Blade Runner - Sean Young

Blade Runner is an iconic film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Harrison Ford, Rutger Hauer, and Sean Young. The screenplay, written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, is loosely based on the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick [W].

Iconic, because of the complexity of the story, the film noir style filming and the fact that it seems that there is constantly rain pouring down, which creates a unique "dawn of humanity" atmosphere. It is one of those science fiction films that some people love because of its retro style, meaning that CGI was not advanced enough at the time of production to make everything look fancy and all shiny.

Whilst this is certainly true rather than calling this look "retro", I would say its look adds to the credibility of the events and also the slight but important human touch that makes the story matter somehow. This is not always achieved in some more recent productions of the same genre (I felt nothing, anyways).

Anyways, it is time to relate my rant to these gems of retro :) photographs I recently found:



Photos by Sean Young on the set of Ridley Scott's Blade Runner (1982).

I found them in an article in the online magazine HUH, where I also learned that there are special stand-up chairs on film sets, like the one Sean Young leans against in the photograph above, that prevent the clothes from wrinkling! Awesomelifelonglearningaboutoldhollywoodexperience!

Also, if Sean is a Replica indeed, I think she will have feelings ...

York UNI Undergraduate Magazine 2011

I was quite pleased when three of my photographs that I took at the famous York FUSION event were selected to be published in this year's undergraduate magazine! The Magazine turned out very nice and looks quite inviting. York UNI is a nice place to be, not only on paper ;-). In case you are interested in getting a PDF or printed version of the magazine, you can download/request from the University's Undergraduate Studies website.

Of course, you can also take a look at the original photos and many others on my Flickr page:

Photo by Martin Trefzer, FUSION March 2009.

You can also go directly to the large versions on Flickr:
Here are the links to the large versions:
www.flickr.com/photos/ratamatatta/3392027451/in/set-72157...
www.flickr.com/photos/ratamatatta/3392839520/in/set-72157...
www.flickr.com/photos/ratamatatta/3392031241/in/set-72157...

In case you want to learn more about the FUSION event where the photos have been taken, you can have a look at their website. The event takes place around March/April time every year.

The FUSION of Super and Mario

Who doesn't remember when the Mario Bros. first came out in arcade low-res 2D graphics in 1983? Wait a sec ... probably quite a few people now ;-) ...

It's all about the plumbers Mario and Luigi who have to fight of abdominal creatures crawling out of New York's sewers. The game was well received and has evolved considerably over time. The sequel called Super Mario Bros. came out in 1985 as a two player game for Nintendo gaming consoles. It remained one of the best selling video games of all time until it was outsold by Wii Sports, a sports game (and another Nintendo marketing masterpiece) for this increasing number of people who want peace of mind without actually doing sports.

Anyways, may I now present you the next generation of the game: Super Fusion Mario Bros.

Photo by MAT on Flickr, March 2011.

The boys did an awesome dance show at FUSION of York 2011, a charity fashion & dance performance that takes place every year around March time. I quite like the event as it is always an excellent excuse for taking pictures as you can see here.

For the keen folks, here are some more sources of information about the bros.

Mario Bros. at Nintendo.

Mario Bros. on Wikipedia.

Super Mario Bros. on Wikipedia.

Super Fusion Mario Bros. at York.

It Ain't Easy Being Pretty

This is another great photograph by the same guy who also created the one in the previous Cherry 2000 post.

Photo by Aaron Nace on Flickr, May 2009.

The guy is just a genius with the lights and Photoshop. Just read on his Flickr site that apparently he's giving Photoshop classes ... Anyways, I can so imagine being this guy he portrays in this picture. Who doesn't know the feeling of pimping himself back to non-zombie state using his Clark Kent powers? Just sucks when the misses forgot to put away her Kryptonite lipstick ;-).

Cherry 2000

"In the year 2017, a good woman is hard to find. A Cherry 2000 is even harder." This is the tagline of the robot women, weird outlaws, the zone, foxy renegade woman science fiction film Cherry 2000 from 1987.

It is about a guy who short-fuses his perfect female android. He can rescue her memory chip and now strives to find the same model - a Cherry 2000 - again. In order to achieve this, he hires a renegade, who helps him to retrieve one from an abandoned factory where the only remaining stock of this model is stored. The problem is that this factory happens to be situated in an apocalyptic outlawed zone full of weird, treacherous individuals. After surviving numerous dangerous perils they reach the plant and also find a replacement Cherry 2000 model. This is when the guy finally realises that the renegade he hired is actually a sexy, perfect woman and on top of that made of flesh and blood, which is so much better than nuts and bolts! What a grand story ;-). The film has got only a 4.9 on IMDB, but what do they know ... ;-) ?

And this film was the first thing that came to my mind when I saw this brilliantly photoshopped photograph on Flickr:

Photo by Aaron Nace, July 2009.

The great thing about this picture is the depth-of-field (DOF) and the sharpness, crispness and lighting of the model in the foreground. Both has been achieved using photographic skill during shooting, rather than post-processing. This makes the actual edit look really natural and convincing.

The model is great too. She fits just perfectly. And reminds me of yet another great 80ies film Mannequin, which is also from 1987! Must have been the Year of Artificial Females or something like that ...

Electro-cute Hairography

Even before Glee I always was a huge fan of hairography, although I have to admit I did not have an actual term for *it* before. In case you have no idea what I am talking about, have a quick look here and it will become obvious straight away.

The great thing about the term hairography is that it is somewhat universal. It's creators probably had something in mind like: "Dance performance ... Choreography ... Flip your hair around like crazy looks cool ... Can hair dance? ... Why not ?! ... Let's just call it Hairography!". Whereas from a photography viewpoint, one could say: "What is this mysterious hair actually doing while flipping around like crazy? ... Who has the power of freezing blinks of an eye in time? ... Photography! ... A photograph of hair doing hairography ... Hair ... Photography ... Hairography!"

I'm glad I worked that one out and can now finally show you an absolutely stunning picture of hairography:

Photo by LA NADA, December 2010.

I tried a little bit of hairography myself a while ago. It is great fun and the hardest part is to get a shot where the model maintains a normal facial expression. Not sure I could do that at all whilst flipping my hair like this (apart from the fact that it is probably not long enough)!

Photo by MAT, December 2008.

Beautiful Portrait

It has been ages since my last entry! 2011 shall bring more great photographic entries for the blog, and more taking photographs myself as well!

What could be better than starting off with this absolutely fantastic portrait:

Photo by Hannes Caspar, 2008.

Great tones and expression. There is more work of the photographer on his website, which is more that worth a visit!

Also on his website I found the quite interesting Facity project. FACITY is an international online photo project. Faces from cities all around the world will be shown on a daily basis. Anyone can participate in FACITY as a photographer or a model. Apparently you just have to get in touch via the website.