I am the oldest of three grandsons on my mother’s side. Of the four of us, I was the one who was most interested in, and knowledgeable about art and art history at a fairly young age. By seven or eight, I was familiar with dozens of artists. Among my favorites were (and still are) Van Gogh, Klimt, Monet, Escher, Saul Steinberg, Rembrandt, Albrecht Durer, Renoir, and Henri Rousseau. I bring this up to provide context for the photo below and for the story about it.

I don’t know if I was eight or nine when this picture taken, but it was taken by my friend Chuck Gould, a contemporary of my father, and somebody I have known for the bulk of my life.

On this particular day, for reasons unknown, I decided that I was going to dress up as Henri De Toulouse-Lautrec. His art utterly fascinated me, as did the fact that his path as an artist started at about the same age that I was then. I started with grabbing an oversized jacket worn by one of the adults, something that would dwarf me, or at the very least come down to my knees. Next, I grabbed a fat black El Marko pen and proceeded to draw a beard, moustache and glasses. I was ready to present myself. The resultant conversation went something along the lines of this:

Ivory (my father’s girlfriend:)  “Oh my god, what did you do to yourself?”

Me: “I’m Toulouse-Lautrec! Whaddaya think?”

Ivory: “what did you use to draw on your face?”

Me (proudly): “I used this El Marko pen!”

“…But…isn’t that indelible?”

“‘Indelible’? What’s that?”

“It means that it won’t wash off your face!”

That was the day I learned what the word “indelible” meant.  I have never forgotten it, and indeed the mighty El Marko was just that. We spent a while trying to scrub what we could off, but for all intents and purposes, I got to be Toulouse-Lautrec for the better part of a week.

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This image is included in a fantastic collection of photographs by Chuck from the Digger Archives. These photos are of particular excitement to me because they chronicle a world that my father was part of in the late sixties and into the early seventies….and by extension me.  I know or knew most of the people in these photos, so it’s really great seeing these photos all pulled together like this. From an historical perspective, this collection is perhaps one of the better visual records of activist hippy life in and around the scene that surrounded the Height back then….and of many of the Diggers.

The Golden Gate Bridge was built between the years of 1933 and 1937 and is considered one of the modern Wonders of the World by the American Society of Civil Engineers. Before its construction, there was a ferry service that began as early as 1820. Within a hundred years, the “Golden Gate Ferry Company” had become the largest in the world. Costing more than $35 million, it has become one of the most recognizable symbols of a city in the world. According to Wikipedia, “more people die by suicide at the Golden Gate Bridge than at any other site in the world,” with jumpers hitting the water at 75 miles per hour after a 4 second drop.

This picture was taken from my new favorite photo blog, the Retronaut. Originally this post was going to be about how amazing a destination it is, but perhaps you should just go there now and discover for yourself!

See all the Golden Gate photos at Retronaut

Never heard of Weegee? if not, you have likely seen his work at some point over the years. He was prominent from the late ’30s and into the early ’50s, and is known primarily for his gritty New York City shots from lower east side crime scenes. Looking at his photos it’s easy to imagine that his style no doubt influenced film noir. A new post in the New York Times, entitled Weegee’s Other Naked City, looks into the  lesser-known Los Angeles photographs the  tabloid photojournalist Arthur Fellig  took.

In 1938, he was the only New York newspaper photographer with a permit to have a police-band shortwave radio. Using the police broadcasts, he often beat the police and firefighters to the scene’s thus getting some of the rawest urban imagery for which he is best known. He had a full darkroom setup in the trunk of his car, allowing him to turn around his photos in record time.

MOCA L.A. is currently showing approximately 200 of his photographs taken after 1947, the year that he moved from New York City to Los Angeles. The show is called Naked Hollywood, and is on display until the end of February, 2012.

There is a brand new book collecting many of these photos called Naked Hollywood: Weegee in Los Angeles and is available from Amazon at a good discount.

Check out “Weegee’s World” at: http://museum.icp.org/museum/collections/special/weegee/

1968 NY Times article re: Weegee’s death in 1968: http://www.scribd.com/fullscreen/73758206

Slowly finding its way around the web is some of the most stunning and incredible time-lapse photography you’ve ever seen, taken by one remarkable Dustin Farrell. Every frame of this video is a raw still taken with a Canon 5D2 DSLR and processed to create the breath-taking landscapes you see here. The quality of these videos is jaw-dropping. Full-screen them on your computer and you’ll see what I mean. WOW:

I recently discovered a Flickr pool entitled Looking into the Past, devoted to combining old B&W photos of locations and buildings from the past that then get dropped into the same location in the present day. This project was apparently inspired by one Jason Powell whose initial idea was to pay homage to another Flickr collection, Michael Hughes’ Souvenirs project. This has become now become something of a global phenomenon with over 50 photographers around the world contributing to the project. Below is a small selection of a few that I thought were particularly inspiring.

There are a few collections that curate a subset from the entire Flickr pool making it easier to see a quick “greatest hits” selection:

• Paulo Canabarro
• Wired UK
• Ed Rabbit

I barely even know what to say about this. My dear friend Sharon posted it to my Facebook in response to my Wayne Coyne architecture post and I was both humbled and blown away. This is a mosaic of 84 total photos combined to comprise this final majestic final image. This tree is over 1,500 years old, and is 300-feet tall. I continue to be floored by the power and grandeur of this photo, and have little doubt that it will be the longest photo to ever post on this blog. Stunning. Can you find all six people?

There are more photos, a video on the making of this photograph, and an interactive time-line tracing the history of the tree rings and what was going on historically in the world at various points on National Geographic. Their Explorer series will have an episode, Climbing Redwood Giants which will premiere September 29 at 10 p.m. ET/PT on the National Geographic Channel.