Wednesday 27 October 2010

Iconic Photos - Hyeres - Henri Cartier-Bresson


All it takes to be a photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson once said, is “one finger, one eye and two legs”. Then, Cartier-Bresson must have possessed one of the best eyes in the business. Born in 1908 in Paris into a wealthy family, Cartier-Bresson had a lusty, rebellious hunger for travel. With a head full of Rimbaud and a copy of “Ulysses” under his arm, he set off for west Africa in search of adventure. (He aspired to be a painter, but Gertrude Stein suggested he drop the brushes).

"...all it takes to be a photographer
is one finger, one eye and two legs...
"

He bought his first Leica in the Côte d’Ivoire when he was 23. It fitted into his pocket, along with a few rolls of film. With this new and light equipment — it and rolls of film fitted nicely into coat pockets — Cartier-Bresson would document everyone from Balinese dancers and Mongolian wrestlers to Spanish matadors and New York bankers. When snapping a spectacle—be it a coronation, a sporting event, or a parade—he trained his camera on the unsuspecting bystanders. He would wait until that “decisive moment” when the right composition filled the frame. And it all came so naturally, too: he rarely used a light meter, checked his aperture setting, took more than a few shots of a single subject, and almost never cropped his photos.

The photo above was taken in 1932 in Hyeres, a small town on the French Riviera, and has been featured in many retrospectives on Cartier Bresson’s work. The decisive moment here nicely juxtaposes the fleeting biker with the spiral staircase; the poignancy of the moment is accentuated by the fact that although the photo seems as if it was taken accidentally or on the spot, we can also imagine Cartier-Bresson crouching over those railings in Hyeres for hours, waiting for the right instant.

For more iconic photos, visit http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/

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Iconic Photos - Hyeres - Henri Cartier-Bresson


All it takes to be a photographer, Henri Cartier-Bresson once said, is “one finger, one eye and two legs”. Then, Cartier-Bresson must have possessed one of the best eyes in the business. Born in 1908 in Paris into a wealthy family, Cartier-Bresson had a lusty, rebellious hunger for travel. With a head full of Rimbaud and a copy of “Ulysses” under his arm, he set off for west Africa in search of adventure. (He aspired to be a painter, but Gertrude Stein suggested he drop the brushes).

all it takes to be a photographer is one finger, one eye and two legs...

He bought his first Leica in the Côte d’Ivoire when he was 23. It fitted into his pocket, along with a few rolls of film. With this new and light equipment — it and rolls of film fitted nicely into coat pockets — Cartier-Bresson would document everyone from Balinese dancers and Mongolian wrestlers to Spanish matadors and New York bankers. When snapping a spectacle—be it a coronation, a sporting event, or a parade—he trained his camera on the unsuspecting bystanders. He would wait until that “decisive moment” when the right composition filled the frame. And it all came so naturally, too: he rarely used a light meter, checked his aperture setting, took more than a few shots of a single subject, and almost never cropped his photos.

The photo above was taken in 1932 in Hyeres, a small town on the French Riviera, and has been featured in many retrospectives on Cartier Bresson’s work. The decisive moment here nicely juxtaposes the fleeting biker with the spiral staircase; the poignancy of the moment is accentuated by the fact that although the photo seems as if it was taken accidentally or on the spot, we can also imagine Cartier-Bresson crouching over those railings in Hyeres for hours, waiting for the right instant.

For more iconic photos, visit http://iconicphotos.wordpress.com/

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Self-Portrait - October 2010

Lucy in Old Low Light

Tuesday 26 October 2010

Final Release: High-Resolution iPhone 4 Textured Wallpapers Light & Dark Grey

Finally, after painstaking (and admittedly questionable) work, here are the final High-Resolution iPhone 4 Textured Wallpapers in Light & Dark Grey. The images & wallpapers/backgrounds were created using system files and images extracted from the iPhone iOS 4 package. The dark grey texture exactly match the images used as the multitasking background and folder background in iOS 4.+ (Light Grey Theme is used in iBooks and iMovie)

Please say thank you in the comments below! Or drop me a line at ryan@uselessdesires.co.uk

Enjoy...

