A few weeks ago I blogged about the photos from Serge of Paris and other areas. He recently redid his site and the result is quite nice, all done in WordPress (yes I did have a word to say in that).

His new site looks like this, the landing page is his blog which is great as it keeps the site alive and human.

I suggest you check it out here.

The new site of Serge on www.photoserge.com

One of the shots is an amazing black and white shot of the Musee d’Orsay in Paris. The sky is pretty nice and the museum too, but the most amazing in this shot is the sharpness and light effects on the rhinoceros. It is not just the contrast of the photo but the contrast of a rhino overlooking Paris.

www.photoserge.com - another amazing shot of Paris

click on the link on the site or here: http://www.photoserge.com sit back and enjoy.

[;-]

I recently showed my blog around and showed some of the amazing photography of JM Berts to friends. I am still startled by the photos he takes and the quality of the shots.

A friend of mine showed me some of his photography of Paris (and other places). Some of it is done using a technology called HDR (High Dynamic Range imaging) it’s pretty amazing. I invite you to check out his site (www.photoserge.com) and his blog (there are two one is http://sergeramelli.blogspot.com/ and http://photoserge.com/blog) for some of the shots.

He said he is doing an expo soon and that you can buy photos from him, unfortunately he doesn’t have an online store yet but that is coming soon.

Well Paris is a photogenic city that is for sure…  enjoy [,-]

I just noticed that the links to Jean Michel Berts’ blog are down for some reason.

He has another site with a great series of slideshows of his work which you can check out here:

http://www.jeanmichelberts.com/berts-photographer-paris.html

I got some of the Paris photos which are posted here:

Eiffel Tower black and white and amazing light show.

Is this Pont Neuf? Well it’s an amazing Bridge in Paris.

I’ve posted quite a lot about Dolk the Norwegian Stencil Graffiti artist. It started when a friend of mine spotted some of his stencils and showed me the pictures. I posted those and found more stencils and took pictures of those and posted them too.

What has become my best resource for Dolk Stencil Graffiti news is http://www.thegiant.org/wiki/index.php/Dolk

It’s got pictures, stories, interviews and anecdotes.

There is a “Making of” his infamous Che Guevarra stencil (which I also found) that I thought was great.

Check it out here:

This two-color image, an “instant classic” as per Pictures on Walls and “Banksy-heavy” as per thethugsdontwork, features a cigar-smoking Che Guevara proudly pointing to his t-shirt, emblazoned with artist Jim Fitzpatrick’s rendering of Alberto Korda’s (in)famous, much pirated 1960 image of… Che Guevara.

And here is the stencil as it looks on a graffiti covered wall:

Note that the picture is wider than the post so click on it to get the whole thing.

I’ve decided to post on every new photo that JM Berts releases. They are pretty cool.

It’s funny to think that this is the same New York that’s covered in graffiti.

Well enjoy the photo and check out his site for more photos they’re cool.

[;-]

I got these pictures on an email of British signs. I thought they are just too funny to be kept only on email.

And probably someone else has posted them on their blogs too, but it’s just too cool. Who has the got the humor to make a sign like that and the guts to put it up.

And despite the otherwise serious facade of the British, stuff like this is just so unexpected.

Ah how I love these Brits.

Humor is a great thing – how much farther it goes to deliver an otherwise boring message. It’s like those Dolk stencils. One can deliver a message in a placid tone and probably nobody sees it or give it with a touch of humor and it goes a long way and gets remembered.

It’s like what FraudWasteAbuse does with his blog. They’re banal subjects delivered with with a touch of humor and I remember them better than the news of the day.

Cheers all of you.

At the Train Station:
KEEP BACK FROM PLATFORM EDGE
or you may get sucked off

At the Zoo:
PLEASE BE SAFE
Do not stant, sit, climb or lean on zoo fences.
If you fall, animals could eat you and that might make them sick.
Thank you.

In the bathroom:
OUT AIM IS TO KEEP THIS BATHROOM CLEAN
GENTLEMEN: Your aim will help. Stand closer it’s shorter than you think.
LADIES: Please remain seated for the entire performance.

On the High Tension machine:
CAUTION
This machine has no brain
Use your own

On the Air Conditioning Service Van:
Stiff Nipples Air Conditioning Service

On the Nitelink bus:
Ladies, the poles are fitted for your safety.
No dancing.

By the lake:
ATTENTION DOG GUARDIANS  Pick up after your dogs. Thank you.
ATTENTION DOGS  Grrrrr, bark, woof. Good dog.

Outside the Mr. Toskana lather goods store:
MR. TOSKANA has had an expensive divorce
and now needs the money, so SALE NOW ON!!

Somewhere else:
PLEASE
Don’t throw your cigarette ends on the floor
The cockroaches are getting cancer

I just saw that Jean Michel Berts has published another one of his amazing photos. It’s Paris again, Place Vendome – the jeweller’s square in Paris.

The dramatic black and white skies and the shining lights are totally capturing.

Well done Jean Michel for another impressive picture.

I can’t wait to see them available as posters!

See my other post on the Amazing Photography he did in New York and other pictures of Paris.

