Winter Stories

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Paolo Ventura: Winter Stories #19 (Full Moon), 2007 (Digital C-Print 40 x 50" ed of 5)

Images by Paolo Ventura, who is represented in the United States by Hasted Kraeutler. Ventura, who grew up in a small village in northern Italy, constructs extremely detailed dioramas of city scenes and then photographs them so that they appear life-size.

Paolo Ventura: Winter Stories #23 (11:55 p.m.), 2007 (Digital C-print 40 x 50" ed of 5)

Paolo Ventura: Automaton #6, 2010 (Digital C-Print 40 x 50" ed of 5)

The scenes are based on stories set in Italy in the 1940s and '50s. Last month when I was in New York, his Automaton series was on view at Hasted Kraeutler; it centers around a watchmaker in the Jewish ghetto in 1943 Venice who builds an automaton to keep him company after all his friends are gone.

Paolo Ventura: Automaton #10, 2010 (Digital C-Print 40 x 50" ed of 5)

The lighting blows my mind – looking at the images, you remind yourself that they're photos of dioramas, but you can almost feel yourself in the cold or the fog or the noon-time sun.

Paolo Ventura: Winter Stories #39 (Before the Rain), 2007 (Digital C-print 40 x 50" ed of 5)

I first saw his work in Harper's magazine several years ago and taped the images into one of my black books. It was cool to see them in person, huge. Click Hasted Kraeutler and Paolo Ventura's website for more images.

Image of the Day

An extremely rare calf-leather covered Leica I from 1930 – one of only three examples known to exist – which sold for 120,000 Euros in last Friday's WestLicht Photographica Auction. The next WestLicht auction will be held in May 2012.

(thanks for the link dad)

Cycle

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Magma is a short film by Marianna Mørkøre & Rannvá Káradóttir [Rammatik] – recently featured in the Nordic Fashion Biennale at Seattle's Nordic Heritage Museum. Watch full screen, with the lights off, and loud:



The film, shot on Super 8 in the Faroe Islands, is the first of an 8-film cycle by Mørkøre and Káradóttir. Visit Rammatik for more videos, images, and info.

Still photography Katrin Svabo Bech

Image of the Day

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Deborah Turbeville: Vogue Sposa, Catania, Sicily, 1985 – on view at Staley Wise Gallery in NYC in conjunction with the publication of Turbeville's latest book The Fashion Pictures (Rizzoli). See more here.

Image of the Day

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In honor of the day that most closely resembles corduroy,
11|11|11

Chloé Fall 1999 – Fernanda Tavares shot by Taryn Simon.

Oh hell – while we're at it, the West Coast classic:

I Was In A Functional Way

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Spoon "Trouble Comes Running" from Transference (2010, Merge)

(photo: my new work gloves, which I think look really cool)

The Quest for Freedom

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I loved this interview with Miranda July – from Elvis Mitchell's KCRW podcast The Treatment.

Image of the Day

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A previously unseen Bert Stern photograph of Marilyn Monroe (and of Stern himself), 1962, on view this weekend at Milk Gallery, NYC.

Best Foot Forward

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Theyskens' Theory Ayla platform bootie
in dark green, $425 at shopbop.com.
Theory is not paying us for product placement, I swear.

I Want You

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Tonight at Bauhaus in Seattle I Want You magazine launches its sixth issue, and presents artwork by Brian Standeford, with an after party at Sole Repair.

See
you
there

No Matter What We Do

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The fall colors in Seattle today made me think of this movie for some reason. The trailer doesn't really do it justice, but it's a really beautiful film...now on my repeat viewings list for this fall.

Give Yourself A Big Assignment

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Khoi Vinh, former Design Director of nytimes.com, discusses his ideas on design, and in particular one of my favorite topics: the grid. Smartly produced and directed by Raafi Rivero of The Color Machine.

Image of the Day

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Two pedestrians on Broadway at West 44th Street in New York's Times Square on a November night in 1976 (uncredited photo via NPR/AP).

On Fresh Air yesterday, Terri Gross interviewed author James Wolcott about his new memoir Lucking Out: My Life Getting Down and Semi-Dirty in Seventies New York, which I'm looking forward to reading. Click here to listen.

L.O.V.E.

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! NEED.

3.1 Philip Lim, Spring 2012.

Sophisticated, easy, beautiful.

via style.com

Sunny and Cold

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More cold-weather crabbing with my brother and friend Josh.

These photos do not really capture how beautiful it was yesterday – the water was fairly calm, the North Cascades were covered with snow and the moon was gigantic in the sky when we headed back at the end of the day....

And this time we got our limit. The rules, in case you don't know: each person can have two crab pots and is allowed to take 5 Dungeness per day, but they have to be male and the shell at least 6.25" wide.

3 people x 5 each = 15 delicious crabbies

Creating a Look

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Costume designs by Theadora Van Runkle (pictured above), the award-winning, self-taught costume designer who died Friday at the age of 83.

Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty in Bonnie & Clyde

Jacqueline Bisset and Steve McQueen in Bullitt

A Theadora Van Runkle sketch for The Godfather Part II

Marisa Berensen in S.O.B.

Faye Dunaway and Steve McQueen in The Thomas Crown Affair

Raquel Welch in Myra Breckinridge

Leigh Taylor-Young and Peter Sellers in I Love You, Alice B. Toklas


I Love You Alice B. Toklas trailer

Image of the Day

Wooooo magazine's Jason Crombie as Joan Didion's butler? Gold.

Get the new Wooooo (featuring interviews with James Franco, Alex Olson, Maura B. Jacobson, Grace Slick, Jane Moseley, MellowHype, Alek Wek, Michael Rapaport, Warren Smith, Les Moonves, Matthew Griffin, and Jay Howell) here. And by 'get it here' we mean get it.