Josh McConnell | CJMS Communications

Katja Kemnitz – Too Much Love

Katja Kemnitz documents the lives of plush toys by photographing them before & after

Katja Kemnitz: In this fantastic series ‘Too Much Love’, German photographer Katja Kemnitz, who was inspired by her daughter, decided to document the lives of children’s plush toys by photographing them before and after dozens of hours of hugs, kisses, wear and tear. Katja Kemnitz is a 29 years old photographer from Bonn, Germany. She has always been interested in art, mostly poems and paintings, but has never even used a pen or a paint brush. Katja Kemnitz first discovered photography about 7 years ago when she stood in front of the camera and decided to model for the first time. Her love for the medium grew as she continued to meet some great, very creative photographers and learn more about photography and it was at this time, Kemnitz started to become interested in the more technical aspects. She notes ‘I bought an analog film camera and tried to photograph pigeons and seagulls on the Rhine. These pictures were not presentable, but the camera fascinated me. I looked at many photos on the Internet and dabbled in taking self-portraits, which became better over time.’ Katja Kemnitz believes her inspiration comes from her children – not only for her ‘kid’ photos, but also for her more conceptual images. ‘They show me again and again how important the little things are. And that each thing contains a secret story that you just have to discover. I think that to see the world through children’s eyes helps to be a very good photographer. Kemnitz is also inspired by nature ‘I draw much inspiration from the forest. The silence, the colors – I just feel safe when I’m in the woods. That’s why I’m often alone in the forest to take self-portraits.’ and fairytales ‘I love the kitschy fairy tales with their stereotypes, such as the dark, inscrutable stories.’ About her series ‘Too Much Love’, Kemnitz says ‘I show old, much-loved teddies and dolls compared with new doppelgangers. I think the broken stuffed animals have a lot of soul. The project was inspired by my older daughter, who carried her plush dog with her everywhere when she was little. One day I found that dog in store, without any damages. However, my daughter did not like him. The old one was better and could not be replaced.’ The series is still ongoing and more of Katja Kemnitz’s work can be viewed here.

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‘Blade Runner’ – New Trailer for UK Re-Release

'Blade Runner', Ridley Scott’s trail-blazing sci-fi, is back on the big screen

Blade Runner: “This new trailer captures the essence of the film and I hope will inspire a new generation to see Blade Runner“. The brand new Blade Runner trailer gets the thumbs up from Ridley Scott. Blade Runner, Scott’s trail-blazing sci-fi, is back on the big screen in the UK from the 3rd April 2015 courtesy of the British Film Institute. Originally released in 1982 and adapted from Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, Ridley Scott’s iconic dystopian classic is unquestionably one of the greatest sci-fi films ever made and this April, cinemagoers across the UK will have the chance to see it again, at its best on the big screen, when the BFI releases Blade Runner: The Final Cut. Harrison Ford is exemplary as the world-weary detective hunting down intelligent but murderous replicants in a neon-lit, rain-spattered future Los Angeles. Rutger Hauer, Sean Young and Daryl Hannah all give career-defining performances. Featuring an iconic Vangelis score, Ridley Scott’s classic sci-fi opus is one of modern cinema’s most influential films. Blade Runner initially polarised critics: some were displeased with the pacing, while others enjoyed its thematic complexity. The film performed poorly in US theaters but has since become a cult film. It has been hailed for its production design, depicting a ‘retrofitted’ future, and remains a leading example of the neo-noir genre. It brought the work of Philip K. Dick to the attention of Hollywood and several later films were based on his work. Ridley Scott regards Blade Runner as probably his most complete and personal film. In 1993, the film was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant”. Blade Runner is now regarded as one of the best science fiction films ever made. Given complete artistic freedom to make The Final Cut in 2007, the 25th anniversary of the film’s release, director Ridley Scott created this final, definitive version, fully restored from the original negative. A grand cinematic synthesis of sound, image and thought-provoking drama Blade Runner: The Final Cut is an unforgettable experience that demands to be seen on the big screen. We can only pray that it will be released somewhere in Australia very soon!

