Moving Photographs - Jamie Beck

I was immediately fascinated when I came across these amazing 'cinemagraphs' made as animated GIFs by fashion photographer Jamie Beck and visual designer Kevin Burg.

They are so cool! An arty photograph suddenly comes to life with a blink or a passing car, or a waft of wind blowing on a few strands of hair, whilst the rest of the picture stays perfectly still.

As they are arty photographs at their base, they are definitely not just pixelated movies on endless loop.

I find the movement slightly hypnotic. They make me think of Harry Potter's moving photos.

For more, visit Jamie's cinemagraphs blog.

Links updated 10th Jan '15

CLAMP

Ah. The manga royalty that is CLAMP, the female quartet with an extensive back catalogue of internationally popular manga series, most of which have also been made into anime.

I first knew of them via the candy floss of classic shoujo manga Cardcaptor Sakura and fell in love with their artwork.

Cardcaptor Sakura

Their earlier series, like RG Veda, Magic Knight Rayearth and X/1999, were beautifully ornate, but rather dark and claustrophobic in style.

X/1999

CLOVER, on the other hand, the cyber punk love story with its distinctive use of negative space, had me hooked and pining for an ending after it went on indefinite hiatus.

CLOVER

I also liked their seinen series Chobits, about a mysterious android with free will and human emotions. I loved the costume design and soft colours they used. It really showcased CLAMP's wonderful grasp of the Goth Loli fashion style and indulged in lace and petticoats whilst pondering over existential angst.

Chobits

My favourites though have to be Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicle and xxxHolic. The epic plots are complex - Tsubasa finished at 28 volumes and xxxHolic at 19...

Tsubasa Reservoir Chronicles

...suffice to say that the two series are about fate and destiny, parallel and alternate universes and are distinct in style and story but have a strong common overriding arch. The CLAMP team had a field day intersecting story lines, space-time travelling and crossing over characters from all their previous works left, right and centre.

xxxHolic

CLAMP have also done many novel illustrations and original character designs, including those for the anime series Code Geass.

Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion

And I'm very excited about their newest series, Gate 7, mainly because of this:

"Between our conscious, waking world and the subconscious state of slumber, there is a thinly veiled plane of lucid dreaming. While the conscious state belongs to individuals, the hidden plane of dreams is one shared by all human minds, past, present, and future..."

Gate 7

What I love about CLAMP is that not only are both their colour and black and white work incredibly beautiful, their stories are interesting, which ultimately is what drives good manga. Long may they reign!

Official site (Japanese) CLAMP-net

Helen Jane Long

I love discovering new musicians whilst listening to the radio - I actually broke out of my daydream when this started playing the other day.




English musician and composer Helen Jane Long's style is described as contemporary classical, her melodies are haunting and emotional, yet also beautifully soothing and relaxing. She worked with Howard Shore on the LOTR score - you can definitely catch the film lilt in her sound.

One Day from her 2nd album, Embers

Underwater Sculpture

If I ever get the chance, I would love to visit the underwater sculptures by Jason deCaires Taylor out in the waters of Grenada in the West Indies and Cancun, off the coast of Mexico.

As part of conservation projects to help preserve precious coral reef, the Mexico based English-Guyanese artist (diving instructor and underwater photographer) carved many groups of statues from specialised cement and had them installed on the sea bed. The intention was to help promote coral growth and marine life on them to try and relieve the pressure from tourism on the natural reefs.

The result is fascinating and beautiful. There are scenes of sole statues sitting at desks or lying on a garden patio and groups of statues en mass or standing in a ring holding hands, all now resplendent in multi-coloured coral. Aquatic life swims past and shifting underwater light adds to the other-worldly effect.

What I love is that the reef systems which have been encouraged to establish on them have turned the sculptures, which are amazing on their own, into living pieces of art. They are literally alive and will, because of that, constantly be changing. Static, yet moving at the same time. It's such an elegant concept.

Simply mesmerising.

To see much more and read about the projects, visit the UnderwaterSculpture site and gallery.

Taro Hakase

Famous Japanese composer and violinist Taro Hakase held several impromptu recitals all over London last week to raise funds for the Red Cross Japanese tsunami appeal. I found out about it when he went on BBC Breakfast to spread the word. He played a short piece which he had originally composed for a TV series in Japan. He explained that because normal broadcasting had ceased due to the disaster, people hadn't been able to hear the tune, so he wanted to play it for them. It was very moving.




I made it to his performance at the Fortnum and Mason department store that afternoon. It was packed - people crowded around the spiral staircase on all 4 floors. You know when a musician is very passionate, the sound just has something different. It was rather special. Wish I could have seen him busking at St Pancras station (!)

Marina Bychnkova - Enchanted Doll

I'm fascinated with dolls and miniature modeling. Carved marble gods and cast metal giants are amazing yes, but I'm a massive fan of tiny details too.

