Category Archives: Wow!

Age 10 to 60 – through Make-up & Photography

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Vogue Paris had a very interesting editorial featuring a series of photographs of the 20-years-old model Eniko Mihalik portrayed in the age of 10, 20, … 50, 60 respectively. It’s quite amazing how the overall look can be so malleable, achieved (perhaps not so) simply with tricks of the trade like hairdo, facial expression, make-up, photography angles, etc.

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At 10, a certain wide-eyed innocence with a strong suggestion on bare-chestedness, half-exposed teeth (make them seem smaller and less full-grown), very light make-up, looking almost fresh out of a swimming pool or something.

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At 20, a rather typical high-school/college girl first getting acquainted with mascara and lip-gloss; expressions of youth with straight hair, painted finger nails and fun accessories (ring); there is a sense of eagerness and anticipation in the expression.

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At 30, she looks like she’s been through some really bad relationships, on the roads, and maybe have her life mortgated to drugs and alcohol, doused generally with a sense of cynicism towards the world.

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At 40, life reins in as she matures and develops into a more assured woman; the wild sides has not been eliminated totally but tamed to a more nuanced portrayal;

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At 50, back to a very classic and enduring look showing a sense of refined sophistication after living through the many decades; tastes have been distilled and generally looks more classy.

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Finally at 60, the beauty grows inwards as the outer appearance are toned down in favor of more subtle expression (cropped hairdo, plain top), with a sense that the inner wisdom is now far more distinguishing than the outer appearance.

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It’s really quite amazing that all these were achieved simply by modifying the external “packaging” on a person – that probably goes to show how precise the media can turn and distort “reality” by modifying how it is presented. Great works.

[via Miss at la Playa]

Treadmill Dance

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Treadmills, to me, equate monotonous boredom.  And so I was delighted to see an excellent piece of dance choreography that leverages the treadmills for a number of dance moves, making exercise on treadmills seem like a fun activity – no less thanks to a great matching tune, “Here it goes again” by OK Go.

Visionaire

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Visionaire is almost like a style magazine, and yet not quite. Published 3 times a year, each issue follows a central theme like “Smell”, “Toys”, Uncensored”, “Taste” etc., and each issue is unique. Unique because the physical look/feel of each issue is different according to the theme. For example, the issue shown above is “Light”. In order to capture the feel of the theme, it is made of 24 large format transparencies contained in the sleek black light-box, lit by paper thin filament. See the issues in their website – even though it’s just selected pages off each issue, I think you’d like it!

Of course, such indulgent luxury and pursue of detail comes at a price – annual subscription comes to the tune of $675 (yes, for 3 issues), though you’d get the assurance that you’d get your individually numbered edition (as they only publish a few thousand for each). Someone actually paid $32,000 to collect issues 1-49.

I think Visionaire is not so much “published” as it is curated. Established artists, designers, photographers and art directors have all propped in, and from the website, it really does impress as a collection of extremely high quality images and experiences.

I’d really like to get my hands on them – so bluff/wring your design managers  into this worthy subscription, and let me know! Meanwhile, I guess I’d just have to stick to Colors.

 

Inspiring Father-and-Son: Hoyt

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When Rick Hoyt was born, he was strangled by his umbilical cord. As a result, he had brain damage and was unable to control his limbs. Doctors said he would be a vegetable for the rest of his life, and advised to put his parents, Dick and Judy, to put Rick in an institution.

But the Hoyts refused. They noticed that Rick’s eyes followed them around the room. They brought Rick to Tufts University, asking if there’s anything to help him communicate, but was told that ‘there’s nothing going on in his brains’. Dick didn’t buy that, and challenged them to tell a joke. They did, and Rick laughed.

And so, they hooked Rick up to a computer that allowed him to control a switch with the side of his head. Rick was finally able to communicate. When a high school classmate became paralyze through an accident, the school organized a charity run for him, and Rick typed, “Dad, I want to do that.”

So Dick, a self-described “porker” who’ve never ran more than a mile, tried, and pushed his son for five miles. “Then it was me who was handicapped. I was sore for two weeks!”

After the race, Rick typed, “Dad, when we were running, it felt like I wasn’t disabled anymore!” That sentenced change their lives. Dick was compelled to give Rick that feeling as much as he could. He trained up and became in such fit shape that they were ready to try for the Boston Marathon.

