This image is from a basic commercial shoot about 10 months ago. Hey, nothing wrong with documentation projects! I sent it out under the title  u b i q u i t y  to some of the usual suspects. My inside man in S.F. replied with one of his great, terse, one word responses . . .chilling. And I thought, that's it ! The Shining meets The Office.

The walking, one and only, original Dr. No is dead. . .

has crazed designers who use Ikea kitchen islands as a base to glue thousands of lego pieces, so it ends up being a crazy lego kitchen table. . . this stuff gets me frantic with admiration (thanks to thecoolhunter.net). . and hey, like plastic, like color, like good digital cameras? Your chance for a collector's item is now, Pentax is releasing a limited edition DSLR that has beloved idiomatic plastic toy schema.

Via my intermittent dose of DesignBoom - an interview with Joshua Prince-Ramus. There were a number of lifestyle questions at the head of the interview that were annoying, but scroll down and there are things of interest about his firm REX: We've never seen a constraint that we didn't like. The office's ethos is about not designing objects, but designing processes... and to have the confidence that with enough people, enough intelligence and enough energy, the process will lead to a conclusion that far exceeds anything you could have sketched initially or individually. We call this the 'lost art of productively losing control.’

One cool exhibit in place at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, The Provoke Era. It's focus: the output of the short lived magazine, Provoke, which thrived in the late  60s. A great quote from Gefter's Daily Beast article: In their declaration of intent for the magazine, Taki wrote: “We photographers must use our own eyes to grasp fragments of reality far beyond the reach of preexisting language, presenting materials that actively oppose words and ideas . . . materials to provoke thought.” Well, I could argue that you can't have thoughts without language, but that discussion is for another time. Another exhibit happens at the Brooklyn Museum starting real soon like on October 30: Who Shot Rock and Roll: A Photographic History from 1955 to the Present. Looks good!

Before viewing this site, perhaps you should blow your nose, go to bathroom, etc. Relieve yourself of any extraneous fluids, bile, etc. Because you may laugh so hard, you may soil yourself. And it is not, repeat, it is not mockery. Granted, the captions are high snark, but the photographs are what they are. If people want to go about in public like this, so be it. Street photography at it's finest, in America's newest Main Street; the aisles of Walmart. There are over 50 pages at peopleofwalmart.com, but persevere! Have at it! Push on! You will be rewarded for your efforts by some the most hysterically nightmarish visions of the human condition I've seen as of late. Felliniesque may be an understatement.

Wendy and I just did an assignment at North Dakota State College of Science. We worked with Brian Herder of the Russell Herder agency of Minnneapolis. It was not easy due to weather, but we all kept our sense of humor and mushed on. It was great working with Brian, who as producer, kept things rolling by making prompt decisions and kept us laughing, laughing I say!, in the face of adversity. Of course some things caught my eye. .

Beautiful, beautiful, black and white. . .like the platinum prints of Irving Penn, these black and white photos seem to acutely focus the the design, doing away with the clutter of color. Yes, I know that sounds like tight a** platonic denial, but it does work that way, in that Japanese fashion. This article on the newly built bridge in Dublin via Minimalismi. The design firm, Amanda Levete Architects, is doing wild stuff. But I couldn't seem to find any info on the photographer, Gideon Fuehrer.  mmmm....

Another great 20th century photographer dead. An innovator, a definer (that's my problematic word, hey, it's better then 'impactful') and hard core portraitist. Someone who also elevated fashion photography and kept it minimalist and elegant. I read the New York Times obit while enroute to an assignment that would end up being very hard due to the weather. In the car, on my iphone (no, not driving). I scrolled, and scrolled and was amazed at his life and work. His images sure beat the soft core porn which has entrenched itself since the 70s. Other good writings at The Beast and Photo District News.

Finally, some sweet natured retro. Not ironic, mocking or general reeking of 'oh, how could we.' So kids, submit scans of your folks before you ruined them.