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I got published in the march edition of Digital Camera Magazine.
I got two cover shot's, this one and the one for the subscribers.
Carolina Home and Garden Magazine recently ran a full feature on me in their magazine, so I thought I'd post the article for everyone to check out. The rest of the article is in another post linked in the first post below...
One of my nine images just published for Hidden City Philadelphia''s 'Under World' photo essay/collaboration(with two other photo comrades) of life under the El In Kensington, Phila., PA
Ethnic groups rally for immigrant rights
By Oscar Avila and Antonio Olivo
Tribune staff reporters
Published March 10, 2006, 1:06 PM CST
Both sides of the debate over illegal immigration were bracing today for a massive march and rally, a multi-cultural mobilization expected to draw tens of thousands of protesters to the Loop in support of more humane immigration laws.
Busloads of immigrants from Mexico, Poland and Ireland streamed this morning to Union Park, at Ashland Avenue and Washington Boulevard on the city's West Side. Shortly after noon, they stepped off on a two-mile march to Federal Plaza, 230 S. Dearborn St., for a 2 p.m. rally.
As many as 40,000 people were expected to participate, WGN-Ch. 9 reported.
Anticipating the big turnout, critics of illegal immigration held a preemptive news conference this morning in Grant Park. They predicted the rally would backfire on its organizers, stoking the anger of other Chicagoans that illegal immigrants were arrogant enough to demand increased rights.
Opinion polls find most Americans favor stricter immigration enforcement, the critics said.
Sandra Gunn, government relations field associate for the Washington-based Federation for American Immigration Reform, said she hoped politicians would ignore the "display of arrogance and intimidation" from protesters who she said flout immigration laws. "It is our voices that they must heed," Gunn said.
Carmen Mercer, vice president of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps, a national volunteer group opposed to illegal immigration, said the marchers were undercutting the interests of legal immigrants who play by the rules. She also said the threat of terrorism makes immigration enforcement more critical.
"We don't want another 9-11," said Mercer, a legal immigrant from Germany. "That is why we are demanding that our government secure our borders."
Today's events come at a critical time in the immigration debate. Congress is weighing competing proposals over how to treat the nation's 11 million undocumented immigrants.
Rally organizers said they oppose H.R. 4437, a bill approved in the U.S. House of Representatives that would drastically strengthen immigration enforcement, including the construction of a wall along the Mexican border.
Instead, they back a competing bill that would provide legal status for most undocumented immigrants and make it easier for legal immigrants to bring in relatives. That legislation, sponsored by U.S. Sens. John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Edward Kennedy (D-Mass), also would expand temporary work visas.
Much of the turnout and energy for today's rally was coming from the local Mexican-American community, the area's largest immigrant group. But the Mexican groups were bolstered by immigrants from Ireland, Poland, China and Ecuador.
The wide-ranging organizing committee also included the Nation of Islam, Service Employees International Union Local 73, evangelical churches and the Puerto Rican Cultural Center.
Tapping into immigrant growth in the suburbs, organizers rented about 200 buses for immigrants boarding near taquerias and churches in such far-flung towns such as Blue Island and Aurora.
A subplot of the day's events, organizers said, was the Chicago economy's reliance on immigrant labor. Organizers encouraged participants to leave work, with some calling for a "general strike" today to underscore the workload shouldered by immigrants, including those without legal status.
Around the area, business owners weighed whether to give the march their blessing or to resist the employee exodus.
Several Mexican box boys in a Montclare grocery store said they saw the march as a chance to affirm their dignity. But their boss Gus Labrakis, a Greek immigrant, was annoyed about how their participation might impact his business.
"I don't think this is a good idea," Labrakis said. "They're inviting even more hate against them. The real problem is at the border. If they keep coming by the millions, where will this lead?"
Antonio Reyes, a box boy at Labrakis' market who arrived from Mexico City in 2000, said the march is an important way for non-immigrants to understand how the proposed laws will affect hard working families.
"We didn't come to this country to rob, but to work and support our families," said Reyes, a father of two U.S.-born children.
Demonstrators carrying U.S. flags gathered at Union Park hours before the march was to start, arriving by chartered bus, cars and even Metra trains – walking west about 12 blocks to the park from Union Station in downtown Chicago.
Alex Garcia and about 10 co-workers from a Joliet commercial sign company were among those trekking out from the station to the park, only to retrace their steps when they marched back into the Loop for the Federal Plaza rally.
