time magazine: class pictures

i am mesmerized and moved by this collection of formal photographs of american teens by photographer dawoud bey, which are part of his new book, class pictures (featured on the time magazine website). bey shot and interviewed the diverse group of high schoolers over the course of 15 years, spending approximately three weeks at each school. the honest, heartfelt words of the teens are the perfect accompaniment to his stunning portraiture...the whole project has a feeling of realness and the results are incredibly poignant: some of the children have faced fatal illnesses, discrimination, and the tragic death of loved ones, and have come out the other side with a deep sense of wisdom. many exhibit more than their fair share of intelligence.

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upon pondering bey's photos in some depth, it occurred to me why i love this direct style of portraiture more than any other: i am most moved by a photograph of a person when a subject faces the camera directly, unwaveringly.
it is the very same thing i love about some strains of street fashion photography (in the style of fruits, fashioni.st, hel-looks, and a few others).
sometimes, i just want to see something for what it truly is. i like the idea of a photograph being a simple, direct document of the thing or the person. i don't always need the frills of posing or an overabundance of affectations and drama.

(not so) random links

apologies for it having been a couple weeks since i inundated you with linkage! ha!here goes:

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-how cool is it when people take something used and make it tremendously *better* with a creative mind and their crafty designs skills? i'll tell ya: VERY COOL. even better when they blog about it, thereby inspiring hundreds with the stunning results. proof positive: these ridiculously cute handpainted shoes by made with love by hannah and this sweet sweater re-tooling by sarai of sweet sassafrass (who's apparently a fellow SF'can!) (via craft)

-good news for foreign footwear junkies living in the U.S.: there's an act that's aiming to get before congress, called the affordable footwear act of 2007. it's looking to end the shoe tax, which apparently imposes high tariffs on footwear that's been imported in to the united states (which is like, MOST of the footwear in the US these days, nearly everything being made overseas as it is). the aim, according to proponents like payless, nike, and others in the shoe trade? to lower the cost of moderately priced footwear and children's shoes...cuz, everyone needs shoes on their feet, especially the economically disadvantaged, right? i've not read the text of the proposed bill, but hey, do you think it covers those sweet italian made kicks i occasionally find myself drooling over? (kidding.)

-outsapop, the queen of the trashonistas, is tipping us off about a levi's 501 design competition (which is sadly only open to US residents, sorry!) which appears to be in conjunction with the recent denim restyling challenge seen on project runway. get to work remixing that denim: the contest ends february 6th, 2007. i'm a HUGE denim junkie...this contest is totally right up my alley! and as far as PR is concerned, that levi's episode was my favorite episode in what is otherwise a completely snoozeworthy season. but i digress...

-i guess i'll have to wait for my copy of today's WWD to read the rest of this little teaser about old navy: "Old Navy wants to shed its amorphous family image, target the twentysomething crowd and share some "big fashion ideas."" interesting move, but will it work? are they trying to compete with the likes of H&M and forever 21 and other similar retailer of that ilk? i'd be cautious: gap tried to be a little more trendy and fashion forward back in the 1990s and customers freaked (interestingly, i remember the offerings at that time being some of my all-time favorites from that store, but i am not a good person to make benchmarks from). will they try to take a risk and then shirk back again? i'm interested to see how they spin it and if they can market it and be savvy amongst other market leaders in that mass sector. my hopes aren't high for them, after seeing the whole gap empire take a huge downturn in recent years.

beautiful stranger TV

fly recently posted about beautiful stranger TV: it's a street fashion video site where the creators hit the streets of NYC to hunt down and interview it's stylish denizens, asking them what they are wearing and doing, basically what their into on a myriad of levels. what makes the site special? alongside each video featured on the site is a clickable listing of websites that the beautiful stranger mentioned in his/her interview so you can "procure the beloved items these style setters can't live without". the whole kit and kaboodle was a brainchild of several people who were/are in the beauty/fashion/media/lifestyle industries.

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genius, i say, especially that last bit. it's sort of like the listing of products one sees under many a wardrobe_remix (which i purposely included/instituted from the get-go) and coupled with some street fashion photos on certain smart sites and magazines of that sort (i'm thinking hel-looks, and in many japanese (street) fashion magazines, like the maverick in this genre, fruits), except it takes said listings to the next level and hyperlinks them, making it easier for people to surf over and grab it for themselves.
AI fantasy thought that would take that very idea to the next level:
it would be great if the technology inherent in the ever-burgeoning semantic web could help with this sort of thing, making semi-automatic linking of things people list without the individual having to do a lot of work to make the actual links. such a thing might not be far off.