Image Formats - Milindo Taid

Persuaded not to perspire! Early deodorant advertisements.

Sep 16

How did urbanites, like us, get so daily dependent on the ubiquitous spray can of deo? For a long time deodorants and antiperspirants were niche products and were often perceived as unnecessary and unhealthy. The late 19th C and the early 20th C saw advertising come to the rescue of a disastrously failing product, and the rest is sprayed history. 1888, was when the first deodorant (kills odor-producing bacteria) called Mum was trademarked and the first antiperspirant (preventing sweat-production and bacterial growth) was called Everdry and launched in 1903. Later in 1912 an enterprising young lady started a company selling an antiperspirant – Odorono (Odor? Oh No!). Yes, as blunt as that. Modern sensibilities might find some of these advertisements insensitive, sexist and incorrect. But don’t fall into that ‘armhole’.

Iphoneography, Instagram and Rear-view Mirrorism

Sep 10

When I first laid my eyes on Iphone generated imagery replete with ‘Instagrammatic’ filters, I could not help but think of ‘Mcluhanesque’ strains of determinism as made well known by his thought from 1967: “we look at the present through a rear-view mirror, we march backwards into the future”. Iphonegraphy and Instagrams’ wistful longing for time past, as made clear by their rabid recall, or should I say redial, of Polaroid and Kodak Instamatic aspect ratios, colour and exposure sensibilities, coupled with an even more peculiar recall adherence of wanting to be ‘painterly’, made me reflect on the rear view metaphor as not being concerned with just the immediate past, but also to deepen the metaphor to be inclusive of the distant past as well. It could also be reflective of the complex (and stressful) weave of the immediate, where we could seek to find firmer ground, by engaging with the comforting known rather than the frightening not-known. The examples here are from the Los Angeles Mobile Arts Festival. Take a look.

Early years schools: Sculpting of space and imagination.

Sep 02

I still remember my nursery/kindergarten classroom with a great deal of lucidity. The texture of paint on the chair and tables, the colours and the general layout of the land, as it were. In contrast, I don’t quite remember my teachers or my friends from that period – not to say that they failed me as teachers or friends, it is just what it is. I figure it has much do with being impressionable at that age and that sculpting of space has much to do with the sculpting of imagination. Having done my rounds of pre/nursery school visits in urban India this century, I am struck by how ‘Disneyfied’ everything is. I choose to call them the ‘Mickey Mouse Schools’ – the walls, tables, fixtures plastered with Goofys, Mickeys and Donalds, not to forget the Simbas and the Alladins. Predictable, dull, uninspiring, dead spaces. However all is not lost, as some remarkable architectural and interior minds have silently worked to put out school projects of remarkable inventiveness elsewhere Take a look.

Rare photograph manipulations before Photoshop: 1855-1950.

Aug 20

Two-Headed Man: Unknown, American ca. 1855 Daguerreotype

It is quite curious for us to look back at an age of visual practice which did not have the tools that we take as an assured presence now. From anonymous daguerreotypers (about 1855) to Oscar Rejlander (very often credited with one of the earliest articulations of manipulated photographs – 1857), the century that was to follow saw the imaginations and skills of myriad ‘trick photographers’ come to the fore. The George Eastman House and the Metropolitan Museum of Art have in their collection some of the early ‘imagineering’ that occurred much before the Knoll brothers changed the image making world in the latter half of the twentieth century. Take a look.

Piero Ribelli: 50 Main Street. Same Address. Different People.

Aug 13

New Jersey: Prasop and Saowaluck Kiewdara, South River, NJ

New York based Piero Ribelli undertook a project of a lifetime in stretching his legs across the USA: 6 years, 50 towns, 50 people, 31,000 miles by plane, 16,000 miles by car, 12 hours on trains, 90 minutes on ferryboats. The people in his portraits share only one thing in common – their address of 50 Main Street. A Hasselblad enthusiast, Ribelli does manage to ‘paint’ more than just red, white and blue in his USA. Take a look.

Gregg Dunn: Neuroscience Painting

Aug 11

1. Cerebellar Lobe

Gregg Dunn, neuroscientist, is a lover of Japanese Edo scroll and screen painting. He discovered that the elegant forms of neurons in our brains can be painted expressively in the ‘sumi-e’ style. Neurons may be tiny in scale, but they clearly posess the same beauty seen in traditional forms of far eastern minimalist painting traditions. Dunn offers a unique persepective to our ‘skull tissues’ of neurons, glial flares, hippocampus, the cortex, synapses, and ganglion. Take a look.

Rare mugshots of petty thieves from Newcastle, UK. 1872-1873

Aug 05

Alice Mullholland, 18, was a street trader who was sentenced to three months in Newcastle Goal for stealing boots.

The list of thefts committed was ominous enough, ranging from stealing of rabbits, beef, pigeons to clothes, tobacco and bed linen. In a fascinating record of early police portraiture, these men and women look into the new technology enabled apparatus sans hope, regret or amusement. Still proud, one can clearly see how they might have been asked by the cameraman to meet the ‘posing protocol’ of Victorian representation, hands/fingers locked. Not all of them care for protocol though. Take a sepia tinted look, courtesy the Tyne & Wear Archives.

Smithsonian’s 9th Annual Photo Competition: Finalists

Aug 01

1. Kyaw Kyaw Winn in Myanmar.

14,000 plus photographers, 109 countries, 50 finalists. The entries for the Smithsonian’s 9th Annual Photo Competition were spread across five categories: Altered Images, Americana, the Natural World, People, and Travel. Here is a sampling of some of the final shortlisted entries.

A million years of human ingenuity: Objects of the world

Jul 24

BBC Radio 4 took a hundred man made objects (from across the ages), that were a part of the British Museum collection and translated these into one hundred radio programmes, each tackling one object and lasting fifteen minutes each. These were broadcast in a chronological order in three tranches across 2010. Take a look at some of these objects and (probably) feel good that you are human.

23rd National Geographic Traveler Photo Contest: Winners

Jul 21

Fernanda Credidio: Walking Beyond. San Pedro Atacama, Chile

Over 10,000 entries were submitted from all over the world, in these four categories: Travel Portraits; Outdoor Scenes; Sense of Place; and Spontaneous Moments. The stunning photographs captured an assortment of places, wildlife, and people that make traveling memorable. Here is a sampling of the best of the entries.