"The buses were all too full, so we jumped on a train," Garcia said as his group passed Chicago police officers preparing for the march on Jackson Boulevard.
Garcia, whose company installs signs for McDonald's, Burger King and other fast-food restaurants in the Chicago area, said, "Most people don't realize how much work we do, but it's part of their daily lives. We are putting up all the buildings and cooking all the food. Today, they'll understand."
I was asked by Cake Design France if they could publish one of my cakes in their magazine. I just recently got my complimentary copy
The machinery on Cockatoo Island is being restored by modern day super hero's known as Volunteers.
Lightpainting with friends in the Workshop at Cockatoo Island.
Carte de visite published by James S. Earle & Son of Philadelphia, Pa. This French engraving mass produced in the United States illustrates a cultural photographic phenomenon that swept both countries and much of the rest of the world in the early 1860s: The carte de visite. or card photograph. These small images on albumen paper and mounted to card stock were the Facebook of the period. Albums, created to hold the images, became all the rage.
In this scene, we see a man with wavy hair, generous sideburns, soft eyes, and a knowing smile selecting one image from a fan of his own portraits held in his hand as if they were a deck of playing cards. Around him are gathered women of all ages and men of various occupations thrusting their albums towards him, hoping he will grace their collections with his likeness. Even a little dog with a large album in his mouth gets into the act.
A caption below the illustration captures the moment: "N'oubliez pas mon album, s'il vous plaît.” In English, “Don't forget my album, please.”
The name of the artist is located in he lower right. It appears to read Bedell, but I have not found an illustrator by this name.
The imprint on the back of the card stock mount advertises the galleries of James Strudwick Earle. A British immigrant, Earle, (1807-1879), learned the trade of dealing in artwork and picture frames from his uncle and built a thriving business in Philadelphia. According to Earle’s obituary, the gallery on 816 Chestnut Street “has long been one of the artistic centres of Philadelphia. After turning over gallery operations to his sons James and Edgar, Earle welcomed visitors with a kindly greeting.
Thanks to Cliff Krainik for his generosity, kindness and friendship.
I encourage you to use this image for educational purposes only. However, please ask for permission.
Note: this photo was published in an Oct 26 2011 issue of Everyblock NYC zipcodes blog titled "10006." It was also published in a Dec 28, 2011 blog titled "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye: New Year Reflections and Projections."
Moving into 2012, the photo was published in a Jan 11,2012 blog titled "Bloomberg’s Penultimate State of the City: Hopes and Predictions."
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During the fall of 2011, various friends, business colleagues, and family members began asking me what I thought of the "Occupy Wall Street" (OWS) group of protesters who gathered in Zuccotti Park, and then marched in various parts of New York City to demonstrate their grievances. I responded that it was likely to be the same as their reaction, at least in the sense that my impressions were formed by whatever reports I saw in the newspapers or in television reports. Of course, you might have had a more personal, or "informed," opinion if you worked on Wall Street, or if you happened to be stuck on the Brooklyn Bridge when the protesters effectively shut things down for a few hours, or if you knew someone in the NYC Police Department that came into contact with the protesters.
But New York is a city of five different boroughs, sprawling out over several square miles -- and the OWS protesters were camped out in a tiny "private park" in lower Manhattan, roughly a block from the American Stock Exchange, and a couple blocks from the nearly-completed 9-11 Memorial site. You don't see or hear them on the Upper West Side, where I live; you don't see them in Queens, Staten Island, or the Bronx; and I think it's safe to say that the residents of Brooklyn only saw them if they were attempting to cross the Brooklyn Bridge at what turned out to be the wrong time on the wrong day.
But the protests have gone on, day after day, and week after week; and the media coverage has gradually increased. In mid-October of 2011, I was rather startled to read a news story indicating that OWS-related protests had taken place in 942 different cities and locations around the world. It may not have reached the level of the "Arab spring" uprisings that have brought down the governments of Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya (and probably a few more in the coming weeks and months), but it seems to be more potent and wide-spread than I had realized. So when the opportunity to visit Zuccotti Park arose, during my recent visit to see the 9-11 Memorial (which you can see in this Flickr set), I was happy to pursue it.
Before I offer my opinions about what I saw, I should mention that I come from the generation that marched for civil rights in the early- and mid-60s, and that marched against the Vietnam war in the late-60s and early-70s. I didn't get arrested during any of those marches, and I didn't burn any flags; but I have a distinct memory that almost all of those demonstrations and protests were large, and loud, and very passionate. Maybe it was just that I was relatively young at the time, and felt quite passionately about the issues of the day; but you can judge for yourself by looking at some of these old vintage-1969 photos from a Vietnam protest rally that took place in Bryant Park, behind the New York Public Library -- as shown in this Flickr set.
