Books I Want: Karen Knorr

I really should have added books to my list of acceptable holiday gifts, mostly because I am a greedy hoarder of all things glossy and gorgeous. Just cracking open a new monograph by a favorite artist is enough to give me a eyegasm, but don't worry -- I like to keep my peeping on the down low (insert lecherous laugh here). Feast your eyeballs on the Fables series by Karen Knorr and try to restrain yourself. Stunningly staged rooms + Animals = Perfection in print. Enjoy.

Photographed in large format at museums based largely in France, Knorr's images combine analog craftsmanship with a bit of digital trickery to highlight the chasm between the natural and civilized worlds. The results range from sweetly playful to shockingly menacing.

Buy the book here. This kind of eye candy never gets old.

Found via the very excellent Bertha Mag.

Fight Fatigue With Lartigue

Ok, I am resolving not to work myself into a tinsel wrapped tizzy over Christmas this year. To this end, I have created something of a seasonally appropriate manifesto. I will: #1. Start buying gifts early.

#2. Avoid the mall at all costs.

#3. Spend my free time enjoying lights and smelling delicious trees (and eating eating eating).

I refuse to make this season about expensive electronics and fancy shit no one really cares about. I will buy vintage, unique, handmade; I will not buy sharp edged, plastic crap. I will not become a holiday hating grinch, despite past performances that speak to the contrary. I might even crack a smile or two.

My current hero and inspiration:

Jacques-Henri Lartigue, a photographer whose career began at the tender age of six and spanned almost 100 years.

There is a certain zany elegance in Lartigue's images. As a young man, he exuberantly captured the moment in a radically changing society.

With works beginning in the early 1900's, Lartigue's photos document a modern era emerging from the sooty darkness of the industrial revolution. Drunk on freedom and the shiny newness of technology, everything is a celebratory event met with wonder and awe.

So, this Christmas I'm going to (try to) lose the jaded cynicism with which I generally approach things.

Don't worry -- I'm sure it will come back sooner rather than later. But I think I just might like to spend the rest of the year doing cartwheels in the yard with Ike.

Buy the book for someone special here. It's the autobiography of a life well lived.

Sailing the Seas Of Cheese

No time for a big fancy post because I'm busy preparing to head out and visit family for the holidays, but I do have time for this:

I've got food on the brain, y'all, but I'm nowhere near as obsessed with it as photographer Carl Warner. Check out his mega insane staged photos all created from tabletop models constructed entirely of edibles.

Eat your heart out, Giuseppe Arcimboldo. Yes, pun intended.

See you dudes next week. Hope you have a fantastic holiday!