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Craig Boudreaux – After Katrina

Craig Boudreaux's haunting images after Hurricane Katrina

Craig Boudreaux: ‘All that was left were crushed dreams and moldy memories.’ It is with these chilling words that photographer Craig Boudreaux tells of the moment when he returned to New Orleans, a year after the devastating passage of Hurricane Katrina. Born and raised in the region, Craig Boudreaux has captured a series of moving and very haunting images – the homes of his grandmother, his family and his friends, immortalising the messages that people have left, drawn with spray paint directly on the walls of the ruined and abandoned houses. It took over ten years for Craig Boudreaux to find the courage required to thoroughly sort, edit and publish these unique images. Hurricane Katrina was the fifth hurricane of the 2005 Atlantic hurricane season and was the costliest natural disaster, as well as one of the five deadliest hurricanes, in the history of the United States. The storm is currently ranked as the third most intense United States landfalling tropical cyclone, behind only the 1935 Labor Day hurricane and Hurricane Camille in 1969. Overall, at least 1,833 people died in the hurricane and subsequent floods, making it the deadliest United States hurricane since the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane. Total property damage was estimated at $108 billion (2005 USD). Reflecting on his photographs, Craig Boudreaux writes ‘These are photographs taken in the months after Hurricane Katrina ravaged the New Orleans area. It’s taken me ten years to complete these edits. These are primarily from Arabi and the Gentilly area of New Orleans. Some are very personal to me – my Grandmother’s home, homes of friends, and the house in which I grew up. Most of these structures were completely submerged. When these were taken, the flood waters were long gone. All that was left were crushed dreams and moldy memories … and painted messages to anyone who cared.’ There are many amazing images in this series so to view them all (which we strongly recommend), please visit Craig Boudreaux’s website.

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Apple Watch & New MacBook

Apple products continue to innovate and impress

Apple: A further and more in-depth look into the new Apple Watch and the new MacBook were announced at a live Apple event in San Francisco, California. So awesome!! And although the Apple Watch is clearly the most exciting new kid on the block, it is definitely the new MacBook that is the talk of the town. Apple’s new MacBook now becomes the thinnest notebook ever at just 13.1mm at its thickest point and a weight of just under a 1kg (907 grams). The newly designed Apple MacBook runs silently with a fanless logic board that is 67% smaller than the 11-inch MacBook Air. The batteries themselves have been redesigned as well, allowing them to be built with a contoured design to maximise the available space. The result provides enough power for all-day battery life, according to Apple. One major change is that the Apple MacBook features just one single USB-C port that will be used for multiple purposes including charging, video output, and USB data transfer. USB-C also has a reversible design, eliminating frustration when trying to orient a USB cable correctly. The new notebook is available in space grey, silver, and gold tones, and in two different versions. One version starts at $1,299 (USD) with a 1.1GHz Intel Core M processor, 8GB of RAM, and 256GB of flash storage. The $1,599 version (USD) has a 1.2GHz processor, 8GB of RAM, and 512GB of storage. Both versions of the new MacBook will be available in the United States beginning 10th April, 2015. The Apple Watch is Apple’s first wearable device that will be launched on 24th April, 2015. The Apple Watch collection features highly polished stainless steel and space black stainless steel cases. The display is protected by sapphire crystal. And there’s a choice of three different leather bands, a link bracelet, a Milanese loop, and a band made from high-performance fluoroelastomer. Siri is also integrated allowing users to experience the familiarity of features found on other Apple devices such as navigation, keeping track of events, and messaging friends. Take a look at both the Apple Watch and the new MacBook below:

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‘Cosmopolitan’ Magazine Brings Sexy Back

Cosmopolitan recreates the covers of cheesy romance novels with real people

Cosmopolitan: Of course, everyone knows of the cheesy romance novel – the novelettish and sentimental literature made to tickle the senses, covers emblazoned with virile young men and young ladies in search of fierce love that are clearly marketed to woman with ‘healthy and active’ imaginations. Well, world renown and bestselling women’s magazine, Cosmopolitan, has recreated these covers using real, everyday people in an clever and amusing series that will definitely make you see their funny side. The ‘romance novel’ or ‘romantic novel’ is a literary genre. Novels of this type of genre fiction place their primary focus on the relationship and romantic love between two people, and must have an emotionally satisfying and optimistic ending. Some scholars see precursors to the romance novel in literary fiction of the 18th and 19th centuries, including Samuel Richardson’s sentimental novel Pamela, or Virtue Rewarded (1740) and the novels of Jane Austen. British company Mills and Boon began releasing escapist fiction for women in the 1930s. Their books were sold in North America by Harlequin Enterprises Ltd, which began direct marketing to readers and allowing mass-market merchandisers to carry the books. In North America, romance novels are the most popular literary genre, comprising almost 55% of all paperback books sold in 2004. The genre is also popular in Europe and Australia, and romance novels appear in 90 languages. Most of the books, however, are written by authors from English-speaking countries, leading to what is deemed an Anglo-Saxon perspective in the fiction. Despite the popularity and widespread sales of romance novels, the genre has attracted significant derision, skepticism and criticism. Erotica is a term used to describe scenes in the novel that are risqué but not pornographic and ‘Romance erotica’ seems to be on the rise as more women explore this new sub-genre – You only have to look at the popularity of Fifty Shades of Grey...enough said. Enjoy!