As for the OWS protesters in Zuccotti Park: well, the whole thing seemed fairly small and subdued. If it is indeed the genesis of subsequent marches and protests in 942 cities, that's pretty significant ... but Zuccotti Park is less than half a square block in size, and the overall mood seemed much more like a mellow, low-key version of Woodstock than a loud, angry, passionate protest against the evils of Wall Street, or the corruption and political paralysis in Washington. It was certainly less loud, noisy, and passionate than the protests and demonstrations I've been reading about, and have watched from a safe distance, in places like Rome and Athens in recent months.
The folks in Zuccotti Park also struck me as the most media-friendly people I've ever seen. Indeed, I've never seen so many cameras, photographers, and videographers concentrated in one place. It seemed like almost everyone there was either posing for a photo, or taking someone's photo, or being interviewed on-camera by someone. I didn't see anyone from the major news channels -- nobody from CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, Fox, or even ESPN -- but I had a feeling that a lot of the photographers and videographers were freelance journalists collecting material they could feed to the cable-news channels, or other media-related clients.
I guess there's nothing wrong with that ... but I couldn't help getting the impression that the protests, and the people camped out in Zuccotti Park, were more interested in the publicity and attention than the basic issues they were espousing. That may not be a fair judgment to make, but it was hard to escape that impression.
As for the political issues themselves ... hmmm. Well, I understand and sympathize with the frustration that so many of the people who were directly responsible for the financial and economic catastrophies of the past few years have escaped any significant financial penalties or jail time. And I understand and completely sympathize with the frustration about the political dysfunction and paralysis that has gripped the country for the past several years. But I don't have a good understanding of what the OWS folks really want to do in order to confront the problems they've identified and complained about. I know that, to a large extent, that's a deliberate strategy on their part; but while I respect their right to operate in this fashion, it's hard for me to know what it is I'm supposed to "support" with this group...
Anyway, I spent an hour or two in Zuccotti Park just wandering around, trying to get a feeling for what kind of people were there, what they were saying, what they cared about, and what they didn't care about. I didn't try to put any smart-aleck, humorous captions on each photo, because my own interpretation of a "scene" might have been wildly different than what they themselves were thinking or feeling. So I just took the pictures; you can decide for yourself what they mean...
Fine Art Ballet Photography: Nikon D810 Elliot McGucken Fine Art Ballerina Dancer Dancing Ballet Spring Wildflowers! Black leotard!
Dancing for Dynamic Dimensions Theory dx4/dt=ic: The fourth dimension is expanding relative to the three spatial dimensions at the rate of c!
New ballet & landscape instagrams!
www.instagram.com/elliotmcgucken/
Nikon D810 Epic Fine Art Ballerina Goddess Dancing Ballet! Dr. Elliot McGucken Fine Art Ballet!
Marrying epic landscape, nature, and urban photography to ballet!
Nikon D810 with the Nikon MB-D12 Multi Battery Power Pack / Grip for D800 and D810 Digital Cameras allows one to shoot at a high to catch the action FPS! Ballerina Dance Goddess Photos! Pretty, Tall Ballet Swimsuit Bikini Model Goddess! Captured with the AF-S NIKKOR 70-200mm f/2.8G ED VR II from Nikon, and the Sigma 50mm f/1.4 DG HSM Art Lens for Nikon! Love them both!
www.facebook.com/45surfAchillesOdysseyMythology
A pretty goddess straight out of Homer's Iliad & Odyssey!
New Instagram! instagram.com/45surf
New facebook: www.facebook.com/45surfAchillesOdysseyMythology
Join my new fine art ballet facebook page! www.facebook.com/fineartballet/
The 45EPIC landscapes and goddesses are straight out of Homer's Iliad & Odyssey!
I'm currently updating a translation with the Greek names for the gods and goddesses--will publish soon! :)
"RAGE--Sing, O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels of Zeus fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and great Achilles, first fell out with one another. " --Homer's Iliad capturing the rage of the 45EPIC landscapes and seascapes! :)
Ludwig van Beethoven: "Music/poetry/art should strike fire from the heart of man, and bring tears from the eyes of woman."
Follow my Fine Art Ballet instagram!
