Pretty Photography

Researching into my current university project to create a brand identity for a new charm jewelry range, I came across this image on another person's blog. Lace automatically reminds me of my grandma, or vintage style and the way the material is used in this image automatically makes me feel that it was taken a long time ago, but clearly wasn't.

Bless You!

Mark Brumell for Project Gesundheit.

Remind me of myself in hayfever season!

Where Children Sleep

I noticed this book displayed on the Creative Review blog a couple of months ago and thought it was a really interesting insight into the way that children around the world live in their 'personal space'. I was only recently reminded of it when I saw that it was also displayed in the Photography Annual, winning the prize for Best in Book.

The photographer James Mollison, came about with the idea when set a brief to create a project on the subject of children's rights. This led him to reflect on the role that having his own space as a child had on his childhood development.

Each room is displayed with an image of the child on a plain white background next to it - displaying each child as an equal, whilst showing each of their rooms which display their life and personality.

The cultural ideas behind the images are outstanding - from Kenya to Tokyo, Israel to Brazil. Some of the images are quite upsetting, especially the image of a 4-year-old boy who lives on the outskirts of Rome and sleeps on a mattress in a field with his family.

17-year-old 'X' who lives in Brazil

15-year-old Risa who lives in a Teahouse in Japan

4-year-old Jivan, who lives in a skyscraper in New York

Unnamed 4-year-old boy who lives on the outskirts of Rome and sleeps on the pictured mattress with his family

I Wish I Worked There!

I always feel a bit guilty for liking picture books but this one is pretty fun. 'I Wish I Worked There!' by Kursty Groves shows the world's most inspiring and creative places to work by looking into the offices of 20 global brands including Google, Dyson and Dreamworks. The underlying message behind the book is the idea that having an innovative work place can lead to innovative ideas, and some of the world's most successful brands. 

In the Lego offices in Denmark they facilitate team building through table football on giant lego shapes, with the aim of encouraging employees to relax and socialise with one another. I wish I worked there...

Design Museum : Urban Africa

I'm very lucky to live close to London so it's easy for me to pop over to the Design Museum near London Bridge to have a ganders at their current exhibitions. I love the way that one week it can be focused on fashion, and the next the attention can be turned to photography. It's ever changing.

Following on from my last post concerning the photography project of George Logan, where he put African wildlife into unexpected settings, 'Urban Africa', a photographic exhibition by David Adjaye currently being shown at the Design Museum until 5th September, follows on a similar African theme.

Architect David Adjaye has taken photographs of African cities as part of an ongoing project to study new patterns of urbanism. The idea behind the images is to show Africa in a different limelight. Although usually considered to be a very underdeveloped country, Adjaye has used his architect's eye to create images that argue with this preconception.

Similar to my last post this exhibition stood out to me as I liked the way it portrays the unexpected. We make assumptions about where things should be placed, or how they should look, and when someone changes these it makes an interesting piece of work.

Translocation

 This photography project that took Scottish photographer George Logan five years to create, puts African wildlife in quite different backdrops and has been published as a book with all proceeds going to the Born Free Foundation.

The backdrops of the images are mainly taken in Cornwall and Scotland, whilst Logan travelled all around Africa to get the shots of the wildlife in their natural habitat.

Although most of the images have quite obviously been superimposed; the detail can be a bit too precise, or some of the images have been edited so much they look like computer created graphics, I think the idea behind the project is ingenious. The idea of taking something and putting it somewhere else unexpected is really interesting, and I can understand why people would want to buy the book, whether it was for charity or not.