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Joywave – Video of the Day

Joywave's new surreal music video 'Somebody New'

Joywave: When modern-day skateboarding meets what seems like the visual glitches of video game Grand Theft Auto V, you get ‘Somebody New’ the new surreal music video for the band Joywave, directed by Keith Schofield and produced by Three Foot Giant. In Rochester, New York, indie electro band Joywave began in 2010, formed by vocalist Daniel Armbruster, guitarist Joseph Morinelli, bassist Sean Donnelly, keyboardist Travis Johansen, and drummer Paul Brenner. Joywave first offered up a sample of their ’80s-inspired electro tunes with the Golden State single in early 2011. They earned a fair amount of attention through a series of online mixtapes that meshed original tunes with other artists’ materials, all remixed to include Joywave’s signature playing and vocals. In addition to these mixtapes and early single releases, the band released the Koda Vista EP in 2012 and the How Do You Feel? EP in 2014. Apart from their own releases, Joywave have made frequent guest appearances on their friends’ singles, showing up in the role of both remixers and guest performers on standout recordings by Big Data and Betty Who. Joywave are perhaps best known for their collaboration with electronic music project Big Data, Dangerous, which peaked at number one on the Billboard Alternative Songs chart. Also achieving considerable popularity was Joywave’s Tongues, featuring KOPPS; as of November 2014, the official music video had surpassed 350,000 views on YouTube. The song has also reached over 1 million plays on SoundCloud and has been featured on FIFA 15. In July of 2014, Joywave, along with Big Data, made their late night television debut on Late Night with Seth Meyers. Check out their awesome video for ‘Somebody New’ below:

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Pop Chart Lab – The Vocations of Heroes & Villains

Pop Chart Lab imagines business cards of comic book superhero & villain alter egos

Pop Chart Lab: LOVE! This awesome print imagines the business cards of famed comic alter-egos, from Clark Kent to Tony Stark to ‘The Bruces’ both Banner and Wayne – as well as a slew of notable CEOs notably Green Arrow and Green Goblin, mallet-wielding psychiatrists like Harley Quinn, and patriotic military personnel including Captain America and War Machine. The credentials of over 30 secret identities are featured here – all beautifully designed and hand-illustrated – to form a brave, bold, and business-casual rolodex that makes for an uncanny addition to your wall. Each print is signed and numbered by the artists from a first printing of 500, and comes packaged in a Pop Chart Lab Test Tube. Finishing options include print with hanging rails, print mounted on a panel or simple framing available in white, black, oak or walnut. Also note that framed prints require an additional 3-4 business days of processing time from the date of order. Using 100 lb. archival stock certified by The Forest Stewardship Council, this fantastic poster is pressed on an offset lithographic press with vegetable-based inks in Long Island City, Queens. Not to mention for $29, its an absolute bargain! This is a ‘Want, Love, Need’ with some ‘Gimme, Gimme, Gimme’ thrown in for good measure.

‘Ex Machina’ Official Trailer

'Ex Machina' turns a harmless study btwn Man & Robot into a sinister experiment

Ex Machina: A24 studio has released the official trailer for their upcoming sci-fi thriller film Ex Machina directed by Alex Garland, the writer of 28 Days Later and Sunshine. The trailer begins with a harmless study between a young coder named Caleb Smith and Ava, an artificially intelligent robot, but soon turns into a much more sinister experiment. Ex Machina tells the story of Caleb Smith played by Domhnall Gleeson, a programmer at an internet-search giant, who wins a competition to spend a week at the private mountain estate of the company’s brilliant and reclusive CEO, Nathan Bateman played by Oscar Isaac. Upon his arrival, Caleb learns that Nathan has chosen him to be the human component in a Turing Test – charging him with evaluating the capabilities, and ultimately the consciousness, of Nathan’s latest experiment in artificial intelligence. That experiment is Ava played by Alicia Vikander, a breathtaking A.I. whose emotional intelligence proves more sophisticated – and more deceptive – than the two men could have imagined. The musical score for Ex Machina was composed by Ben Salisbury and Geoff Barrow, who previously worked with Alex Garland on Dredd in 2012. A soundtrack album was released digitally on 20 January 2015, with a CD UK release in February 2015 by Invada Records. Ex Machina was released in the United Kingdom on 21 January 2015 through Universal Pictures and the film will screen on 14th March 2015 at South by Southwest prior to a theatrical release in the United States on 10 April 2015 by A24 Films. I’m sure it will be released in Australia around the same time as well. Really looking forward to this one!