The Postcard
A postally unused postcard that was printed and published by J. Arthur Dixon. The photography was by Lionel Cherruault, and the card, which has a divided back, was printed in Great Britain.
The Wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer
The wedding of Prince Charles and Lady Diana Spencer took place on Wednesday 29th. July 1981 at St Paul's Cathedral in London. The groom was the heir to the British throne, and the bride was a member of the Spencer family.
The ceremony was a traditional Church of England wedding service. The Dean of St Paul's Cathedral Alan Webster presided at the service, and the Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie conducted the marriage.
Notable figures in attendance included many members of other royal families, republican heads of state, and members of the bride's and groom's families. After the ceremony, the couple made the traditional appearance on the balcony of Buckingham Palace.
The United Kingdom had a national holiday on that day to mark the wedding. The ceremony featured many ceremonial aspects, including use of the state carriages and roles for the Foot Guards and Household Cavalry.
Their marriage was widely billed as a 'Fairytale Wedding' and the 'Wedding of the Century'. It was watched by an estimated global TV audience of 750 million people.
Events were held around the Commonwealth to mark the wedding. Many street parties were held throughout the United Kingdom to celebrate the occasion.
The couple separated in 1992, and divorced in 1996 after fifteen years of marriage.
The Tragic Death of Diana, Princess of Wales
Diana, Princess of Wales died after a high-speed car crash at the age of 36 on the 31st. August 1997 at the Pitié-Salpêtrière Hospital in Paris.
When Diana married Charles, she was a naïve yet hopeful young woman seeking true love. But by the time she died, Diana was jaded, bitter, and impossibly scarred by her disastrous marriage and being hounded by the media.
Twenty years after Princess Diana's funeral, people recall the iconic moments, from the sea of flowers and mementos left outside Kensington Palace to the heart-breaking image of Prince William and Prince Harry walking behind their mother's casket.
Diana’s younger brother Charles, the ninth Earl Spencer, held nothing back during his funeral oration. Funeral attendees may have been expecting a tearful remembrance of Diana’s life. Instead, they felt the full brunt of her brother’s fury at those he felt were responsible for her death.
In paying tribute to his sister, the 9th Earl Spencer reportedly angered the Queen and created a rift in the royal family that has only begun to heal in recent years with the births of Prince George and Princess Charlotte.
What Charles Spencer said in Westminster Abbey is as follows:
Charles Spencer's Funeral Speech
'I stand before you today, the representative of a family in grief in a country in mourning before a world in shock.
We are all united not only in our desire to pay our respects to Diana but rather in our need to do so.
For such was her extraordinary appeal that the tens of millions of people taking part in this service all over the world via television and radio who never actually met her, feel that they too lost someone close to them in the early hours of Sunday morning. It is a more remarkable tribute to Diana than I can ever hope to offer her today.
Diana was the very essence of compassion, of duty, of style, of beauty. All over the world she was a symbol of selfless humanity. All over the world, a standard bearer for the rights of the truly downtrodden, a very British girl who transcended nationality. Someone with a natural nobility who was classless and who proved in the last year that she needed no royal title to continue to generate her particular brand of magic.
Today is our chance to say thank you for the way you brightened our lives, even though God granted you but half a life. We will all feel cheated always that you were taken from us so young, and yet we must learn to be grateful that you came along at all. Only now that you are gone do we truly appreciate what we are now without, and we want you to know that life without you is very, very difficult.
We have all despaired at our loss over the past week and only the strength of the message you gave us through your years of giving has afforded us the strength to move forward.
There is a temptation to rush to canonise your memory, there is no need to do so. You stand tall enough as a human being of unique qualities not to need to be seen as a saint. Indeed to sanctify your memory would be to miss out on the very core of your being, your wonderfully mischievous sense of humour with a laugh that bent you double.
Your joy for life transmitted where ever you took your smile and the sparkle in those unforgettable eyes. Your boundless energy which you could barely contain.
But your greatest gift was your intuition, and it was a gift you used wisely. This is what underpinned all your other wonderful attributes and if we look to analyse what it was about you that had such a wide appeal, we find it in your instinctive feel for what was really important in all our lives.
Without your God-given sensitivity we would be immersed in greater ignorance at the anguish of AIDS and H.I.V. sufferers, the plight of the homeless, the isolation of lepers, the random destruction of landmines.
