Tuesday 18 August 2009

The Strange Mating Ritual of the Tangonian Giraffe

I have not had the chance to see real giraffes yet, but I am sure they behave like Matt West has witnessed while taking this photograph:

Photo by Matt West, August 2008.

Matt describes the hilarious mating ritual of the Tangonian Giraffe as follows: "Peculiar to this one region of Boogieland, the complicated courtship starts with drinks at the local watering hole followed by a light meal at a refek tree. Next, the pair dance the evening away and, if all goes well, they head off into the bush together for the night."

I am not quite sure what the refek tree is and how to cook it properly, but I want to have some!!!

Friday 7 August 2009

Imperial Trellis by Kelly Wearstler

Recently my wife showed me a wallpaper with this awesome pattern in an interior design magazine:

Photo taken from itsallinthedesign-designstyle on blogspot.

I liked the pattern so much that I used it straight away for my photography website. Ok, said and done, colours adjusted, a bit of html, a bit of ftp, looks good!

Since I liked the design so much, I did a bit of research on it in the interior design magazine and on the web. It turned out that the pattern is called Imperial Trellis and it has been designed by Kelly Wearstler.

A visit on her website rewarded me with a great variety of fantastic pieces of interior design work. (I strongly recommend having a look, she's really good!). Life is unfair, that's why the good looking woman on some of the photos on her website is not some model, but actually herself and she is also happily married and has two lovely kids! It made me chuckle though, when I read that the profession of her husband is basically to manage her and sell her stuff (lucky chap ;-)).

Here's one of my favourite photos from her site:

Photo from http://www.kellywearstler.com/, design by Kelly Wearstler

After being that impressed by all this, I found that it was appropriate to try to be a gentleman and ask for permission to use the pattern as background on my website, rather than just nick it. I wrote the sweetest email ever to lovely Kelly (which almost got me into trouble with my lovely wife ;-)) and asked whether I could use the pattern.

Unfortunately, I realised that all the sweet talking was in vain when I received a reply from one of her marketing ladies that said something along these lines: "Dear Martin, we are thrilled that you like Kelly and her designs but even YOU would have to pay for them! We are close to tears but we cannot give you permission to use Imperial Trellis!"

*Sigh* that was almost expected, was it not? I'm still looking for a nice pattern for the website ... that reminds me: I still have the pattern on there and better remove it soon with a heavy heart!

P.S.: She has done some really great work for Bergdorf Goodman, Lee Jofa and the Rug Company. And she has also published books on interior design with AMMO!