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Natalie Shau – Lost in Wonderland

Natalie Shau's dark, strange and surreal world

Below are a selection of the latest creations by Natalie Shau, a photographer, artist and graphic designer who combines illustrations and photographs to lead us into a dark, strange and surreal world populated with beautiful creatures. Natalie Shau is a mixed media artist and photographer based in Vilnius, Lithuania who has an amazing talent in fashion and portrait photography as well as digital illustration and photo art. Coupled with her personal work, Natalie also creates artwork and photography for musicians, the theatre, fashion magazines, writers and advertisements. Her specialties include digital art, painting, CD artwork, photo manipulation, book covers, illustration, CD design, collage, digital painting, art direction, production design, advertising and fashion photography. Her digital masterpieces have graced the pages of French Vogue during a Lydia Courteille jewellery campaign and her extensive client list of music labels includes Island Def Jam, Sony Music Entertainment, Century Media, and Nuclear Blast. Gothic horror fiction, fairy tales and Russian classics (e.g. Dostoevsky and Gogol) are among the influences she lists for her surreal and strange creations. Natalie Shau uses a range of media, mixing photography, digital painting and 3D and the quality she seeks is “at once fragile and powerful”. “My works are digital mixed media. I mix photography, 3D elements, vector elements and digital drawing. I also enjoy creating surreal and fashion photography. My photography and digital works are often surreal portraits of women; however, I love portraying animals sometimes.” Natalie Shau regards her works as ‘pretty motionless and doll-like’, but they express the burden of waiting, and the inner conflict that boils within the characters. You can sense this in their expressions or in some contradictory elements or symbols hidden in the work. When questioned whether there is a reason that most of her illustrations and images are of women, Shau notes that she does not choose her characters, they choose her – she’s unable to explain how this happens. Her influences are many however Alexander McQueen, Eiko Ishioka, Trevor Brown are amongst them. Describing her creative process, Shau reveals “I have a flash of an idea or vision and, after exploring it in my mind, I try to sketch it and see if I can express it. I collect all the materials I need for that, take portraits, photograph elements, find any elements needed, and then I start working on a piece.” Take a look at Natalie Shau’s beautiful work below and be sure to visit her website:

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‘Boo-Boos’ – Are these Band-Aids too Realistic?

'Boo-Boos' depict sickening & repulsive injuries yet they're so much fun!

If you enjoy others feeling sorry for you with every little cut or graze, then Boo-Boos are probably for you. Boo-Boos are just like the band-aids you already use only hyper-realistic – allowing you to transform the smallest cut into a gunshot wound, chemical burn, or skin ulcer. An offbeat project currently being funded on Kickstarter, Boo-Boos make your cuts & scrapes look so much worse than they really are. While the injuries depicted on these bandages are somewhat sickening and repulsive, they are also just a bit of fun. So go ahead and slap them on and watch people gasp and gag at your laceration, burn, or infection. So gross!

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So what’s the story? $hërwøõd Förlêé, inventor of the Anti-Theft Lunch Bags, came up with the idea for Boo-Boos after witnessing an accident that involved a bit too much blood for his liking. A visit to the ER revealed that the injury was thankfully (but disappointingly given the look of it) not very serious. A couple of stitches later and all was good again. $hërwøõd maintains, however, that at the time, the injury was life-threatening, and I’m sure that many of you can relate to this sentiment after receiving nicks of your own. Now, with Boo-Boos, you can finally convince people of the gravity of your wound while keeping the truth under wraps. A variety of injuries are depicted on the bandages including:

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The bandages, despite how they look, are sterile, latex-free, and individually wrapped so you can guarantee your boo-boos won’t turn into Boo-Boos. All bandages measure 3″ × 0.75″ (76mm × 19mm). Boo-Boos aren’t for everyone, especially those with weak stomachs, but you have to admit, they’re definitely more interesting than any of the other Band-Aids on the market. If you don’t mind a bit of attention, enjoy having a bit of a laugh, or you wish to convey pain in a conceivable visual manner, then Boo-Boos are definitely for you!

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