Diana explained to me once that it was her innermost feelings of suffering that made it possible for her to connect with her constituency of the rejected. And here we come to another truth about her. For all the status, the glamour, the applause, Diana remained throughout a very insecure person at heart, almost childlike in her desire to do good for others so she could release herself from deep feelings of unworthiness of which her eating disorders were merely a symptom.
The world sensed this part of her character and cherished her for her vulnerability whilst admiring her for her honesty.
The last time I saw Diana was on July the 1st., her birthday in London, when typically she was not taking time to celebrate her special day with friends but was guest of honour at a special charity fund-raising evening. She sparkled of course, but I would rather cherish the days I spent with her in March when she came to visit me and my children in our home in South Africa. I am proud of the fact apart from when she was on display meeting President Mandela we managed to contrive to stop the ever-present paparazzi from getting a single picture of her -- that meant a lot to her.
These were days I will always treasure. It was as if we had been transported back to our childhood when we spent such an enormous amount of time together -- the two youngest in the family.
Fundamentally she had not changed at all from the big sister who mothered me as a baby, fought with me at school and endured those long train journeys between our parents' homes with me at weekends.
It is a tribute to her level-headedness and strength that despite the most bizarre-like life imaginable after her childhood, she remained intact, true to herself.
There is no doubt that she was looking for a new direction in her life at this time. She talked endlessly of getting away from England, mainly because of the treatment that she received at the hands of the newspapers. I don't think she ever understood why her genuinely good intentions were sneered at by the media, why there appeared to be a permanent quest on their behalf to bring her down. It is baffling. My own and only explanation is that genuine goodness is threatening to those at the opposite end of the moral spectrum. It is a point to remember that of all the ironies about Diana, perhaps the greatest was this -- a girl given the name of the ancient goddess of hunting was, in the end, the most hunted person of the modern age.
She would want us today to pledge ourselves to protecting her beloved boys William and Harry from a similar fate and I do this here Diana on your behalf. We will not allow them to suffer the anguish that used regularly to drive you to tearful despair.
And beyond that, on behalf of your mother and sisters, I pledge that we, your blood family, will do all we can to continue the imaginative and loving way in which you were steering these two exceptional young men so that their souls are not simply immersed by duty and tradition, but can sing openly as you planned.
We fully respect the heritage into which they have both been born and will always respect and encourage them in their royal role. But we, like you, recognise the need for them to experience as many different aspects of life as possible to arm them spiritually and emotionally for the years ahead. I know you would have expected nothing less from us.
William and Harry, we all cared desperately for you today. We are all chewed up with the sadness at the loss of a woman who was not even our mother. How great your suffering is, we cannot even imagine.
I would like to end by thanking God for the small mercies he has shown us at this dreadful time. For taking Diana at her most beautiful and radiant and when she had joy in her private life. Above all we give thanks for the life of a woman I am so proud to be able to call my sister, the unique, the complex, the extraordinary and irreplaceable Diana whose beauty, both internal and external, will never be extinguished from our minds'.
If you want to learn all about my creative process and how I got into the whimsical world of building custom LEGO models, check out this month's issue of BrickJournal magazine and read my interview! October is a special video game edition, so naturally my popular electronic Nintendo sprite lamps are prominently featured.
Below is an entire transcription of the interview, which covers my background as an artist, as well as to the technical information on my models:
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If you want to see an assortment of video game themed models, a good place to start is the website Baronvonbrunk.com. “Baron” Julius von Brunk is an artist residing in New York who has been building video game inspired models for more than a few years, with some of his models published in Nintendo Power magazine in 2012. Here, he talks to BrickJournal about his builds.
BrickJournal: What do you do outside of building?
Baron von Brunk: Aside from assembling custom LEGO models, I’m also an independent photographer and aspiring animator. I do in fact make some animations with my LEGO pieces, and hopefully some day I’ll launch some short films of my stop-motion animation. Sometimes I incorporate my various artistic hobbies together, such as using my photography along with my graphic arts for print designs.
Career-wise, I’m a professional graphic artist in New York City, and currently I design images and graphic assets for Goldman Sachs in Manhattan’s Financial District. On a daily basis, I typically develop PowerPoint presentations, including creating covers/section dividers in Photoshop. I also use Illustrator and other vector imaging programs to generate maps for investment bankers. Prior to this job, I’ve worked as a designer in a variety of fields -- including consumer electronics, fashion, and even major league sports. I started off many years ago by designing packages and labels for third-party electronic devices, and I’ve sort of bounced around between industries whilst expanding my portfolio. I’m actually completely self-taught, and never attended college. My career path has been very long and troublesome, but the way I like to describe it, I took the “scenic route” to get where I am!
