The past few months have been crazy, and there’s been a lot that has happened. Sarah and I celebrated our 1st wedding anniversary, and I’m enrolled back in college, and I’m enjoying it. That’s just a little snippet, but I won’t bore you with the rest.

I’m just glad to be back.

This Nikonos was a total mystery. A secret that not many people knew about until recently. In fact, its existence was repeatedly denied by the manufacturer, even after the US Navy published this photo, showing a member of SEAL Team One equipped with one and the following caption:

980608-N-3236B-003 NAVAL AIR BASE CORONADO, California (June 8, 1998) —Navy SEALs attached to SEAL Team One, Naval Air Base Coronado, CA, conducts training using the Nikon/Kodak DCS 425 underwater digital camera which can send real time digital images to decision makers, and an LPI LPD tracking device uses brevity codes to send both mission status and precise longitude/latitude. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer Mate 2nd Class Ted Banks. (RELEASED)

A digital Nikonos? Nobody had a digital Nikonos. Digital Nikonos just don’t exist. They didn’t exist in 1998 and they never ever existed. Nikon never manufactured them. In fact, Nikon cancelled the Nikonos in 2001, three years after this photo was taken.

So what the hell is this “digital camera which can send real time digital images to decision makers”? It is a Nikonos, but with different guts, modified by Eastman Kodak Company Commercial & Goverment Systems. The model name was the DCS 425 M, a black and white DSLR made for the military. According to Jarle Aasland—who investigated the origin of the puzzling beast—Kodak officially denies their existence:

I’m sorry but those cameras never existed here at Eastman Kodak. We never made cameras for that specific use. The information you have is incorrect.

Jarle’s information wasn’t incorrect, however. It was later confirmed by Jim McGarvey, Kodak’s lead engineer on the DCS cameras who said that the division would take commercial camera designs to adapt them for special needs in limited runs.

It’s too bad that Nikon cancelled the Nikonos. Not only it is a beautiful camera that requires no casing for diving, but it’s a perfect camera to take into any environment with no protection needed whatsoever. [Nikonos via Nikon Rumors]

Here is a short random video just showing off the wideness of this lens.  It’s magnificent.

Hopefully you’ll be seeing many short films to come with this lens….

This along with many others, is a finalist for the Archibald Prize.

The Archibald Prize is one of Australia’s oldest and most prestigious art awards. JF Archibald’s primary aims were to foster portraiture, support artists and perpetuate the memory of great Australians. Since its inception in 1921 the prize has been awarded to some of Australia’s most important artists, including George Lambert, William Dobell and Brett Whiteley.

Irving Harper has been a long time hero of ours. We were first introduced to this design legend in 2001 from an interview in Metropolis Magazine. It was our first realization that George Nelson was credited for many of the iconic designs that Harper had created. Designs that are still being manufactured today by Herman Miller, Vitra, and Maharam from the Marshmallow sofa to the popular desk and wall clocks. Slowly but surely Harper is being recognized, either for his design contributions or his paper sculptures, a hobby he took on after hours. Michael Maharam is helping to document these sculptures in a monograph to be published by the end of the year. New York Times visited Harper recently at his home in Rye, New York, capturing a portrait of the him in his studio. Interestingly enough, the photo was shot from the same angle as the 2001 photo of his studio in Metropolis Magazine – every bit of the space appears to be the same.

Source: The Scout

Take a few minutes and watch it, I don’t think you’ll regret it.  As I watched this so many emotions came about.  This story covers the seemingly mundane life of a janitor, William Turner.  At first glance you’d think he was just a normal boring janitor, but as the film unfolds interesting events unfold.

Shot on the famous 5D MkII at 30 fps then converted to 24 fps.

And check out the “Making of” videos too

Director: Po Chan
Cinematographer and Executive Producer: Shane Hurlbut, ASC
Producer: Greg Haggart
Editor: Vashi Nedomansky

Any architecture that is built with nature in mind, is made with concrete and has wooden interior elements, immediately gets an instant like from me. There’s just something about the combination of wood, concrete and trees that I love.

In this case the trees were included by law. Local construction codes of Mar Azul, Beunos Aires, Argentina actually restrict the removal of trees. Instead of relocating the house the architects, Martín Fernández de Lema and Nicolás F. Moreno Deutsch, decided to build the house around them. Leaving the end result a beautifully designed, wide open house that is seemingly the perfect spring or summertime residence.

Images via Arch Daily.

Source: ISO50

A novel concept and beautiful exterior make Martin Skelly’s Playlist Player vinyl emulation system a certified object of desire. The device — which plays back digital files in an apparently Serrato-like manner — attempts to simulate the classic ritual of the vinyl LP.

“There are two parts to the design: the player, and the record box containing five different coloured covers. Once the playlists are chosen and synced to the player with a memory stick, the user customises the outside of the sleeve with artwork of their choice. It could be photos of a memorable night or person or typed and hand drawn tracklists. Once the record is placed on the player, the music begins and the outer ring of lights illuminates. As the playlists plays rings of light visible through the translucent record move towards the centre of the disc, like a needle tracking on a record. These lights represent time and not the number of tracks, meaning your music must be enjoyed from start to finish with no distractions like the temptation to skip tracks, fast forward or rewind.”

Seeing people designing experiences like this is always nice, but it does illuminate the rather unsettling fact that the album format is dying. People are consuming media in ever smaller chunks and the LP experience is no longer the norm. I think this is a huge loss and an unfortunate consequence of the on-demand nature of the internet.

Although I grew up listening to 8-track, vinyl, cassette tapes, and then CDs — all of which tended to be enjoyed in album format more often than not — I must admit that I jump around a lot when consuming MP3s. I have recently begun rebuilding my music collection in lossless FLAC though and this has encouraged me to listen to more music as whole albums. If Skelly’s Playlist Player supports FLAC or WAV it might make the experience that much more enjoyable.

Source: ISO50

Alan Jaras is a rather unorthodox photographer who takes some rather extraordinary photos. A lot of his works deal with capturing light, which technically is all photography is, but I mean streaks of abstract, colored light. What really caught my eye though was this series he’s created called MicroWorld.

Using a scanning electron microscope he’s able to capture some of the smallest details of our world, which end up looking like tiny, strange worlds. This certainly isn’t new but he’s quite consistent with uploading new images, and well, they’re just rad to look at.

Found through Ian Coyle

Source: kitsunenoir.com

Last Thursday I posted this video showing the redesign if the $100 bill here in the U.S. and the proceeded to talk about how horrible it was. To my surprise there were a lot of commenters who seemed to think that the idea of security and beauty were two concepts that couldn’t live together, which kind of baffled me.

In response I’m posting these currency redesigns by Michael Tyznik, who I think did an amazing job of bridging the gap between design and potential security. His design includes ideas like a holographic strip, which not only makes it easier to tell the bills apart easier but could also be filled with a bevy of security features, I would assume. Inside the strip there are also embossed dots for the sight-impaired, something that current currency definitely doesn’t take into consideration.

This in my mind couldn’t be any better looking. It’s simple and bold while still giving a nod to the history of money in America. If you’ve happened to notice that there’s a lack of $1 you’re right, Michael suggests doing away with the $1 all together and replacing them with coins instead as it only has an average lifespan of 21 months. Kinda interesting, huh?

Source: kitsunenoir.com