sparkrobot

New live rock galleries up: The Coloffs, The Paper Dolls and The Zip Guns from Friday night at The Funhouse, Seattle.

There are more photos over here.

I ventured out last Friday to catch a couple of bands. Peter Parker and Dept of Energy played live at The Comet Tavern. The Comet is a cool venue to see shows. The bands play live on the floor, but it’s dark as shit in there, making photography difficult. The Globes opened the show, but I didn’t have the Nikon tuned in to get any shots of them. I posted some photos of Peter Parker and Dept of Energy from the show to the Live Rock Photos gallery. Enjoy. Or not. I’ve also posted them to Flickr.

Since the announcement from Polaroid that they would cease to manufacture in February, a group of instant film enthusiasts and talented artists have pooled together in joint effort to save instant film by creating savepolaroid.com. I have a couple of SX-70 Polaroids that I’d love to keep using, so I can certainly get into the movement. Hopefully, with some nudging, either Polaroid or another manufacturer will step in to produce more film in the future.

From the site:

Since this announcement, we’ve been assembling articles, links, stories and planning out the best way to create a joint effort to save instant film. We’ve contacted Polaroid, Fuji and Ilford about licensing. We have more in the works and will update this site regularly.

Link to Save Polaroid – Save Instant Film.

The Library of Congress has begun to post photos from the national archive to Flickr. Some of these photographs are incredible… See Flickr: Photos from The Library of Congress

A photo I took of my Konica Auto S2 on my dining room table is featured on Camerapedia.org. Now it’s famous. Or something.

Flickr added web statistics to their photo sharing web application starting on December 13. The feature is simple, clean and the presentation is easy to understand. This comes as no surprise to me from the Flickr team. I’m finding this a welcome addition, as I would likely never had any clue my photo of the Konica was being used on Camerapedia.

I ventured up to Seattle last Saturday to check out Tacoma’s own The Fucking Eagles (photos) opening up a show with Denmark’s Power Solo (photos) for Jon Spencer’s (Jon Spencer Blues Explosion) new project, Heavy Trash (photos).

As always, it’s always reverent to hear completely anomalous questions from Seattle people about drive-bys, meth and aroma. Some of my photos are featured on the Seattle Indie Pop Rock blog, Three Imaginary Girls in a full review of the show from heather b.

The marketing machine over at The Lomographic Society just dropped limited editions of the plastic lens Holga and new Diana+ in glorious red and white peppermint stripes in coordination with Jack and Meg White of the White Stripes. The Diana+ was recently reissued through Lomo, and the Holga is a 120CFN (with the color flash). They both shoot 120 medium format film and produce notoriously unpredictable results. I have been using a 120CFN for a couple of years. They’re cheap in every way, and it’s a necessity to keep nearby a roll of electrical tape to keep the thing from falling apart. This is all part of the experience. With the ubiquity of digital images, it’s refreshing and surprisingly simple to create unique images experimenting with analog equipment.

The legendary Diana+ and Holga cameras are known for their serendipitous ‘imperfections’ and cinematic qualities. These special editions follow the band’s red, white and black color scheme down to the peppermint swirl on their frame advance dials. Frequent collaborator Rob Jones designed the custom packaging for both sets. Together, The White Stripes and Lomography are taking an analog look at life in the digital age.

For only $180, you too can pick up a $20 camera. But hey, don’t forget, it comes with a bunch of rock memorabilia too. There are only 200 pieces of each the Jack Holga and the Meg Diana+, and purchases are limited to 1 JACK Holga set and 1 MEG Diana+ set per customer.

For the nostalgic, here are some photos of the White Stripes doing an in-store performance at Fallout Records in Seattle back in 2000 taken by Tim Hayes. This was back before they took over the world.

A series of black and white photos from the Western State Hospital grounds in Lakewood.

Initially, I thought of posting all the photos here, but I’ve decided against wheel reinventing. So, here’s the Western State Hospital Slideshow. I made these last weekend on an outing with the Tacoma Flickr group.

Dischord news reveals the release of “Keep Your Eyes Open: The Fugazi Photographs of Glen E Friedman“.

“The 112-page, approx. 9″x11” hardcover book presents the best of Friedman’s unparalleled photographic documentation of Fugazi’s members in almost 200 color and black & white images captured by Friedman onstage and off between 1986 and Fugazi’s last U.S. concert in 2002.

Available for preorder from Dischord Records. Cool.