The officials were not keen on letting them participate and compete. They couldn’t fit into the categories: the father-and-son team was not a single runner, but they don’t quite fit into the wheelchair category either. For a few years, they just joined and ran anyway. Finally in 1983, they ran fast enough to qualify for Boston the following year.

And somebody said, “why not a triathlon?”. Dick had never learned to swim, and had never rode a bike since he was six. He’d have to lug 110-pound Rick through the swim, cycle and run segments of the race. Still, they tried.

Now, at 65 and 43 respectively, Dick and Rick had ran their 24th Boston marathon. Their best time was 2hour 40minutes, just 35 minutes away from the world record – a record held by someone who didn’t need to push another man in a wheelchair. They’ve done more than 200 triathlons, and grueling 15-hour Iron-man competitions in Hawaii. Some have asked Dick to try and see how well he’d do if he was on his own, but he refused. He does it purely for the awesome energy and feeling that he gets with Rick.

Dick and Rick continue to give motivational speeches around the country, and take to competing in races every weekend. “No question about it, my father is the Father of the Century,” Rick says.

“The thing I’d most like, is that my dad sit in the chair and I push him once”.

The videos are below:


A truly inspirational example of great love and self-belief. Wow.

[Story: Rick Reilly]

Scott Wade – Drawing in Dust

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Dust on cars have always been an invitation for passer-by to vandalize: whether it’s some expletives or more well-meaning “Wash your car now!”, it’s always a canvas for creative expression. And that is exactly what Scott Wade did using dirty cars to create some rather detailed art.

Though I still wonder, exactly how do you accumulate that much dust on a car?

More pictures at his site.

One Man Builds the Modern Stonehenge

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The Stonehenge was estimated to have been built more than four thounsand years ago, and it has thus aroused curiosity and conspiracy theories alike as to how it was built. Some attributed the effort to aliens, considering the physical impossibility of humans in moving, erecting and constructing those stones that weigh more than 20 tonnes each.

One man decided to see if he could build the Stonehenge without employing any modern technology – and to build it by himself. He proved that with some clever method and a lot of perseverance, it is possible to emulate the effort. See how one man lifts and moves tons of stone in the quest for the Stonehenge.

“Give me a long enough lever and a place to stand, and I will move the earth.” – Archimedes

Nobumasa – Japanese Graffiti

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While there are some artist who’d meticulously plan the layout of their drawings, Nobumasa is not one of them when he works on the Japanese Graffiti project at Space Force, Japan. He allows his drawing to crawl and sprawl across the wall as his imagination takes him. Drawing inspiration from the Japanese Sumie drawings, his work is testament to a wealth of fascinating and sometimes absurd imagination.  Drawings that do not need to follow logic – spacemen, candies, machines, buildings, superheroes all mingle among one another as if they were already in their most natural habitats. The public is sometimes invited to contribute ideas of what they want drawn on the wall too.

John Carpenter, my idol

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Click on picture to see final the question. 

If all my trivia-gathering and Internet-trolling could lead to one good thing, this would be the dream. A contestant on the Who Wants to be a Millionaire show, John Carpenter was in the hot seat, ready to answer the final question. How will he fare? Watch it!

 

Pikasso – Selling Art in the Supermarket

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Talk about bringing the art to the masses!

While art galleries often project the image of catering only to a select group of (rich) connoisseurs, one in Helsinki has chosen to go on directly the opposite route. Housed in a former supermarket, art pieces are displayed exactly like the typical mart – on the shelves, counters, etc. – with all the shopping trolleys and baskets. Inheriting the traits of a supermarket, art here start from just a few euros, and they  even had a promotion to give away 100 art pieces to the first 100 (it was wildly successful – lines over 100 meters were formed on the opening day).

Choose your art like how you’d choose your meat:

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And of course, nothing is more surreal than seeing Andy Warhol’s “Campbell Soup” graphic selling right here.

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[via Design Finland]

Eisner’s picture of Nature

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Entomology professor Dr. Thomas Eisner from Cornell shows you do not need a fancy DSLR camera to produce stunning photographs from Nature.  Using a black colth and a color copier, Thomas shows us that with some ingenuity,  amazing photographs can be taken without the aid of an expensive camera. He explains his process making it sound simple:

It was like playing with a Lego set. There were only two provisos. Parts had to be laid out upside down on the copier’s stage, because the copier ‘sees’ the stage from beneath, and the arrangements, once composed, had to be covered with a black velvet cloth to exclude ambient light from the picture.

See additional pictures here.