – The River Lea from Margaret Howell is on Vimeo.

In support of Open House London Weekend, Margaret Howell and William Mann discover a walk along the River Lea. Lea Valley is a mix of ancient marshland, metropolitan infrastructure and changing landscapes.

Bird Island 2009 Photographer Philipp Ebeling

EXHIBITION

Photographs by Philipp Ebeling and Jason Orton

A visual exploration of the Lea Valley and the area’s potential to evolve as a public landscape.

Monday 5 September – Saturday 17 September

34 Wigmore Street London W1U 2RS

@www.thingsmagazine.net

Photographer Christopher Payne documents our treatment of the mentally ill in his book, Asylum, with a foreword by Oliver Sacks. @www.theatlantic.com.

In what has become a significant creative project,as well as a lot of fun, I embarked on this series of profiles for a simple reason; some things are too good not to share. Each of the people featured were selected because they stand out to me. They are not the only ones who do, and they don’t stand out for the same reasons, but their stories are strong. They are people who have done interesting creative work that I admire.Some of them are well established. Others are brand new. But everyone’s an expert in their own life, or so I was taught, and I figured they would each have something pretty interesting to say for themselves.

Brogen Averill is a graphic designer. He works with some significant creative brands here and his work has been widely acclaimed internationally. You don’t have to reach far to find a fairly humbling review of his talents. He was a clear choice for this, both as a subject and a collaborator. Roberta Thornley is a local artist who, before we began this project, seemed like a clever girl with a great eye who would interview well. The words she gave,in the end, moved me with their wit and wisdom. Turns out she is one of the brightest young minds I have met in a really long time.

 If you don’t ask, you don’t get. And sometimes what you get is not what you were expecting. That’s why we have done what we’ve done here, in trying to give each of our subjects space to suit. Some are brief and others delve deep. There are seven in total. We are proud of them all. Without further ado, let me introduce the cast of the first ever publication to come out of a little blog called Punched and Ruled.

All words either written or curated on the page by Ange Crane.

All design work by Brogen Averill.

Portraits taken by Mr Damien Nikora.

Print production by Daniel at Producer.

Published by Showroom 22 Ltd.

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The singer songwriter - BEN KING

The creative director - ADAM BRYCE

The artist - ROBERTA THORNLEY

The menswear designer - GLENN YUNGNICKEL

The graphic designer - BROGEN AVERILL

The filmmaker - NIAMH PEREN

The womenswear designer - INGRID STARNES.