BJ: How old are you?
BVB: 33 years old, and I’ll be 34 in October.
BJ: When did you start LEGO building?
BVB: “LEGO” was actually the first word I learned how to spell as a kid -- even before my own name! I received Duplo sets at an early age, then around age 3 in the 1980s my parents bought me numerous LEGO sets for Christmas and my birthdays. I’ve consistently been a fan of this toy line since childhood, and even photographed some of my custom creations way back in the 1990s using old film cameras. This passion of mine predated social media by about a decade!
BJ: Did you have a Dark Age? If so, what got you out of it?
BVB: Oh, I definitely had a dark age! Although this is a hobby I’ve liked for most of my life, there was a small moment in my life when I “paused” my fascination with LEGO. I’d say this was during the early-to-mid 2000s, when I was in my late teens. This wasn’t because I grew out of it, but rather because at the time, the dominant models/themes in the 2000s-era LEGO System didn’t fascinate me like in previous years. I personally never liked Bionicle, I was never a fan of Harry Potter, I could never get into Spider-Man comics/movies, and I always despised Spongebob Squarepants. In addition, I could never really get into the Star Wars prequels as much as the originals. With the lack of selection of sets I wanted to buy, I instead focused on occasionally building creations with my preexisting pieces. Also around this time, I didn’t have a job (due to my age and my high school schedule), and the little bit of money I did have I’d use on other things like video games and food.
I got back into purchasing new sets around 2005 or 2006, when the then-new medieval themes were released, along with the Vikings series. This reignited my fascination with LEGO, and I soon focused on creating models and vignettes with medieval themes. At this point I was in my early 20s, and working at various jobs which gave me more disposable income. I’d say 2007 was my definite “LEGO Renaissance”, where my love of LEGO was reborn completely, to the point where it became the dominant creative force in my life, completely reshaping my artistic hobbies and creativity.
BJ: What are your favorite themes?
BVB: For me, the best themes are the late-’80s/early-’90s Space or Castle. Although I played with any LEGO theme since I was young, I was always fascinated the most by spaceships and castles. I’ve had a soft spot for the classic Futurons, M:Tron, Blacktron, and Ice Planet -- as well as Black Falcons, Forestmen, Dragon Masters, and Crusaders. To show this, I have two LEGO
BJ: What inspired you to start building video game inspired models?
BVB: With video game themes, I always wanted to create models like these since I was young, but at the time I was too unskilled. As a child, I would often get inspired by Super Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog. Probably back when I was 11, I wanted to create a large replica of Dr. Robotnik’s Death Egg, but alas, lacked necessary pieces and skill level. Flash forward to around 2011, after I’ve been living in New York for about a year: I wanted to stake a claim in the geeky/nerd fandom universe by creating some memorable and monumental LEGO creations based on video games. In late 2011, I began production for my massive “Fireflower Airship” -- a large replica of an airship level from Super Mario Bros. 3. Around this time, I also worked on creating the first two transforming Nintendo accessories, Domaster and Plasmashock -- Game Boy and Zapper, respectively. With the positive feedback from these aforementioned models, I would go on to create many others, which eventually led Nintendo of America to contact me to create a sculpture for their flagship store in 2013.
BJ: What led you to building the transforming game consoles?
BVB: An early inspiration for the transforming game consoles came about from seeing the crossover Marvel/Transformer figures from the 2000s. There was a line of toys that featured superheroes and Star Wars characters transforming into vehicles, such as Darth Vader transforming into a TIE Fighter. This inspired me to create models of Mario and Luigi transforming into a Zapper and a Game Boy. In the early Mario games, Fire Flower Mario was dressed in red and white, and in my early concepts, I planned on making the grey and orange Zapper transform into a red and white Mario, whereas the green and grey Game Boy would transform into Fire Flower Luigi. This proved dubious for two major reasons: the first is that due to space limitations, it would be physically impossible to have the robot modes resemble Mario or Luigi with such detail. The other reason of course is that the Game Boy robot ended up looking short and stocky, with the Zapper being tall and narrow -- which would be exact opposite body types of Mario and Luigi! Eventually I just kept the Game Boy and Zapper to be original robots akin to traditional Transformer designs, and then maintained this ascetic theme for subsequent models.
BJ: And what got you into electronic lit models?
