Lift- Marc Isaacs

I thought I would tell you about this short film 'Lift' by Marc Isaacs it is great and shows some amazing relationships between the cameraman and the people using the lift on a daily basis. You get to meet some weird and wonderful people all living in one tower block. It made me laugh as I come across these types of people most days around London, for me there's Fred the 80 year old guy who shouts and shouts "Oi..Oi" at you until you say hello back and then he says "what a beautiful day today". I always wonder what the rest of his life must have been like and what makes him sit on that wall everyday. This short film shows you some amazing personalities very similar to Fred, although you'll need to watch it in full to see how the characters change or to learn more about them as the days pass.

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The Mojito Shoe

I've mentioned Julian Hakes and Hakes Associates before in my blog and I probably will keep mentioning him as I find his work stunning and I am in awe of what he creates and continues to create. I am lucky enough to have him as a neighbor and a friend, so I get updates on what he is working on and I see him outside crafting things, holding things up to the light to see a different perspective on a model, I even spent an evening helping him sculpt a bridge in the snow. The pure passion of design is what drives Julian and this clearly results in some amazing creations. Most recently The Mojito Shoe. I have seen this come together over the past few months and it was initially hard to get my head around how it would work without seeing an image. I need not wonder anymore though as Julian has now had the shoe fabricated and photographed. So I thought I would share it with you on the week of it's release. I love the shape and colour, the form is divine but yet it is still functional. I think the only problem I would have is that I think it's too beautiful to wear and think that it should take centre stage mounted on the wall of my living room so I can sit and admire the shapes it casts from different angles.

Here's how Julian explains the creation of The Mojito Shoe

"One late summer night in the studio I was thinking about the design of shoes in general. I wondered why there was the need for a foot plate in shoes such as high heels. When I look at a foot print on sand it is very clear to see that the main force goes to the heel and ball. With a high heel providing the heel is supported, even by standing on a wooden block the foot naturally ’spans’ the gap naturally, with bones and tendons. The foot has its own inbuilt strength and support so why duplicate this. You would not have a jumper with rigid arms between elbow and wrist. So this raised the question, if the design of a shoe was an evolution of the early sandal and how can new materials and design techniques provide new solution?

So I set to exploring this question in a similar way to how I would design a bridge, examining the forces and looking at the most simple, elegant yet poetic expression of the forces at play within the materials used. With this approach I then set about wrapping my foot in tracing paper, then binding it up in masking tape and then drawings various geometries onto and over the form of my foot. The next stage was rather dangerous as I had to cut the shape off my foot with a scalpel and not damage the pattern or my foot. The design this produced is a single wrapped geometry which starts under the ball of the foot and then over the bridge, then sweeping down below the heel before then twisting back on itself to provide the support for the heel and ankle. This form felt light and airy on the foot. So we called it the ‘Mojito’ as it was rather like a twist of lime skin. The material choice is simple: The shoe is a laminate with Carbon fibre for the core which gives the shoe its spring and strength, leather on the foot side and rubber on the walking wearing side. 3 materials, each doing a specific job."

Mamma Mia!

I'm curious about other people. That's the essence of my acting. I'm interested in what it would be like to be you. ~ Meryl Streep

Normally I write about artists, designers & photographers, mainly trying to explain how fascinated I am by their work and what it is that inspires me. However today is a bit different because I found myself reading an article about someone who I hugely admire and as I am overwhelmingly inspired by her I thought I should blog and remind others about the amazing talent that is Meryl Streep. There is so much to her that it is almost impossible to know where to start, the quality of her work and the way she conducts her life in and out of the media spotlight, she is a true star.

Meryl has a wealth of work in her portfolio and her range of work is so varied. You hear other female actors complaining of the lack of roles for them when they pass 40, but Meryl has proved that this is not the case if you have quality in your work, Helen Mirren is another example of this. However Meryl has a lighter approach to her work which I love and she seems to embrace the challenge of playing a part which is away from her comfort zone. Recently we have seen her in Mamma Mia, not shying away from being in a small budget film and finding herself singing songs from ABBA it was amazing to see Meryl managing to inject so much feeling into her performance. It was funny, moving and light hearted, Meryl was magical and lit up the film.

Then you have her acting in deeper roles such as Sophie's Choice, Kramer vs. Kramer, The Bridges of Madison County and Doubtto name just a few, these types of roles are what have won Meryl most awards. As a leading lady she sometimes out acts her male counter parts and you cannot but find yourself in awe at her versatility and passion. She is the most nominated actor in Oscars history, she been nominated for 15 awards and won 2 and this is where Meryl Streep shows her class as she responds to this statistic by saying “Yes, but I’ve lost it 13 times!”.

