Sunday, December 30, 2012

Favorite Pic of the Day for December 30th

Above:
Image from eMCi photo
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Happy Birthday today December 30th


Happy 23rd to skater Ryan Sheckler. Check out more of Ryan HERE: Fellow birthday boy Jason Dottley HERE: and more of today's birthday boys HERE:




eMCi photo: Ondas Electromagnéticas


Desde mucho antes de tener acceso a una cámara compacta, Matías Coronado ya se veía atraído e interesado por la fotografía. Pero claro, se trataba de una curiosidad técnica hija de sus influencias científicas. El estudio de las ondas electromagnéticas, matería prima de la luz, era un tema que lo fascinaba en épocas de la Facultad de Ingeniería. Sin embargo todo esto era teórico, en ningún momento de su niñez y adolescencia tuvo una cámara el tiempo suficiente como para responder por su propia cuenta a las preguntas acerca del misterioso artefacto.


In 2007, with a Nikon D40, Matías bean to emerge with a new way to view the world, blending his scientific background with his new passion for photography. Using his science base, using electromagnetic waves and the energy created with light to create striking panoramic and night photography describe by many as 'Light Painting'.


Matías learned however this technique did not always work for sharp looking portrait shots and soon discovered thought that illumination was as important as composition. It was then his images began to look more as the he envisioned that they would.

Aleixandre


Luego de un año de enfocarse en el retrato, en 2009, Matías Coronado es también emci photo y desde entonces hasta la actualidad, su trabajo se concentra casi exclusivamente a este tipo de fotografía porque cree que es uno de los ámbitos fotográficos más agradecidos.

Oriol

I think it was the Barcelona artist's ability to create such incredible clarity within his images, illuminating with such great detail every inch within every image is what first drew me to his images. Vibrancy whether in color or in black and white. I especially love how in so many of his images, Matías uses an area of shadow to highlight and give added depth to an area of light.

Viktor

Devian


Felipe

Julio

Karlos

Marcos


Matías

A Look Back: A Year In The Life


I was about 10 or 11 when the mini series A Year In The Life ran over three Christmas themed episodes on NBC. YITL was created by the same team who brought us St. Elsewhere, Northern Exposure and I'll Fly Away. The success of the mini series led to a regular series pick-up that lasted only one year from 1987-1988.


Actors Richard Kiley and Eva Marie Saint led the mini series cast of mostly (at the time anyway) unknowns. Many of the cast went on to successful television careers including Jayne Atkinson, Wendy Philips, Adam Arkin and a young Sarah Jessica Parker who spouted some of the biggest hair on television at the time. Although much of the show is on Youtube, sadly this television event has never made it to DVD. Of course being who I was, the men on the show drew most of my attention especially the three actors below:


David Oliver

David Oliver's life and career were both sadly cut short when the actor died of complications from Aids in 1992 at just 30 years old. Oliver was also known for spending a few years on the daytime drama Another World, playing Perry, son of resident Villain Carl Hutchins. Oliver appeared to have become close to co-star Sarah Jessica Parker and were photographed together frequently at the time and often connected romantically in the press.


Below: With Marlee Matlin

Trey Ames

Ames was certainly my YITL crush, just a few years older than I when the series began. Besides Richard Kiley, Ames was featured heavily in the show and made a brief splash in the teen magazine press. Ames most notable role after the series ended was Dolphin Cove in 1989. Hard to believe turned 40 this past year.



Morgan Stevens

Morgan Stevens was the actor I was most familiar with when YITL began. I knew him from his two year stint as the hot drama teacher on Fame. Stevens went on to spend some time on Melrose Place and Murder She Wrote, but his last acting credit was Walker Texas Ranger in 1989.



Kudos to Logan Lerman in The Perks of Being a Wallflower


Even though I had heard tons of great things, it was not until a couple of weeks ago that I finally saw The Perks of Being a Wallflower.


To just say I loved the film would not quite cut it. I am not exactly sure I did love, or enjoy it. But... it did impact me greatly with scene after scene painfully taking me back to moments of my time in Jr. high. Although I loved and thrived in high school, the three year in Jr. high that preceded were decisively and brutally different.


Although I connected to the story told in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, the story on has been told in various forms on screen before. On it's own it would not have resonated nearly as powerfully without the incredible talents of actor Logan Lerman. Emma Watson and Ezra Miller were both incredible, but Logan inhabited Charlie's world in a way very few actors are able to enter. I loved each of the actors choices and especially his relationship with his English teacher underplayed beautifully by Paul Rudd.


Although Logan may be best known to many for his role as fantasy adventure character Percy Jackson, I had only seen him on screen before as Bobby in the far too short lived WB series Jack & Bobby.


As beautiful a portrayal as Lerman gave, I have to give credit to Stephen Chbosky who not only wrote the novel the film was based on, but also directed the movie. Most writers must lose pieces of their characters they create when their work is transferred to the big screen. It is rare that a novelist, the person who painstakingly creates a character can see and take their work to a final version.

Lerman as Percy Jackson

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Favorite Pic of the Day for December 29th

Above:
One of my favorite shots of Claudiu by Chris Teel
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Happy Birthday today December 29th


Happy Birthday to actor Jude Law (below in Wilde) who turns 40 today!


Also celebrating today David Fumero, Diego Luna, Kevin Weisman, & Jon Voight.

Seasoned Seasonals


I am not sure anyone present for a certain Bethlehem birth would recognize Christmas in 2012. We have inflicted so many negatives on what should be a peaceful day, pressure and stress, both emotional and financial, many of us both look forward to and dread it's arrival at the same time. For some, family, friends and food are the key to a successful celebration, for others the three f's are at the core of the stress.


Many of us, in order to enjoy our time with friends and family, or to simply help us get through it, spend time during the holidays escaping into watching movies, and lots of them.


If you have read FH over the years, you know that 2011 and 2012 were transformative years for me with regard to film. I admittedly had an aversion to anything old, anything vintage, anything in black and white. Thanks however to some incredible reccomendation of films to watch, I am now firmly planted, at least as far as film goes, in the past.


George Bailey and Ralphie let us clearly know that Christmas always was surrounded by stress, but they also let us know they were equally filled with meaningful moments. Jim Carrey's Grinch doesn't hold a candle to the 1957 Chuck Jones adaptation and John Hughes should have left Susan Walker alone in the capable hands of a young Natalie Wood.



I thought I enjoyed You've Got Mail, that is until I saw the film it was based on, 1940's The Shop Around The Corner. I can't believe I saw this amazing film for this first time this year!


It is sad to me that in the future, people might think Christmas classics are all of the Lifetime version starring the thespian challenged likes of Melissa Joan Hart, Mario Lopez (shirtlessness aside) and Daphne Zuniga who seems only able to make second rate Christmas movies these days. Yes, the stories may seem the same, but the big difference is the actors.


Barbara Stanwyck and Dennis Morgan in Christmas in Connecticut, Jimmy Stewart and Margaret Sullavan in Shop Around The Corner, Boris Karloff as Grinch, Edmund Gwenn, John Payne and Maureen O'Hara in Miracle on 34th all do something most of today's actors don't seem to be able to, actually take on a character and act. Zuniga, Lopez, even Meg Ryan, don't they just play themselves in movie after movie? Cheers to a time when characters, not actors filled the screen!