Category Archives: Photographers

Ludwig Schricker revisited

Photographers

A fine German photographer.

Munich-based photographer Rolf Poss chanced on my 2008 piece on Ludwig Schricker, a little known German photographer with a fine eye for composition and a liking for expressionist images.

Rolf reports that the 1980/3 issue of Leica Fotografie magazine had a cover image by Schricker whom they described as “…. a judge in Straubing”. A true amateur.

Rolf generously shared many images from his collection with permission to reproduce them here.

Enjoy!




Click the image for the slideshow.

Steve the master businessman

Movies

A fascinating interview.

In addition to his fascination with design and form, Steve was a masterful businessman.

His widow, Laurene Powell Jobs, curates the Steve Jobs Archive and has just published a 1996 interview about Steve’s engagement with Ed Catmull and John Lassiter of Pixar and with the Disney Company to create the first ever completely computer generated animated movie. Toy Story would go on to be a huge hit.

There are many great business insights into the great man’s thinking in this interview. For example, he explains how he thought long and hard about compensation design in trying to meld the disparate cultures of Hollywood and Silicon Valley at Pixar: “Hollywood uses the stick – the Contract. Pixar adopted the carrot – Stock Options”.

To see the previously unpublished video click the image below.



Click the image..

The Savoring books

Book reviews, Cooking

Gorgeous and tasty.

For an index of all my book reviews click here.



My small collection.

Take a magnum opus like Julia Child’s ‘Mastering the Art of French Cooking’ and you have every recipe imaginable from that land of culinary genius. Yet the books are as boring and as poorly presented as it gets. There are no photographs, a handful of poorly rendered pencil sketches passes for illustration, the fonts are dated and ugly and, well, the whole thing smacks of a well prepared meal thrown on a paper plate in higgledy piggledy fashion.

And that is very much not the case with these wonderful books from Williams-Sonoma, mostly published in the first five years of the millennium and now sadly out of print. I got mine from Abe Books, lightly used, for pennies on the dollar. Each boasts not one but two photographers – one for the locales, the other for the food and the photography is, without exception, gorgeous. And these are not just cookery books, for each recipe comes with historical detail explaining provenance and subtleties. Highly recommended not just for cooks aspiring to emulate the best in Western European cuisine but for lovers of great photography everywhere.

F1: The Movie

Movies

Better than the real thing.

Much of modern Formula One racing is processional and boring. One driver or team gets a jump on the technology and dominates, as has been the case for the last decade. First Mercedes, then Red Bull, now McLaren. At least the last has two great drivers so you see some competition.

That’s what makes F1: The Movie so entertaining. Lots of on track action superbly photographed, and little in the way of plot. Plot is the last thing you want in a racing picture. Plus throw in the last great Hollywood star in Brad Pitt and you have a winner.




I think it’s time to upgrade the sound system in the home theater!

We caught it at the local IMAX theater – you really need to see this on a huge screen with a sound system to match – and I expect our hearing will be restored in a month or so. Highly recommended.

You can see the specifications of the awesome JBL 2245 H 18″ woofer here.

States of Decay

Book reviews

Urbex at its finest.

For an index of all my book reviews, click here.

There are very few words in this book and that’s appropriate for the powerful photography by Dan Barter and Dan Marbaix speaks for itself. This is Urbex at its finest, the pictures dark and moody and the many images of abandoned asylums terrifying in desolation. They must have been even more so when occupied. There are images of abandoned churches and factories and public transport termini also, but it’s the ones of the asylums which really leave a mark.



Click the image for Amazon

Recommended for all fans of fine photography and urban decay.