Dark Grey Theme:

Light Grey Theme (used in iBooks and iMovie):

Reproduced for educational purposes only. Images Copyright © 2010 Ryan Price and Apple Inc.

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The Afterlife? A Perspective.

In the afterlife you relive all your experiences, but this time with the events reshuffled into a new order: all the moments that share a quality are grouped together...

You spend two months driving the street in front of your house, seven months having sex. You sleep for thirty years without opening your eyes. For five months straight you flip through magazines while sitting on a toilet.

You take all your pain at once, all twenty-seven intense hours of it. Bones break, cars crash, skin is cut, babies are born. Once you make it through, it's agony-free for the rest of your afterlife.

But that doesn't mean it's always pleasant.

You spend six days clipping your nails. Fifteen months looking for lost items. Eighteen months waiting in line. Two years of boredom: staring out a bus window, sitting in an airport terminal. One year reading books. Your eyes hurt, and you itch, because you can't take a shower until it's your time to take your marathon two-hundred-day shower. Two weeks wondering what happens when you die. One minute realizing your body is falling. Seventy-seven hours of confusion. One hour realizing you've forgotten someone's name. Three weeks realizing you are wrong. Two days lying. Six weeks waiting for a green light. Seven hours vomiting. Fourteen minutes experiencing pure joy. Three months doing laundry. Fifteen hours writing your signature. Two days tying shoelaces. Sixty-seven days of heartbreak. Five weeks driving lost. Three days calculating restaurant tips. Fifty-one days deciding what to wear. Nine days pretending you know what is being talked about. Two weeks counting money. Eighteen days staring into the refrigerator. Thirty-four days longing. Six months watching commercials. Four weeks sitting in thought, wondering if there is something better you could be doing with your time. Three years swallowing food. Five days working buttons and zippers. Four minutes wondering what your life would be like if you reshuffled the order of events...

In this part of the afterlife, you imagine something analogous to your Earthly life, and the thought is blissful: a life where episodes are split into tiny swallowable pieces, where moments do not endure, where one experiences the joy of jumping from one event to the next like a child hopping from spot to spot on the burning sand..

Copyright © 2010 Ryan Price

Related link:
Hell, by Cecilia Weightman:
http://www.uselessdesires.co.uk/hell-a-short-story-by-cecilia-weightman

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DoggyBooth ~ Lucy at 18

DoggyBoth

This photostrip was created on my iPhone with Pocketbooth. www.projectbox.com/pocketbooth

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Angry Birds Halloween Wallpapers

Courtesy of Rovio Mobile:
Get Your Angry Birds Halloween Wallpapers Here!

Desktop Walpaper:

iPhone 4 Lockscreen:

iPhone 4 Homescreen:

iPhone 3G/S Lockscreen:

iPhone 3G/S Homescreen:

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Sunday 24 October 2010

Walking Lucy

Download now or watch on posterous
IMG_1874.MOV (4169 KB)

Our old family dog, now about 18 years old, in the local park earlier today...

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One Week Old - Jack's First Portrait

The Full Vintage-ish Photography Collection

Here, for the first time in one place, is my vintage-style photography collection. Be sure to check this post regularly, as new photos will be added regularly. All photos have been taken using techniques to emulate the look and feel of prints produced using Holga, Diana or other toy cameras, or have been reproduced to reflect images produced in earlier times, such as in the 60's, 70's or earlier.

You can follow me on twitter for regular updates: www.twitter.com/uselessdesires

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY DISCLAIMER:
All images Copyright © 2010 Ryan Price - Not for general distribution. Not for publication in whole or part without the express permission of the author and/or creator. Any usage of images or text created and published on www.uselessdesires.co.uk or its affiliated sites, or on social networking sites, must be credited to the original author/creator, and a link back to this website must be provided if images or text are used on any other website. Any images and/or text must be credited as follows:
"Reproduced with permission. Images and/or text copyright © Ryan Price 2010. All rights reserved. Visit www.uselessdesires.co.uk for the original content."

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