Empty Rooms

Deep post title right? But in this case it is literal. I've been browsing the personal websites of production designers/art directors and the photos on the sites are great. These photographs make what seemed like 'real life' on the film screen look like a stage set. In some part this is due to the lack of people, but the way these rooms are photographed is just kind of weird. They don't look like interior design or architectural photos, they don't look like family snapshots, they are something else. What? I don't know! I just like 'em!

So this first bunch and the next three are all from Carl Sprague for The Royal Tenebaums. He's got a background in film sets which works really well with Wes Anderson. You should definitely check out his website it's got all these great sketches from his projects, and more photos like these (plus Anderson with short hair!)

Good design can make a mediocre film watchable. I didn't like Synecdoche, New York all that much, and yet I could watch it three times. I was initially perplexed, then I realised - IT JUST LOOKS PRETTY. Well not pretty but aesthetically pleasing, and it has this excellent cohesiveness, like a darker blue, mouldy green alternate universe where everything relates to each other. So thank you Mark Friedberg for making an overblown, pretentious film worth watching three times.

And let us not forget exteriors and non-domestic interiors! Wes Anderson's movies don't just co-ordinate everything inside, but outside too!

images from Carl Sprague and Mark Friedberg's websites

Pari Dukovic - Art and Fashion #6

I have a handful of blogs that I read daily, and The New York Times' The Cut would have to be my favourite. I knew that they would be unveiling a new overhaul soon, but I was happily surprised to discover that the day has arrived! And if the first feature is anything to go by, this incarnation will a be a roaring success.

To kick off the new feature - a super-large-format, high-resolution image slideshow -  is a series of 63 photographs from Pari Dukovic, taken over the F/W 2012 fashion month. I am totally amped about Pari Dukovic at the moment. He seemed to come out of nowhere the season before with some seriously unusual and seriously compelling show photography. The big fashion photographers of course work in editorial - but this Pari, he's turning shows into an art worthy subject.

Part of what makes the photos so wonderful, and so different, is their texture. I don't know what camera he uses but at times the photos are so grainy they look sketched. How refreshing is it to be reminded of the materiality of a photograph! Ironic, I know, since I'm seeing these on a computer screen, but you can just imagine their physical glory.

For those of us who, like me, only experience these events through pictures, Dukovic's photographs create a world even more fantastical and evocative than before. Who would want to attend the reality of a show when you can attend Dukovic's more sublime vision of reality!

all images by Pari Dukovic (duh) from The Cut