These beautifully crafted porcelain ball-jointed dolls by Marina Bychkova of Enchanted Doll are a case in point. I fell in love when I first saw them on deviantArt a few years ago.

Not only does she hand mold and paint each porcelain doll, every single element of her dolls is hand made - every wig, beaded dress, elaborate head wear and tiny accessory is hand sewn, set or casted. O_O

She seems to draw a lot of inspiration from fairy tales, which gives me another reason to love her work.

Simply exquisite. Visit Marina's site to see her full gallery and fascinating details on how she makes these pieces of art.

Dolls and photos © Marina Bychkova

Gazette ♥

Oh I love the Gazette, my all time favourite J-rock band. They may lean towards heavy head-banging, screaming metal at times, but when they do power ballads, the guitar-led style of their music is simply awesome. Love, love, love the epic guitar solos in their newest single. And always, Ruki's voice...! ♥♥

Pledge, released December 2010.

Yazawa Ai

Two of my favourite manga are Paradise Love and Nana, stories by the amazing Yazawa Ai-san. Drawn in her distinctive Gothic Lolita style, they are both tales about love, friendship and dreams.

 

Paradise Kiss is heaven for the fashion lover. The story follows an ordinary girl who becomes muse and model to an eccentric group of college students as they set up their own clothing label. If Yazawa-san was a designer...!

Nana is a tale of two young women with the same name who meet on a train to Tokyo. They become best friends and go through the trials of following their dreams in the big city together.

As one of the girls is a member of an up and coming band, there's plenty of music and passion, and some Vivienne Westwood thrown in for good measure too.

Nana has spawned an anime series and live action movies, with music written for them by big name J-rock and J-pop singers, some in character no less!

Anna Tsuchiya as Nana Oosaki of Blast (L) and Olivia Lufkin as Reira of Trapnest (R)

Sadly, the story remains unfinished as Yazawa-san has been ill and Nana is on hold...

Both the Paradise Kiss and Nana manga series are available in English, licensed by Tokyopop and Viz Media respectively.

Manga images © Yazawa Ai

Sungha Jung

Youtube has opened up a stage for lots of people. It's wonderful because so many talented artists would otherwise struggle to be noticed, or, to look at it another way, we would be deprived of seeing them.

Sungha Jung is one such talent. Although I daresay this young fingerstyle guitarist would have been noticed one way or another. Hailing from South Korea, he was only 10 when his homemade videos of him playing acoustic covers got the people who heard him to pay attention.

Frans Lanting

It was during a lunch hour at school whilst in an independent book store many years ago that I bought a discounted coffee table photography book called Jungle. It was one of those big, oversize hardbacks. On looking inside, I could not believe that no one else had snapped it up. True, the dust cover had been ripped and some of the binding had come loose, but between the pages was the beautiful, bursting-with-colour world of Mr Frans Lanting, wildlife photographer extraordinaire. That was how I found the magician.

A photograph is the the world as seen through the artist's eye and wow, what an amazing point of view.

His compositions are always stunning and you cannot help being captivated by the eyes of the animals or the grandeur of the places he captures.

Originally from the Netherlands, Mr Lanting has travelled all over the globe, won numerous awards and is frequently commissioned by the National Geographic, where he was photographer-in-residence. Find out more on his site.

All photos © Frans Lanting

Story telling with sand and music

By Kseniya Simonova, the very talented young lady who won Ukraine's Got Talent in 2009. This is her evocative recounting of Ukraine's experience of WWII. It moved the judges and the audience to tears. The first time I watched this, I cried too. You will be able to understand the story she's telling without needing to know the history or the language as there are no words, just the music and the amazing way she animates the sand. The emotions portrayed are very powerful.

Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon

Ah. The anime of my childhood. I loved it. I loved the idea of strong girl soldiers fighting to defend the earth, loved their friendship, loved the story.

A story of reincarnated planetary warriors who could transform into powerful intergalactic fighters, with time travel and story references to astrology and Greek and Roman mythology, was great escapism.

The music of Sailor Moon was a great obsession for me. It still is. The score and songs are so iconic. I downloaded everything I could from sites dedicated to it and learnt to play some on the piano. Back when Napster was still used for free mp3 download, I found so many obscure pieces on there. Sailor Moon music played a huge part in leading me to anime music, and to J-Pop and J-Rock.

And then there was Naoko Takeuchi-san's original manga work and colour artbooks that she did for the series. I scoured everywhere to get my hands on the Cantonese version of the manga. The artbooks are now all out of print and surface on ebay now and again selling for hundreds of dollars.

Word has it that the anime is being re-aired in Japan and other places. Here's to another generation of girls (and boys!) who'll become fans of the ai no senshi.

Artbook images from Mangastyle © Takeuchi Naoko ~*~