I recently went to see ‘You, the Living‘ (’Du Levande’) - an interesting and truly strange film by Roy Andersson - who was once quite accurately referred to as “a slapstick Ingmar Bergman“. It’s a surreal, meandering film - basically a hipster, European sketch comedy show - but in the end I found it quite entertaining. What really struck me, however, was how incredibly considered every single scene is - set and lit like a photograph. This photographic feel is only bolstered by the fact that the camera moves only twice in the entire film. To top it off - almost every scene (interiors and exteriors) were sets, painstakingly constructed in a studio.

It’s worth checking out - if anything for a bit about a man who ends up being sentenced to the death penalty for unsuccessfully attempting the old tablecloth trick at a posh dinner party.

I wonder if these new Jagermeister ads (who knew they had ads?) were inspired by Mr. Andersson - there’s a similar feel. Quite a funny little set of ads - great colour pallette.

Over the last 30 years, I’ve done over 60 books, most with a strong environmental message. I realized that if this work translated in a compelling way to television, I could reach, in one episode, a hundred times the collective audience of all those well-intentioned books.

While Art Wolfe’s Travels to the Edge (now live on Getty Images) is first and foremost a show about photography, there is a strong environmental component to it as well, but we don’t beat people over the head with it. One week we might be photographing and endangered species:

IND0701300168: © Art Wolf/Edge of the Earth Productions

the next an extraordinary culture:

ETH0608300229: © Art Wolf/Edge of the Earth Productions

…and the week after that a threatened landscape.

ANTO611251055: © Art Wolf/Edge of the Earth Productions

We are a streamlined production by choice: with a low-impact four man crew (including me), we’re hopefully leaving nothing behind but shared good memories.

JLG0701190903: © Art Wolf/Edge of the Earth Productions: Travels to the Edge crew, (L-R) Karel Bauer, Sean White, Art Wolfe, John Greengo

We usually have ten days to shoot each episode so equipment, guides, translators and other local resources are all put in place before we go. Sometimes our numbers burgeon alarmingly mostly due to safety issues.

JLG0711100011: © John Greengo/Edge of the Earth Productions: Travels to the Edge production in the Sahara Desert, Mali

Photography has always been an important way for large numbers of people to see and experience nature and places they might never visit. It’s going to become even more important now, at this critical juncture in history, as photographers build a visual record of what’s being threatened. We witness, we record…

Picture by Amanda Edwards/Getty Images for Hatchfest

First of all, Montana — who knew? “How do you feel about flying up to Bozeman in October?” my editor asked. “Ummm, where’s that?” I am pretty sure was my answer. It wasn’t until I actually landed and was greeted by a trio of impossibly friendly HATCHfest volunteers that the stereotypes started to subside. Yes, there was that taxidermy-ed Grizzly Bear by the baggage claim but the minute I was handed a schedule of events I knew I was in for a real treat.

Bozeman is quite possibly like no other place I have ever visited. Home to Montana State University and countless Hollywood escapees, the city has a thriving arts scene. With its Emerson Cultural Center, Ellen Theatre and Thirsty Ear Hi Fi all within walking distance along or near Main Street, downtown Bozeman is nothing short of a feast for the senses.

Picture by Amanda Edwards/Getty Images for Hatchfest

HATCHfest has been linked with Getty Images since its inception 4 years ago. This year marked my second HATCH and my job was to document the various discussion panels and participate in the photography section of the CNBC journalism lab. What this essentially entailed was acting as a mentor for journalism/photography students from MSU and Bozeman High School. The students were given a brief to capture the essence of HATCH either with a single portrait of one of the visiting Groundbreakers or with a behind- the-scenes, reportage-style photo essay. As in the proverbial real world, a deadline was set and the students were eventually subjected to what I hope was constructive criticism.

Picture by Amanda Edwards/Getty Images for Hatchfest

Picture by Amanda Edwards/Getty Images for Hatchfest

What sets the HATCH experience apart from the reality of my world as a professional photographer is just how genuinely friendly and approachable everyone is. While I am blessed to work with an outstanding team at the Getty Images Los Angeles office, I still can’t help but get caught up in the magic that is HATCH. The festival has an integrity that I have personally never experienced before. Most notably, there is none of the pretense I associate with larger arts festivals. Students are actually encouraged to contact their mentors and ask for any advice they might need. In turn, the mentors are just as prepared to drop everything and meet with their students. Perhaps I’ve grown a bit jaded, but I just can’t see that happening at other festivals where gift lounges abound and schmoozing reigns supreme.

But don’t let the lack of hype fool you. HATCH puts on an amazing party. The difference is that HATCH does it completely with heart. And quite a few bottles of Stella!

Pangea Day is a global event on May 10, 2008, conceived by documentary filmmaker Jehane Nouhaim (”Control Room”), that aims to tap “the power of film to strengthen tolerance and compassion while uniting millions of people”. Various cities around the world will be “videoconferenced live to produce a 4-hour program of powerful films, visionary speakers, and uplifting music”. Not exactly clear what’s gonna happen, but here’s the trailer, all the footage in which is courtesy Getty Images:

To any non-design-aware types, the fact that the new documentary Helvetica, about a Swiss typeface that is turning 50 (a fact also celebrated in a new exhibition at MOMA, “50 Years of Helvetica”), is enjoying sold-out screenings basically everywhere it goes may seem a little odd. But designers and design-o-philes on whom the ubiquity and, well, hegemonic rule of that little font for almost all of those 50 years is not lost probably don’t think it so strange.

Smart, sharp, elegant, reserved, refined…the quiet type (n.p.i.) - understated yet profoundly powerful. Typography is sexy. Typefaces, ligatures, kerning, positioning, descenders and ascenders….hot stuff. Finally it seems that typography is having it’s day in the sun, getting the long overdue recognition it deserves on the silver screen. Be sure that many more will be jumping on the bandwagon of appreciation now that it’s ok to admit you like it without being jeered into quiescence and castigated to the corner with the other freaks & geeks. In fact I wouldn’t be surprised if font-knowledge and appreciation becomes a status symbol, the new calling card of sensitivity and sophistication, like ordering a Ketel One was about 7 years ago.

And for those already hip to the nerd hotness quotient, I would suspect that these screenings (assuming you can get into one - the upcoming screening at USC sold out in 1 day at $25 bucks a pop), will be a hotbed of nerdy hotties. Get your nerd on.

L.A. art legend Mike Kelley’s newest work is a roughly 3-hour-long musical on film called Day is Done, and is screening tonight & tomorrow night at the Redcat Theater in L.A. (part of Gehry’s Disney Concert Hall). It’s the “world theatrical premiere”, although it was already shown about this time last year at Mr. Kelley’s New York gallery.
The film consists of dramatic enactments of various photographs found in high school yearbooks, woven together to form a narrative.  Kelley often mines his own personal history for artistic material, with a knack for zeroing in on the more psychologically charged moments.  So it’s no surprise then that the volatile terrain of high school is the focus here, that emotionally-fraught period of unruly pubescence vying with budding self-awareness (in a word: awww-kwerrrd).