BVB: With the electronic models, this started as a byproduct of my Fireflower Airship from early 2012. When I first began construction of the ship in late 2011, I decided to “dazzle” the project by installing lights to give it something special, aside from just being a huge replica. My original plan was to make the back of the ship glow with an illuminated sprite of a Fire Flower, and then to install a sound system to play the Super Mario Bros. 3 airship music on a constant loop. This was because I planned on showcasing the ship at art galleries and conventions, and the idea of a sound system with lights would make the whole ship more interesting to people who’d potentially come to see it at the shows. Sadly, due to stability issues (making it difficult to move without breaking), I never showcased the airship at any shows, and because of this, I scrapped the sound system idea at the last minute. As for the lights, however, I succeeded in installing a very crude light and battery system to output illumination for the rear of the ship. This was prior to when I had any real electrical skills, so my crude circuit barely worked, and the light output was rather dull.
Meanwhile, during downtime of the airship’s construction, I made several Mario-themed models to accompany the ship at potential public art shows. One of the Mario-themed creations was a mosaic sprite lamp, using the same sort of techniques as the glowing Fire Flower sprite from the back of the ship, but to be illuminated via a lamp cord that I could plug into a wall. The design scheme for this lamp contained a cube shape with ? block sprites. The mosaic concept was made entirely with transparent LEGO bricks, thus making the illuminated version resemble a Tiffany Lamp or a stained-glass window. Although the lamps looked cool when glowing, unfortunately the transparent LEGO bricks appeared dull and discolored when the lights were off. This led me to create a new concept of inserting transparent LEGO tiles and plates into Technic bricks, so that when turned off, the lamps would still have their colors visible and vibrant. This new concept was developed by me later in 2013, and I soon created several new illuminated projects based on this “bedazzled” concept. The final designs were reminiscent of the old toy called “Lite Brite”, which allowed people to create glowing mosaic patterns using a dot matrix grid.
Some of my more sophisticated and elaborate electronic creations came about as a result of always trying to outdo myself. For instance, after making projects which lit up, my next logical step would be to make projects that also play sounds in addition to lighting up. With that said, throughout the summer of 2014, I worked tirelessly to learn Arduino and program microchips to allow my LEGO projects to simultaneously glow and play music. Since 2015, I haven’t made too many electronic creations, and instead went into honing my photography skills and eventually getting better with stop-motion animation. I plan on making more electronic LEGO models in the future, but as of lately I’ve mainly focused all of my time and effort into animations.
Umbo · Otto Umbehr :: Scene from the movie 'Mädchen in Uniform' with Lore Schuetzendorf . Published in UHU magazine 12/1931. Film directed by Leontine Sagan and Carl Froelich, Germany, 1931. | src and hi-res Getty Images
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TV Station WBIR in Knoxville used my photo of the Jefferson County Courthouse in their segment on the East Tennessee Endangered 8. My photo appears at the 0:45 mark
www.wbir.com/web/wbir/news/local/list-of-east-tenn-endang...
After I had completed my 365 days project and had published my very own book, I often sat on my favourite comfy pillow and wondered… what next.
Retire? Compose that Symphony? Getting into movies… all honourable persuits but I wondered is it enough?
And a voice in my head said… No!
So I have teamed up with my esteemed colleagues Mr Fox and Mrs PB to reach for a much higher goal:
TOTAL WORLD DOMINATION!
But don’t worry, it will be a peaceful take-over.
I have founded a group for the three of us wherin we try to start a new movement.
And we need YOUR help!
Follow this link to the group that will change the face of the earth… for the better:
www.flickr.com/groups/world_domination/
The Idea is that you print a picture of the three of us (I think Mr Fox is working on something special in that regard) and go to a landmark near you, (the more famous the better but even your local street will do) and then you take a picture of our picture in front of that landmark.
This way sheep, foxes and polar bears will suddenly appear everywhere on the globe. It will be EPIG :-)
Join the Movement!
Join the Group!
and
J..O..I..N……US…. :-)
Using Hero Arts sentiment and May Arts ribbon.
Blogged: sarahjmoerman.blogspot.ca/2012/12/paper-crafts-die-cuttin...
Alhamdulillah !!!
My last 2 year hard work "A panoramic glance of Al-Madinah " photo book isin
market last day !
31x26 cm page size(panorama 62x26 size photo) , more than 150 panoramic photos all around Madinah,
Very hi-quality paper and printing ..
Masha Allah !! Thabarak Allah !!!
