Tag Archives: photo

Oct 9 2013

Snapcious Hones Your Photog Chops

by Whatsblem the Pro

An entry in a recent Snapcious Mission -- PHOTO: Mack Reed / Snapcious

An entry in a recent Snapcious Mission — PHOTO: Mack Reed / Snapcious

Mack Reed, a burner since 1996, is launching a free photo game for iOS called SNAPCIOUS that he says “inspires you to see the world through different eyes.”

“The challenge – ‘who can take the best picture of an idea?’ – adds meaning to the willy-nilly-photograph-anything obsession we all have with sharing photos,” Mack explains. “It inspires your creativity, and pushes you to see the world around you more intensely.”

According to Mack, the snappy new app encourages the average non-photographer Joe or Joette armed only with a phone cam to start thinking like a fine arts photographer, or a photojournalist.

“Snapcious brings out your inner photojournalist so you can do kick-ass coverage of your life. . . and it challenges you to develop your visual voice, putting your full creativity into everything you snap.”

How does it work?

“Every day, a new crowd-sourced Mission begins. It’s like a simple photo assignment, thought up by the players themselves – ‘Quality of Light,’ ‘Go Ahead and Jump,’ ‘Bad Hair Day’ – in which players snap and share their interpretation of the Mission and then everyone rates the photos.

“Top-rated photos win. As you earn more points by posting photos, rating them, adding comments and suggesting ideas for new Missions, you gradually level up and gain more insight into the art of photography.”

The game is still in its first incarnation, with a raft of incentives planned. Mack is clearly passionate about both the game and photography itself; he seems to want above all to leverage the ubiquity of camera phones to foster more and better photographers.

“When you level-up,” he tells me, “you’ll get access to a pro camera, pro editing tools, and the ability to mentor newer photographers by offering pro tips. In short, we’re building a culture around the notion that everyone secretly desires to become an award-winning photographer, and that photography is a language we can all learn to use with more beauty, finesse and meaning, if we just start communicating more effectively through what we shoot.

“We all take photos as easy as blinking. We all need to start making photos more meaningful, insightful and beautiful. Anyone can share a photo of their pet, their breakfast or their best friend. But how many of us are sharing photos that challenge the eye, that reveal something about us, that expose our inner beauty?

“That’s why we built the game – we want to give people the tools to feed their inner eye and see the world differently.”

You can check out the game at Snapcious.com or download it for iOS.

Mack himself gives a game walkthrough in this video:

Sep 23 2013

The View From Up There

by Whatsblem the Pro

Old Razorback, aka Trego Peak, shot in 2008 by Jedi Master Ratti

Old Razorback, aka Trego Peak, shot in 2008 by Jedi Master Ratti

Mark Phipps, John Phipps, Dallon Phipps, Kevin Johnson, and Meghan Johnson scaled Old Razorback (aka Trego Peak) this year to capture some poignant time-lapse video of Burning Man 2013 as viewed from approximately four miles away at an elevation of 5495 feet above sea level, or 1888 feet above the playa floor.

The climb to set up the cameras (and retrieve them after the burn) is dangerous and difficult; Old Razorback’s approaches are untrailed and not terribly stable. . . but a passion for both photography and Burning Man drove the group up the mountain to bring you a view you’d probably never see otherwise.

With a calming, chill-out soundtrack by Inspired Flight and Dusty Nix, the resulting video is a bittersweet meditation on the epic potlatch impermanence that marks Burning Man as utterly unique among festivals.

In 2012, a group with many of the same members made the grueling trek up the mountain to give us a time-lapse video of that burn.

As Jesus said to Peter while hanging on the crucifix waiting to die: “Hey, I can see your tent from here!”

Here’s the 2013 video:

Embedding has been disabled for the 2012 video, but you can still head over to YouTube to watch it.

Aug 16 2013

Have You Seen Me?

by Whatsblem the Pro

Burner Photographer Peter Gordon -- PHOTO: Dave Earl

Burner Photographer Peter Gordon — PHOTO: Dave Earl

Peter Gordon is a well-respected playa photographer who has won a slew of accolades for his work, especially in his native Ireland and in the broader world of European fine art photography. Peter is perhaps best known among burners for his work documenting the 2011 Temple of Transition, and his latest project will bring that work to the coffee table and the world. Thus spake the photographer himself:

“The book is called Life and Death – The Temple, and it’s the first time there has ever been a specific photography project on the Temple. The story is told through the Temple of Transition, but the work is about more than an individual Temple. It’s about the concept, it’s about our need to grieve, our need for companionship. It’s about life and death, as expressed through the Temple. The idea is to give a genuine photographic document of the Temple experience. So far the work is going down really well with a host of awards for some of the sweeping wide angle images.

“It’s going to be a hardback coffee table finish printed here in Ireland. An interview of David Best by James ‘Irish’ Horkan (of the International Arts Megacrew, the team that built the Temple of Transition) will serve as the foreword for the book. I’m hoping to launch the project in late September with an exhibition in Ireland, and then take it to the U.S. on tour.”

There’s just one little fly in Peter Gordon’s ointment, and you can help: he needs to identify burners in several photographs intended for the book, so that he can ask them for permission to use their images commercially.

Do you know any of the people in these photos? If you do, please ask them to contact Peter Gordon either by e-mail, or via Facebook.

Do you know these people?

Do you know these people?

Do you know these people?

Do you know these people?

Do you know this person?

Do you know this person?

Do you know this person?

Do you know this person?

Do you know this person?

Do you know this person?

Do you know these people?

Do you know these people?

Do you know these people?

Do you know these people?

Do you know these people?

Do you know these people?

In August of 2013, I asked Peter Gordon for some background on his work. This was his response:

“My first love as a photographer was landscape photography. What really got me hooked was hanging out in the Wicklow mountains, just south of Dublin, watching the Sun go down or waiting for it to come up. You could say I got a little obsessed; so much so that I spent the next five years rambling around Wicklow shooting with an old film camera on a 6×7 format. I managed to create a book and exhibition around my experience, called Wild Garden. I had exhibited in a range of shows before but this was my first big body of work in terms of something that I felt was really complete, and also as something that got great media coverage and generated a successful exhibition.

“I’ve done other landscape projects since, and I’m still crazy for the great outdoors. I’ve always had a love for both documentary photography and Burning Man, so it seemed logical to try and merge those two loves at some point. Life and Death – the Temple became my first major documentary photography project.

“After mixing things up with my style a bit at the end of 2011, I started to get lots of great recognition for my work, both in terms of landscape and the documentary imagery I had created at Burning Man. I managed to win Irish and European Professional Photographer of the Year which was really amazing.
I’m incredibly excited to try and put this Temple book and exhibition together; I think the work tells a genuinely interesting story. I’d love to see it travel from Ireland to the U.S. and beyond.

“I won’t be able to make it out to the desert this year, but can’t wait to come back in 2014 to soak up the atmosphere and make some fresh imagery.”