Leica's colorful cameras

The Leica D-Lux 5 now comes in 40 different colors & two finishes. All parts--from body to lens--can be completed in any variety of colors and finishes. Mix & match your favorites on their interactive website.

WWII Color Photo Round-Ups

Color photos of World War II have been making the internet rounds lately. Particularly, snapshots of London during WWII & the havoc of Nazi bombings and some shots from before and after D-Day. It's always fascinating to see a world usually seen in black-and-white in color.

Thanks to mental_floss and Trevor for the tips.

Kromskop: Color Photos of SF After the Great Quake

The Associated Press reports a museum volunteer unearthed the earliest known color photographs of San Francisco, taken immediately after the 1906 earthquake. These photos, taken through a technique known as Kromskop, developed by Frederic Eugene Ives, are in stereoscopic form.

Via Laughing Squid

Pier 24: Exclusive Photography Center

Everywhere Mag has a nice write up on San Francisco's own Pier 24. The gallery, owned by wealthy investment banker Andy Pilara, only allows 60 people to visit on any given day. Pilara, who pays for all expenses out of pocket, wants visitors to have an intimate experience while viewing the photography.

Black and White to Color

mental_floss has a great article on the process of colorizing black and white films, and why it happened in the first place.

"Studio photographs of productions and romps through studio costume shops often helped determine what color a prop or costume really was. If those methods failed, technicians could fall back on coloring items at their own discretion. As you might expect, this process wasn’t cheap; it set producers back upwards of $3,000 per minute of film."

Goodbye, Fair Film

With the end of 2010 came, too, the end of Kodachrome. Dwanye's Photo, the final spot where Kodachrome could be developed, took the last orders of film to be processed by the end of December 2010, making any remaining rolls obsolete. Many people vied for the position of having the last roll ever developed so, to remain unbiased, the honor of the last roll processed went to Dwanye himself.

The word is still out about the contents of Steve McCurry's roll.

See the complete story at The New York Times and enjoy the musical version of Kodachrome while you're reading.

On Polaroids and Pickaxes

Airform Archives has a great excerpt from Harry Mathews "20 Lines a Day" that describes the act of capturing a pickax in a bathtub with Polaroid film. I cannot do a better write-up than Mathews' words themselves, so read them and see the rest of the Polaroids here.

LIFE + Google = History on the Internet

Since 2008, Life has been working with Google to release their complete photo archives in a digital context, making them available on Google Images. The process is slow, but steady. Recently released images include a collection of the JFK presidency. It is exciting to think about how this availability of history will continue to enrich the lives of those who would otherwise not be able to access it.

Via Mental_Floss

alison

An outing with a friend, here is a photo.

New Stuff

Alison


Fernanda
MUA: Karen

Alison Island on Film

Alison Island

The secret

Crew:
Stylist: Tracy Ong
Models: Alison Kranz, Mirela Paraganlija
Make Up Artist: Rebecca Marquez
Photo Assistant: Danielle Wesphal

Fashion Portraits of my Muse: Alison Darling

I was testing some lighting situations in the studio and was lucky enought to have Alison Darling to pose for me as well as Ms. Samone Parker as the make up artist.