Stephanie C. Roberts

© Stephanie C. Roberts

I am a huge fan of documentary photography and when it is paired with an artful eye it can be the most powerful of all the mediums. Very seldom do I make editorial statements regarding other artist on this blog. It’s usually more about posting work that moves me followed up with factual information, but Stephanie’s work touches me in a unique way. Some people just have the gift. I had a hard time choosing the right image to post as a highlight to her work. I went with an image from the iPhone series she calls iphoneography. Her body of work is diverse and it’s power is consistency. The compositions are gorgeous. She has the eye of a painter and the viewfinder is her canvas. I find the images to be emotionally rich and extremely moving…
Take a look, decide for yourself.

Check out the iphone series here: Little Purple Cow iPhoneography
View her other series here: Little Purple Cow Productions

Guillaume Nery

World champion freediver Guillaume Nery’s special dive at Dean’s Blue Hole, the deepest blue hole in the world filmed entirely on breath hold by the french champion Julie Gautier. The deepest blue hole in the world at 202 meters (663 ft) — Deans Blue Hole is not only the breathtaking location of this artistic concept video, but it is also the site of Guillaume’s successful constant weight national French record dive to 115m.

Mstislav Rostropovich

Mstislav Leopoldovich Rostropovich (March 27, 1927 – April 27, 2007) was a Soviet and Russian cellist and conductor. He is widely considered to have been one of the greatest cellists of the 20th century, and is considered by some of his peers to have been the greatest cellist of all time. In addition to his outstanding interpretations and technique, he was well-known for his commissions of new works which enlarged the cello repertoire more than any cellist before or since. He gave the premieres of over 100 pieces. From 1977 until 1994, he was musical director and conductor of the U.S. National Symphony Orchestra in Washington, DC. He was also internationally recognised as a staunch advocate of human rights, being awarded in 1974 the Annual Award of the International League of Human Rights.

Birthright

BIRTHRIGHT from Sean Mullens on Vimeo.

from Sean Mullens vimeo comments feed:

The film was shot in one day.
I had discussed shooting the film with Michael for a few weeks and then one day he approached me and asked if I wanted to go film him getting into the water. I grabbed my camera and we shot everything in a few hours.
There is more interview footage of him detailing his initial accident and his return to the ocean/surfing that didn’t make it into the final cut.
One interesting fact is that the place where we filmed him entering the water was the exact location he broke his neck and became disabled 30 years ago. He told me that time and time again he finds himself at that spot on earth without intention of being there…it is one of his favorite places to be.

The Whiskey A Go Go Scene

“Faces” from the incredibly well done John Cassavetes box set “Five Films” released by Criterion. Simply beautiful film making. I love how he edited this scene. The music, the absence of dialogue, the slow swirling camera waiting to reveal the next moment, the perfect cut to the eyes meeting for an instance and the music filtering internally to lock in the moment. It’s a scene that I have watched many times and still get more out of it each time. That’s rich and that was Cassavetes.

love-pictures.org

© scott tolmie

love-pictures is an online gallery and archive curated by Will Mebane and Scott Tolmie. The site serves as a space to celebrate found and taken photographs that are experienced as much by the heart as by the head.

The inaugural portfolio is selected from Scott’s archive of over 4500 found photographs, and is the product of almost 40 years of collecting. Thirty of Scott’s found photographs were featured in the 1998 exhibition at SFMOMA, Snapshots, the Photography of Everyday Life, curated by Douglas R. Nickel.
A catalogue of the same title was published by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Fourteen of Scott’s found photographs reside in the permanent collection of the SFMOMA.

Check it out: love-pictures

Stravinsky: Once At A Border (A Tony Palmer Film)

Tony Palmer is a British film director and author. His work includes over 100 films, ranging from early works with The Beatles, Cream, Jimi Hendrix and Frank Zappa (200 Motels), to his classical portraits which include profiles of Maria Callas, Margot Fonteyn, John Osborne, Igor Stravinsky, Richard Wagner, Yehudi Menuhin, Benjamin Britten and Ralph Vaughan Williams. He is also a stage director of theatre and opera.

In this clip Kyung Wha Chung plays Stravinsky’s violin concerto.
One of my all time favorite performances.

“Sound” (1966-67), Pt. 1

The first installment of this three part short film directed by Dick Fontaine features Rahsaan Roland Kirk performing his souful composition “Here Comes the Whistle Man”. The audience participation is brilliant, fun and life affirming. Watch it to the end…

Art Blakey

This performance is from the DVD: Classic Drum Solos and Drum Battles.
Check out Hudson Music for the coolest collection of inspirational and educational videos for Musicians.

Mike Parsons

Mike Parsons (born March 13, 1965 in California) is a surfer sponsored by the Billabong company who famously successfully surfed a 66-foot wave at Cortes Bank, CA in 2001, for which he was awarded $66,000, the highest prize ever awarded in the history of professional surfing. This money was awarded by the Billabong XXL competition which has run since 2001 paying tribute to the biggest waves ridden each year. This feat at Cortes Bank was popularised by the film Billabong Odyssey. Parsons is famous for a video clip of him riding a wave about 65 tall at Jaws, shot from a helicopter, that many believed was the biggest wave ever surfed. Parsons recently broke his record on January 5, 2008, at Cortes Bank, when he was photographed surfing a wave that the Billabong XXL judged to be 70+ feet, which should put him in the Guinness Book of World Records, officially, for biggest wave ever surfed. Unofficially the biggest wave ever surfed remains Ken Bradshaw’s wave at Log Cabins, Oahu on January 28, 1998, at over 80 feet.
He was inducted into the Surfer’s Hall of Fame in Huntington Beach, California in 2008.