(in Arabic,English,Urdu,Fransi, Indoneshian,Turkiesh and Farsy languages)
This photograph and its backstory was originally published in the September 1963 Meccano Magazine. The photo was submitted by Mr. Ivan Broadhead of York and depicts a sculpture that once stood in the Berry Brow station garden, on the Huddersfield to Penistone railway line. At the date of publication, the line was slated for closure as part of the Beeching Cuts, an event which duly occurred in early 1966, and the sculpture was facing an uncertain future. Happily, it was saved for posterity.
The sculptor as inscribed was a young apprentice stonemason, J.C. Stocks, aged just 18 when he executed it in 1886. The single piece of stone came from a quarry in nearby Honley. In addition to the train, the piece is flanked by the heads of John Milton and William Shakespeare, while the keystone head was said to represent a Mr. Swithenbank, who at the time was the Permanent Way Inspector at Berry Brow.
The detailing of the train and its footplate crew are remarkable. The locomotive can be identified as a Lancashire & Yorkshire Railway 0-4-4T, designed in 1877 by William Barton Wright. The class numbered 72 examples, used for local services throughout the L&Y network. Superseded by later designs, the class was taken out of regular service between 1901 and 1921, but a handful were retained as stationary boilers used for carriage heating. Two managed to enjoy an extended life in fulfilling this role, not being scrapped until the early 1960s.
After Berry Brow station was closed and demolished, the sculpture was secured by the National Railway Museum. It is today on display at the Tolson Museum, in nearby Huddersfield. In 1989, British Rail restored the passenger service between Huddersfield and Penistone and a new Berry Brow station was constructed. It comprises a single platform and a bus shelter, lacking a garden or any other artwork.
My first published shots. The Formula Una babes are a little incentive by Red Bull Racing (the F1 team), to get more women to the different Grand Prix. These are "our" (Belgian) Formula Una's. Note: In the middle is the lovely "Zorha" (a 'famious' Belgium beaty). I could link to the article, if I could just find out how that works in Flickr. Without a doubt my favorite personal shot with my Canon 400D. I wanted it to be overexposed and it worked out. It's hardly edited actually.
Note: this photo was published in an Apr 3, 2011 issue of Everyblock NYC zipcodes blog titled "10024."
Note: I chose this photo, among the ten that I uploaded to Flickr on the evening of Apr 9, 2011, as my "photo of the day." I liked the lines and colors and framing of the photo -- but most of all, I liked the sense of energy conveyed by the woman in the foreground, as she was jogging right past me...
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What a difference a year makes: on the first day of spring in 2010, I noted (in this Flickr set that "all 8 million New Yorkers were ready to take advantage of [spring]. The sun was out, the temperature was in the 70s, the sky was blue, and the clouds had disappeared to some other part of the country. There was no way a sane person could stay indoors..."
This year, spring arrived about 6 hours earlier; and while the sun was out, the temperature was in the low 40s rather than the 70s. Because the temperature was about 30 degrees colder, about the only activities I noticed were bicycling, jogging, brisk walking, and skating -- instead of the picnics and sunbathing that I had expected. I found a bench near a spot on the river walkway near 82nd Street, and situated myself with the sun behind me, facing north towards the George Washington Bridge in the far background. There were plenty of people heading south, with the bright springtime sun shining directly on them, and I sat there for about an hour, until I had collected some 500 images with my new Sony SLT a55 camera -- a subset of which ended up in this Flickr set
A week later, the view from my apartment window indicated that it was going to be a mild, sunny day -- so I returned to Riverside Park once again. Unfortunately, by the time I got to the park, I could see that it was going to be cold, raw, and blustery. I entered the park at 96th Street this time, about half a mile further north than last weekend; and after taking a few pictures in the "upper park" (i.e., up above the river level, and the West Side Highway), I walked down through an underpass to the river, and found another convenient bench facing north.
Once again, there were bikers, skaters, joggers, and walkers moving past me at varying speeds; and once again, everyone was bundled up against the wind. The George Washington Bridge, the Hudson River, and the New Jersey shoreline are visible in most of the photos; it will give you some perspective on how things look if you live on the Upper West Side of Manhattan.
I took several hundred photos over the space of a couple hours, until I was too cold to stay any longer. And I eventually decided that 40 of them were interesting enough to warrant uploading to Flickr.
And at this point, I think I really will avoid the Park for several weeks, until it gets much warmer. Until that happens, there are lots of other places to explore and photograph...