There is something real about Meryl Streep which is easy for all of us to connect with. She isn't surgically altered and lifted, hoping to keep back the aging years to maintain a fake youth, in fact she is doing the opposite and embracing her changing looks and the new acting parts that this brings her. She fights for causes she believes in, she has a family life which most of us know hardly anything about as it's not splashed on the front of celebrity magazines. I am amazed to learn as a suffering actor trying to catch a break she ended up sleeping rough in Green Park in London underneath The Ritz hotel and making a promise to herself to one day stay there, then at the age of 28 Meryl took a year away from acting to be with her 1st husband John Cazale as he died of bone cancer. Then Meryl married sculptor Don Gummer and took time out from her career to have 4 children, this would keep most people busy enough but Meryl was so passionate about acting and on hearing about the role of Sophie Zawistowska in Sophie's Choice she got on her hands and knees and literally begged director Alan J. Pakula for the part. She is remarkable and I think what is most inspirational about her is that she loves her profession and purely for the love of acting and not the media hype or the glitz and glamour that so many actors head to Hollywood for. Meryl Streep is a true icon both on and off the camera and I will remain mesmerised by her talent for years to come.

Controversial Hitler AIDS Awarness Advert

The release of the new Regenbogen e.V. Hitler AIDS Awareness adverts, AIDS Is A Mass Murderer, have caused some controversy amongst several AIDS & HIV charities. They are pretty shocking and will be screened in Germany next week during AIDS Awareness Week and the advertising agency Das Committee have said "the shock value of the advert is designed to scare people into safe sex...the campaign is designed to shake people up, to bring the topic of Aids back to the centre stage, and reverse the trend of unprotected intercourse". However UK charity The Terrence Higgins Trust says "It is concerned the advert could be 'insensitive', by stigmatising people with the condition". Both are fair comments I however feel that anything that is shocking enough to make people talk about a disease that has in recent years become less of a media focus is always worthwhile. I remember when you couldn't walk down the street without seeing a poster or open a newspaper without reading an advert not so much now-a-days. There is also another generation who are now having sex and were not around or were too young when the world initially stood up and recognised the disease. I remember the media was engulfed with statistics about Aids related deaths almost 30 million have died from the disease worldwide.I remember learning that Freddy Mercury died with the disease and thetribute concert which had so many musical icons all campaigning to bring about an awareness of Aids was all part of my education of the devestating effects of AIDS, there is a younger generation that missed out on all this.

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The World Through A Lens

Photography records the gamut of feelings written on the human face - the beauty of the earth and skies that man has inherited; and the wealth and confusion man has created. It is a major force in explaining man to man. - Edward Steichen

I went to see The Press Photographer's Year 2009 exhibition last week. It was an amazing collection of photographs that have been taken over the past year and then published in newspapers & magazines around the world. While they are typically presented to us in a small printed format the true detail is so much more compelling when seen in a larger size under lighting. It is then that you see the beauty of the moments that were captured some showing the finer details maybe of lines in a face, the joy of adventure, emotions of those suffering life and death right next to each other. Journalism is without doubt one of the strongest tools in our modern society but a written paragraph can be received by the reader in many ways, edited to mean a millions things which is one reason why I love photographic journalism as I find it has an unquestionable strength in image, it can literally say a thousand words and is rarely doubted.

In recent weeks I have been looking at The Boston Globes 'Big Picture' website, it has some of the most amazing photo journalistic images. It is impossible to be everywhere in the world at the same time, to be watching every global event as it happens, so to be able to see some of it through the lens of a photographer is amazing. Seeing their photographs opens up different worlds to us, taking us outside our comfort zones, it is engaging and such a great thing for us to have access to.

Recent fires in California, Los Angeles have had a devastating effect of the lives of the people that live there. Through the TV news reports I now have an understanding of the impact that these fires were having, but other than stating facts the TV news did little to show me the true emotional devastation that was happening. It wasn't until I saw these photos Wildfires in Southern Californiathat I really understood the sense of helplessness that people were feeling as their homes were being destroyed, how devastating these ravaging fires were to the landscape of the towns, how close the fires actually came to the people and what it must be like for a firefighter to walk towards these towering infernos to trying and bring them under control.

At the same time around the other side of the world voting had begun in Afghanistan and on the same website they showed such mesmerizing images which were captured during one of the most highly charged and emotional times in the countries recent history Ballots, bullets and bombs in Afghanistan. To capture these moments as they happened is a skill, to show what it's like to be there to get inside the lives of those voting, in the homes of those fighting and to get a sense of the fight for a democratic right to vote that people were prepared to risk their life to achieve is masterful. Photographs show so much of the human impact created by war and also in a way that the news on TV just can't, it is that split second freeze frame that captures the true emotion. I have an increasing admiration for photographic journalists, I am realising more and more that the photographers put themselves in increasingly dangerous situations, leave family and loved ones to head to foreign worlds, feeling threatened and scared, feeling drained of emotion after seeing so much devastation. I am however so grateful of the sacrifice they make so they are able to capture these images which are so important in helping to spread the news of events happening around the world and to make these captured moments available globally for all of us to see and to understand. They are as powerful as a man who holds a gun, as the politician making a speech, as nature unleashing it's might and as citizens fighting for freedom.