We’re very sad in the Wolkenstein camp.  Sam Haskins, after suffering depression following a stroke, has taken his own life.  Sam was a fellow Highlander and a brilliant photographer.  I’m not sure what else to say. A legend, but words sound trite at a time like this.

Click here to see his CNN interview, shot the day before the stroke.

Our good friend Katie Ell (who some of you might know as Katie Wilson) has curated and produced the most amazing event we think we have seen all year.  It’s an exhibition of homeless people by homeless people.  It’s a self portrait series and it’s part of a program to help build confidence, vocational aspiration and to give the sitters an avenue for artistic expression.  The private view is November 26th, 5-9pm at St Mungo’s in Covent Garden.  The details are below on the flier.  Go along and support a peer who is actually making a difference.  Completely inspiring.  Well done Katie.  We’re proud of you.

Chris Searl is to be one of the five judges in this years Canon EOS Photo 5 awards.

The site explains the project best:

These five photography briefs are what EOS Photo5 is all about. Inside the official box each year are items which represent 5 seperate photographic briefs. The challenge is to answer the 5 briefs with the most creative and imaginative images you can think of. The past two years of EOS Photo5 have produced some amazing shots, and we are expecting even bigger things from the World of EOS community this year, check out the past winners here.

For 2009, we’ve made the briefs even more challenging to test your photography skills not just your creativity. Each brief has also been assigned a professional judge to provide tips along the way and choose the final ten shots before we open the competition up to a public vote to choose the winners. New to EOS Photo5 this year is the Open Brief* – Practically Black. This is the first time we have one brief which everyone can enter, even if you missed out on one of the limited edition EOS Photo5 boxes.

Nirrimi is the second under 18yo whose work has completely inspired me this week.  I found her work via Lost at E Minor (Zolton is a fellow Novocastrian).  The amazing thing about the internet is that the work of these prodigies can spread.  Nirrimi is based in Townsville and had she been born 20 years ago her work might not have been discovered.  Sydney model bookers should most definitely book a ticket to FNQ and get a hold of some of these young models.  They’re pretty amazing.  Nirrimi, don’t lose that freshness.

check out the rest of Nirrimi’s work here

My site recently received props from the man I believe to be the foremost design commentator in this country.  He recently wrote a State-of Design article that received lots of Twitter attention around the world.  Michael write a little piece about the agency which you can see here:  http://linefeed.presspublish.info/2692 and a great article about Beci which you can see here http://linefeed.presspublish.info/2690

The linefeed site design is unpretentious even taking unpretentiousness to the extreme of not being ironically minimal in its design.  Wow, that’s a complicated statement but it’s the best way I can describe my observation.  If you care about design, check it out.  It’s quite all-encompassing and caters to the pedestrian use of design, including user experience of city design, as well as speaking to the design nerd.

I was going to start the post by saying all photography boffins should see this but that’s a bit limiting.  This film is a spiritual journey – God it’s sounding so cliched! – but it really is!  I have seen the film and when people ask me what it’s about, I try in my weak way to explain that it’s a documentary about how art is made.  I’ve never seen a great connection to art and to the environment as I did in this film.  It really affected me.  It makes other photographic art look really pissweak and gutless.  If you want to see what I am on about click here for details about where/when etc (it’s on next Wednesday night)

Click to see some of Chris\’s current work

This stuff is really inventive, thought provoking and, well, pretty much plain old amazing.  Here’s a tiny sample (for more click the link above).

This image depicts 28,000 42-gallon barrels, the amount of of oil consumed in the United States every two minutes (equal to the flow of a medium-sized river).  It boggles the mind.  Thanks Dave for the link.

I have taken out a little ad on Design Files.  It looks super cute (big thanks to Jethro Cave at Viviens and Sophie Wilkinson at Scene by the way).  The Design Files is such a great resource.  It features some really in depth interviews and basically all the design happenings in this country.  I find it easily as inspiring as any of the internationational blogs, probably moreso as it’s all going on in our gigantic but largely uninhabited backyard.

Check out the link and add Design Files to your RSS feed.

Click here for the article and for a Monday morning full of inspiration!

I saw Jan Von Holleben’s work on the Rooftop Cinema posters while I was in Melbourne last week. I had seen his work before but I hadn’t really slowed down in my day enough to really look through it and let it sink in. It’s worth taking 10 minutes to really just enjoy this delightful little series. I don’t usually use the word ‘delightful’ but his work really does delight me. I will no longer listen to photographers who complain that they don’t have the funds to test and create happy bright new work. Thanks to Jan for blessing this post. Good weekend to all, especially Julian who is far away from us right now.

Here is the new Aquascutum campaign shot by Tim Walker.  It’s SO CUTE! I shouldn’t be saying this, but when are we going to start seeing something INTERESTING from Australian fashion advertisers!?  If you want to see some real fashion subversion, also check out this article on Pammy with Vivienne Westwood. Now before you go hanging shit on Pammy, remember, if nothing else, she is a good mum and deserves respect.  I love her.  And even more now.

Bon weekend.