Motel Art 07/24/2012

KodaChromes of Rosie The Riveter et al

A selection of 4X5 Kodachrome from a Russian photographer 's blog, Pavel Kosenko's blog, of Americans doing different sorts of war work.Came up in the discussion of the thread United American Flight 817 2.0 on Ah.com.

Weird Photo of Emperor Hirohito and British Troops

This image was captured of crown prince Hirohito reviewing troops in May 21, 1921, link . About 20 years, 5 months and 20 days later things were entirely different.

Steam Punk Photography

slashdot's recent poll, My Camera is..., is a little dismissive about non pixel based photography.

Winston Churchill - Badass

I found this on AH.com in the thread, Things that look like alternate history, but aren't. There is also the famous photo of Winston Churchill with a tommy gun, here done as a demotivational poster. Here is an opinion piece by Max Hastings, Winston Churchill the terrorist, that takes a negative view of his badassery.

Photos from Siberia

Photos from Siberia

Link from Timbo

Anachronism by Investment Advisor

The February 3, 2010 edition of the Report on Business had this image of James Hymas, actually the image above is cropped from a larger photo that appeared in the physical paper, in a article about preferred shares, An investor with a preference for preferreds. What I found interesting is that everything in the photograph, the man at the desk with flowing beard, the desk, the Persian carpet, the fireplace, the suit look as through they are from 1899. When I asked several people to point out what doesn't belong it woulkd take them a while to find the laptop.

As a comparison here is the cover art to the book Guns of the South. Note the similarities a bearded man in a old style suit with something that wasn't manufactured in the 19th century.

William Notman - Photographer

Just watched a documentary about William Notman on TVO. Here is his wiki entry and an exhibit about him.

Canadian War Photography

Here is a site of Canadian War Photography. The Image above almost seems like an image from Froissart or some other medieval chronicle.

Afghan War as shot by David Guttenfelder

Afghan anti-Taliban fighters advance tanks to the front line along the White Mountains of Tora Bora in northeastern Afghanistan, Monday, Dec. 10, 2001. With U.S. fighter jets streaking overhead, anti-Taliban forces firing tanks and anti-aircraft guns Monday seized a key ridge near one of Osama bin Laden's hideouts in the majestic mountains near Pakistan. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

Afghanistan as shot by AP photographer David Guttenfelder, from the Denver Post. David Guttenfelder's personal site.

Sunday in the Park with Godzilla

Found at Black & WTF from Hasting Graham's photostream.

The best comment is from Paxsimius:

Hi, I'm an admin for a group called Godzilla Fan Society, and we'd love to have this added to the group!

Battle of The Atlantic Resources

(U-boat bunker at La Pallice / La Rochelle

© Pascal Blijkers - 2007 )

I found a great site devoted to Uboats and to the Battle of the Atlantic in WWII, uboats.net. The above is part of series of images of an abandoned UBoat pen in France. Also listed is the naval resources and losses on both sides. As the site is named it has more informational on Uboats than on any other navy or ship type. Some of the detailed listed is convoy battles, events of the day, biographies, ship histories.

This makes me want to fire up my favorite uboat game and play all night.

Auschwitz with Dolls and Action Figures

While looking on flickr this image pops out. It looks like someone staged a scene from Auschwitz with dolls and action figures. The photo is from guido z's photo stream.

Action figures are dolls for boys.

Bruce Haley's Tao of War Photography

Bruce Haley is a war photographer. On his site a few years ago he distilled all his experience at the sharp end into the Tao of War Photography. 64 "Observations, Thoughts, Vented Spleen, Profanity and Diverse bits of good advice peeking above the sarcasm..."

50. Equation: the number of journalists covering any given conflict is directly proportional to the proximity of comfortable lodging and booze......

A Supervillian's Datacenter

In a slashdot story, Will Silicon Valley Run Out of Data Center Space? Anonymous Coward linked to this article of a data center in Stockholm in a surplus nuclear bunker, The World's most super-designed data center - Fit for a James Bond Villain. This what CEO that paid for this site, sounding in no way a little nerdy, wanted.

“I’m personally a big fan of old science fiction movies. Especially ones from the 70s like Logan’s Run, Silent Running, Star Wars (especially The Empire Strikes Back) so these were an influence,“ said Karlung. “James Bond movies have also had an impact on the design. I was actually looking for the same outfit as the villain ‘Blofeld’ in Bond and even considered getting a white cat, but that might have been going a bit far!”

More Ruins of Old Detroit

Last September I came across a site devoted to photography of the Hell that is Detroit, Ruins From Old Detroit. Here is another photographer, James Griffioen, who also has been wandering around the living museum of Detroit. Instead of focusing on decayed landmarks he looks for absence, the empty blocks, the caved in houses, the feral dogs. The archeology record of grand buildings, palaces, shrines is glamorous, but the analysis of humbler buildings is also very useful.

(from a link from Boingboing)

In the Land Of the Wolves - Chernobyl and area

Elena, a Ukrainian photographer and motorcyclist has put together a site of photographs of her travels into the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Here for the photographer's site. Here for information on the Chernobyl exclusion zone. Above is the actual nuclear plant. The record of her journeys are filled with rusted out equipment, abandoned disintegrating building and healthy and unconcerned wildlife. A higher background radiation that wildlife pays for a larger habitat and reduced human caused predation.

Has anyone else read the book the World Without Us. What has been happening here and what is discussed in the book gives hope for the future, with or without us.

(link from Goranga!)

Site Devoted to Abandoned Places

Artificial Owl is a site "dedicated to provide on a daily basis a selection of the most fascinating abandoned man-made creations". They also provide exact locations of these sites. The above is a US antiballistic missile site that was built but never used.

Abandoned Buildings - The Ohio Edition

Illicit Ohio is a site devoted to photo explorations of abandoned buildings in Ohio. I came to my attention after Boingboing linked to images of a derelict mansion supposing owned by noted criminal Mike Tyson. However the site has images have some other logo than the original phototographer pasted over Illicit Ohio watermark. A very sleazy practice.

Old Photograph of Serra Pelada.Open Pit Mine

The photos yesterday of the gold mining in the Congo, Men Who Moil for Gold, reminded me of the Amazonian gold rush in the early 1980's where at Serra Pelada a mountain was leveled and then turned into a 100 metre deep pit by hand. The photographer Sebastião Salgado made his name with images from this mine. There was a documentary made of this gold rush but I can not find it. Maybe the other mining fans know the name of it. Here is a long (90 minutes) discussion of his work from the Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

For even more information about Sebastião Salgado here is a documentary, Looking Back at You, on him and his work, (pt1, pt2, pt3, pt4, pt5 and pt6). In this documentary an art critic say that photos like the one above give him an idea what the construction of the Pyramids must of looked like.