Photos: New York Red Bulls vs. Philadelphia Union

The Red Bulls miraculously came out smelling like roses again! It was a back and forth battle with both teams getting scoring chances and owning possession of the ball. The first half was a stalemate, but in the second half, Salou Ibrahim scored his first goal as a Red Bull heading in a nice cross by Jeremy Hall to open the scoring, but then 9 minutes later, Sebastien Le Toux equalized on a cross from Alejandro Moreno. The moment the Red Bulls needed to finally get on top came in the 67th minute. Union's Michael Orozco committed a handball within the 18 yard box, granting NY a penalty kick and Juan Pablo Angel simply buried it. This puts RBNY record to 4-1. Here are some awesome shots from the game.

The Viper's Nest Features Chamber Images

I would like to thank Matt Conroy and the other bloggers at The Viper's Nest for using Chamber Images sports photography in their recent article. I would also like to encourage our visitors who love the sport of soccer or the New York Red Bulls, to check out their website.

Commercial Test: Farrah Sabado

Recently, I had test shoot with Ms. Farrah Sabado, PARTS model by day, DJ by night. We had a lot of fun messing around with candy, booze, shaving cream and shoes. Here are the top selections we came up with.

Photos: New York Red Bulls vs. FC Dallas

The Red Bulls went into their second home game of the season with a 2-1-0 record and pulled out a win in a hard fought, close battle by a score of 2-1. There were many intense moments which made for great photos. I will attempt to assemble some clips of the game in a short video when I get the chance, but for now, enjoy some stills of the game.

Digital Pop-Up Books?

Alice in Wonderland for the iPad is basically a digital pop-up book, just without the third-dimension. At first the interactivity might seem a bit frivolous, distracting from the text more than complimenting it, but if you look at it more like a pop-up book, or a new art form, rather than judging its merits by comparing it to the experience of reading a straight novel, I think how awesome this is becomes a little clearer.

If you take this idea and use photos and video rather than drawings, and apply it in a more mature way, you can create a whole new genre of publishing, something that seamlessly combines text with art, interactivity, and instant access. Right now, the closest thing to this kind of interface outside of iPhone apps are fancy Flash websites, but if you shift the focus from web content to just content, minimizing the need for broadband connections and moving away from the idea that you're looking at a website, you can end up with a product that pulls people in more deeply and profoundly, that's used and perceived differently and in different situations. Essentially, you create a new kind of user, a new market, a new genre, something that's neither completely a book, a game, or a website.

It'll be interesting to see how this kind of interactive story develops on the iPad. Someone should start a blog about it. If you do, contact me at chris@chamberimages.com and let me know about it!

New York Times: One in 8 Million

An incredible collection of short biographies combining photography and audio put together by the New York Times. I think One in 8 Million is a great example of how the internet can be used to create these multi-dimensional pieces that bring together several disciplines into an art form that has never existed before. Yeah, putting photos and audio together is nothing new, but throw interactivity and instant access into the mix, and now you're talking about a medium that has a few more tricks up its sleeve and more room for fresh thought than just your standard narrated photo story.

Web 2.0 and new emerging technologies (DSLR's that take HD video at prosumer prices, iPhones, Twitter, Facebook, etc.), allows artists and designers to explore new multi-disciplinary forms. There's an opening there to create new perspectives, even if it means just tweaking something with new technology or matching ideas together differently. Have you seen an incredible photo project that's already famous and you wish you beat it to the punch? Turn it into a video. Have you seen a short film that you wish you made? Make something similar and then integrate it into social media like Twitter and Facebook. Have you seen a cool multi-media style or approach that you want to emulate, but you don't want to look like you're just copying? Apply it to a completely different context (take the one in 8 million idea and apply it to chefs in Manhattan, mothers, rappers, or pet owners talking about their pets.) Instead of trying to be the best in some particular genre, create a new genre and explore it.

There is never going to be another Henry Cartier-Bresson or Richard Avedon. They were artists in a different context, a world with different social and technological relationships. What was fresh and new for them is not fresh and new for us if we stay confined to their original forms. The spirit of the age is different. Break out, combine, mismatch, be the pathfinder and pioneer of something really new altogether.

Real Life Stop-Motion Video

I recently came upon this incredibly interesting example of stop-motion being used on real people. This video has over eleven million views and has been up for more than a year, so I'm not sure why I haven't seen it before. Maybe I'm just out of the loop, but in any case, I thought it was an incredible piece of work.

The song is "Her Morning Elegance" by Oren Lavie. The video itself was shot by Eyal Landesman, an Israeli photographer based out of his studio in Tel Aviv. According to Oren's MySpace blog, the video was comprised of 3,225 still images taken by a single overhead camera. The incredible pre-visualization took four weeks and basically consisted of a computer generated 3D animation that was used as the storyboard and it took two days to photograph the entire sequence frame by frame.

Christopher Morris: Obama's Burden & The New Leader

Two incredibly beautiful pieces of cinematic journalism shot by Christopher Morris, founding member of the multiple award-winning photojournalist agency VII, and a photographer for TIME magazine. It was shot using a Canon 5D MKII, 7D, and a couple of tilt and shift lenses.

What I like most about these videos is the perspective coming through, and that it isn't, at least in my view, an attempt at objective journalism, but rather, the subjective experience. I feel like there's room to agree or disagree with his interpretation of facts. And zooming out to look at the bigger picture, I think his videos are another example of the changing landscape of photography in general, the merging of photo and video in a world where the average person has a very sophisticated visual intelligence, access to higher quality technology, and the ability to publish their work to millions of people without having to go through gated institutions like broadcast television. Sure, Chris shot for TIME, but these videos are posted on Vimeo.

Obama's Burden from Christopher Morris on Vimeo.

The New Leader from Christopher Morris on Vimeo.