Riding a Bicycle Looks Good From Every Angle!

 

Lately I have been getting a few very nice reactions for this blog, which is a nice motivation to keep on posting.  People are sometimes pointing me to websites that are of interest to me and I am very enthusiastic about Down Town from Behind.

The photographs on Down Town from Behind  capture "subjects riding their bike from behind on every street, some 200+ streets, avenues and lanes below 14th in New York City."

The simplicity of this concept is striking, but to great effect. Not only is this a homage to beauties on bicycles, also the beauty of NYC is captured in a demure but impressive way.

Many thanks to Basti Hirsch for the tip.

IDFA: Amazing Online Bicycle Documentray

Last November, the International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) took place. A tremendous amount of movies is shown over the course of 2 weeks. What a lot of people don't seem to know, is that a lot of the documentaries shown at the festival, from this and prior years, are to be seen online!
The south African documentary 10 Gears of Change (dir. Lloyd Ross, South-Africa, 2004, colour, video, 48min) in which the arrival of a set of used bikes forever changes the lives of eleven residents and workers of the remote Thor Vale farm in South Africa, can be seen here.


But also the non bicycle related films are worth a look, enjoy!

Japanese Bicycle History Research Club

the teahouse of Tokyo, Ueno. Year not identified. 

Who would have thought that something like a  Japanese Bicycle History Research Club actually exists. Well it does and it is a compelling collection of images.

Brigitte encore un fois!

Remember the first post on this blog?  The blog I mentioned earlier today has an image of BB, probably taken on that same day. In a way it is comforting to see that even Brigitte is not capable of keeping that hat on while peddling.

Beautiful Famous People on Bikes!

 

Sophia Loren on a bicycle, bella Italia!

I got contacted today by the creator of http://ridesabike.tumblr.com/, a blog only a month old, that shows just photo's of famous people riding bicycles, perfection in a blog (and a lot more active in posting)! It combines the two things I love, movie stars of times gone by and the use of bicycles!

Go there, take a look and enjoy!

Fancoise Hardy's Harley (or Honda...)

Photographer unknown (to me), ca. 1967

Although more famous for a photo of her and a big bad motorcycle, French 1960's pop star, Francoise Hardy also know how to ride one of the most peculiar bicycles I have seen lately. A that regularly shot Hardy and many other of the flamboyant French stars (although i don't think he took these shots, does somebody know?), like my all time favorite BB and France Gall is Jean-Marie Perier (1940). Who's work was recently on display and for sale at VIP'S gallery in Amsterdam. This gallery specializes in photographs of the rich and (in)famous, but nothing too glamorous.

 Photographer unknown (to me), ca. 1965

From Bicyles to Bisons to Picasso to PIPS:lab

 Stroboscopic image of girl riding bicycle. 

New York, NY, US, 1945, Gjon Mili

One of my favorite places to 'shop' for photographs is the LIFE image database. My search always starts with the word bicycle, the following search result is as varied as it is mono-thematic.  Although the bicycle is just one out of millions and millions subjects that are available to the photographers lens, the ways it appears on photographs is just as numerous.This seems to be true for every subject which makes mono-thematic research my approach of choice for my meandering and wandering trough photography's vast history.

The photograph above for example, probably will remind most viewers of something similar with horses. Eadweard Muybridge used photography to dissect movement and became famous for his series of galloping horses, which he was asked to make by railroad magnate Leland Stanford in 1872 in order to proof that a horse, during gallop is fully detached from the ground at one moment.

He did something similar with an American bison (which seems to me a lot harder to handle than a horse):

American bison – set to motion using photos by Eadweard Muybridge

The photographer that was responsible for the stroboscopic image above however: Gjon Mili, was a promoter of incorporating movement in photography in his own right. Using electronic flash and stroboscopic light to create photographs that had more than just a scientific interest, he captured, next to cyclists, dancers and other performers. For LIFE magazine, which he worked for, for more than 40 years, he made a reportage with Pablo Picasso, who is painting with light.

 Triple exposure of artist Pablo Picasso drawing w. light at his home in Vallauris. 1949, Gjon Mili

This series of photographs reminded me immediately of the theatrical performances by Amsterdam based collective PIPS:lab. They have been using their self-developed real time equivalent of the "writing with light" technique in several of their projects. The Lumas2solator being the first to introduce this technique to the public.

Lumatosolator from PIPS:lab on Vimeo.