Dolk is undoubtedly one of the best stencil artists around. But he isn’t good because he’s good. He’s good because his stuff communicates.

Each one of his stencils have a message – but not some heavy political “revolution.” Yet you leave the image and the mind starts going. Every image has that little twist.

Check out the marathon runner crossing the police line? (picture courtesy of Wooster Collective)

Or “Che” – here’s the symbol of revolution – but rapping?

Or the boy remote controlling… a bird?

Or what about the Burger King?

It’s communication. And when you see one of these images, always look for that little (or big) extra.

Here are some “Dolk Resources” that I’ve found to be the best ones around.

Check them out.

First the “official” Dolk fans forum, you need a login but it’s full of amazing shots from around the world.

Find it on: www.DOLK.co.uk

Second the interview done by “Schhh” - it’s in English and Spanish.

Find it on: http://www.schhh.unmicroclima.com/blog/?p=151#englishdolk

Then this Wiki has a ton of photos and other info. Definitely worth checking out. This is hosted at TheGiant.org.

Find it on: http://thegiant.org/wiki/index.php?title=Dolk&redirect=no

(but don’t hotlink to his images he doesn’t like that)

And some additional pictures from Wooster Collective. They have some great stuff too.

Stencil Revolution has also got a good bunch of shots and additionally they have comments by Dolk and others on these. Very neat. Also has it categorized differently here.

Find it here: http://www.stencilrevolution.com/photopost/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=1864

And then Stencil Archive has some stuff - mainly from Barcelona so update it if you have more.

Find it here: http://stencilarchive.org/index.php?set_albumName=album337&name=gallery&include=view_album.php

I know there was mention that some were on sale as Picturesonwalls or Banksy but I could not easily find them so voila. If you find it then post the link in the comments please.

I took this shot of a bike in the snow the other day. Following my earlier post (Dude where’s my bike – a lesson in 3D font usage) I thought I would bring this sequel.

Just like the bikes can’t be found in the snow, so will your message if you don’t use your color harmony well. I found the following would be a good basic to start from.

What is color?

Technically we could explain color like some do in encyclopedias. Something like “physical phenomenon of light or vision associated with the various wavelengths in the visible portion of the electromagneticspectrum. As a sensation experienced by human beings and some animals, perception of colour is a complex neurophysiological process.” Per the Encarta Encyclopedia.

While this may serve a technical defition it doesn’t give us a better understanding of what color is and how to use it.

Color could be simply said to be a visible characteristic used to distinguish similarities and differences in an object, painting, picture etc.

Arguably more than half of the beauty in an object, painting, picture comes from the color. Think about a bouquet in black and white. It would be nice but it would just not quite be as nice as it could be.

But color can also turn a nice painting or object into something so repellent you just want to get rid of it fast. Imagine a room with beige walls with fine gold ornaments and a Bordeaux carpet and in the middle of that place the most expensive renaissance chair, a true piece of art, painted in bright green. Had your vision been in black and white you would still consider that a gorgeous room.

Almost everyone can somewhat figure out what fits and what doesn’t. But how can you be sure. And what do you do when you are told your Powerpoint presentation needs to feature the company logo which is bright green and simply doesn’t fit with any of the charts you made. Or after you found out at a recent seminar that the color that would best represent your company is red yet all your point of sale materials you have are green.

How can you know what other colors you can use or rather you must use to make the presentation attractive (and thus sell)?

Here is where the laws of color harmony come in. To understand color harmony you first need to understand the word harmony. Harmony is defined as a pleasing effect produced by an arrangement of things. It comes from the Greek word harmonia ‘agreement, concord’ which came from the word harmozein ‘to fit together’.

This is the secret of color using color; harmony. There are laws to color harmony, there are limits and boundaries and exceptions to these which are explained with the color wheel.

Let your bosses have at you, tell you that your presentation needs contain their favorite colors, let the marketing analysts present you their color surveys, no matter what color you are asked to include. With the color wheel you are never lost.

Just like any other field, there are laws to this game and knowing them and having the tools to use them replaces your rickety string ladder with granite steps of certainty.

There is no way around it. The color wheel is a basic to creation like a paint brush is to a painter. You can paint with your fingers but you won’t get a Monalisa.

The color wheel existed long before computers, but recently a company did a pretty neat little software called color-wheel-pro. You’ll find a link to it in my tools section on the right. Try it out – it works well the new version (2.0) fixed some points missng in prior edition. It’s soon perfect.

Art Lebedev studios are working on a project that is probably going to relieve thousands of people working on international relations… the Optimus 103 Keyboard.

Now the buys atEngadget (and I really love their blog) have been giving this one a hard time. But no matter all of that, this piece of kit will seriously work when it’s out.

A keyboard where every key is actually a little screen and depending on how you program it, it’ll show the characters needed. Switch between Russian, English, French, Japanese. Between lowercase and uppercase.

And better, you can set the keys so they have the icon of the tools you are using in Photoshop etc.

If you don’t get the importance of this announcemen, you just haven’t gone through the pain of multi-languages.

Now all we need to do is get the price down!