Snow White Identity Crisis

Willy Vanderperre shoots Mariacarla Boscono for i-D in a surreally sexy editorial that looks like it would be more at home in an older Dazed & Confused.

Zink/Distill: No Man's Land

Apparently macro photography doesn't have to be first year students taking pictures of each others eyes... it can be a team of professionals turning them into amazing abstract volcanic landscapes.

Photography: Thibault Breton
Make-up: Jacques Uzzardi

Despite originally starting life in Zink US, you can see it in Distill magazine, which is up to something interesting with its concept; they take what they think are the best editorials (not that I always agreed), and err, distill it into a magazine. There are also interviews with the people that worked on the shoots, going through the inspiration etc, and in cases like this it's definitely interesting, but I'll confess to not having my hair blown back by the inspiration behind a shoot of boys standing around on rocks.

Head Above Water

It's hard to tell whether Above Magazine is new, or just under new management... either way the ambitious concept makes for an interesting first issue; it is an ecological publication with an eye on fashion, art, architecture etc. However, articles like the missing link between fashion and fish offer a unique slant, and it's even developed its own fonts to use less ink.

Apparently people were queueing up to collaborate, and some of the editorial (and commercial) imagery is spectacular (see above, shot of fish is previously featured Trent Parke), but I wonder if this will last beyond the maiden voyage, I get the feeling the concept might have been better suited to a book. Sustainability?

Tar Magazine Premiere Issue

There is something unintentionally ironic about new magazine Tar running an article on overcrowding in its premiere issue. If there is one thing not needed at the moment, it's another magazine that promises a new wave, and burns itself out within a few issues.

Good thing Tar, despite its borderline cringeworthy mission statement ('tar' is an anagram of art, the distillation of organic matter, sticky stuff we pave roads and secure roots with - a foundation) has a few signs of longevity.

There seems to be a reputable publishing company at work behind it, and the inclusion of higher profile features, such as the main spotlight and interview with Benicio Del Toro gives it a certain seal of quality and scope.

That said, I hope that much like bed-fellow Tank, Tar manages to maintain quality of content, and hasn't peaked straight out the gate by using too much of its target content straight away, which reads like a dream list. However, given that it's a bi-annual we can hope this isn't the case.

Features include:

Matthew Barney, David Cronenberg, Andreas Gursky, Ryan McGinley, Terry Richardson, Naomi Wolf.

Trent Parke Profile In Tank Magazine

Trent Parke is the only Australian to have been represented by the revered Magnum photo agency. In their 10th Anniversary Edition, which has been a long time coming and worth every penny, Tank Magazine pay homage to this master of atmosphere.

Parke's most stunning photos happen in black and white, where he masterfully uses intensely bright weather to draw out dark atmosphere in his compositions among other brilliantly effective techniques. A selection of his work can be found here, some personal favourites being the ones below (taken from his Seventh Wave book), and one that turns a day on the beach into an Independence Day apocalypse. It's well worth purchasing Tank just to see the photos on paper if for nothing else.

Chris Cunningham Interview in Vice Magazine

As part of their recent interviews issue (and one of their best recent outputs), Vice interviewed the elusive Chris Cunningham.

With a reputation for being a bit like Larry David crossed with a cave troll, he is surprisingly lucid and upbeat.

However, that might all be a bit boring (/) if he hadn't included a stomach turning 'self portrait', which is interesting as well as disgusting.

Here

Much like the porn he discusses in the interview, the reality is, however clichéd, that people have become desensitised to shocking imagery, and demand more to trigger a reaction. The point of interest here is where it even crosses the limit of human possibility, and much like Lynch's infamous baby in Eraserhead, overtakes genuinely explicit real-life produced imagery (such as war photography and genetic mutation, for example).

Once again Cunningham proving himself to be worthy of his visceral cutting edge reputation. Can't wait for the feature films he mentions, imagine a horror in the style of Rubber Johnny or the 'Sheena Is a Parasite' (pictured) video.