snapshots and observations

Saturday, 8 December 2012

museum of modern art, lisbon.








when you're in a foreign city and it rains, or rather pours all day
what do you do ?

in lisbon i took a trip to the museum of modern art.

it's just over the road from the maritime museum
( which i also went to ) and maybe a three minute walk from the 
cafe where they invented the nata.

plus all three are a 15 minute tram ride from the city centre.

bonus !



here are a load of pics i took in the museum of modern art





some sort of massive mobile thing hanging in the lobby.
to get to the exhibition below, you take the spiral staircase on the left.









i was just looking up to photograph the mobile from below when all of
a sudden a tourist who was upstairs had the same idea.
i think it made for an interesting shot









whenever i'm in a museum or gallery, i like to get a photo of the people
who are there to keep an eye on you or to stop kiddies touching things.









i liked this effort. it kind of reminded me of a verner panton thing.









ok, i got carried away in this part of the exhibition.
loads of wooden figures and carved animals.
these lads were on a massive boat / village thing









do you like their beards ?









yes










heck yes









ok, now the little animals.
i wish they had these for sale in the museum shop.
right ?









i'd buy one of these, no problem.









ha ha ! look at the owl









or as my friend reiko once wrote... 'aol'









owls are great aren't they ?









did you ever see that old tv series called the owl service ?
it was kind of scary right ?









i suppose this is a leopard.
very nice eh ?









another style of owl









another leopard









and a bird of some kind









moving on to another exhibition, i must say i thought this was rubbish.
just painting a few shapes onto an old football photo.
i did like spotting the players though.
les ferdinand scoring for newcastle against aston villa with ugo ehiogu
defending and mark bosnich in goals.









i do like neon lights









but is it art ?








Friday, 7 December 2012

top 20 sneakers of 2012 ( number 19 )










19
nike air force 1
from this year's liberty x nike collaboration.
soft leather combined with a beautiful liberty material, plus these were
quite a limited edition and only available up to a size 8uk.
so what i'm saying is... they are quite rare.

perfect room ?








i meant to show you this ages ago.
early september in fact.

it's the plan of the hotel room i stayed in at yotel, gatwick airport.

for me, it was pretty much the perfect hotel room.
small but perfect.










snapshots from lisbon








i was in lisbon a few weeks ago.
i don't have many photos though, as it rained pretty much
non-stop for the whole weekend.

here are a few that i did manage to take.


1
people outside one of the late-night ginginha bars.
( look out for my ginginha special post coming very soon )








2
did i mention how much cork there is in lisbon ?
i like cork so for me this was very interesting... to see all the items
they use it for... wallets, pencil cases, handbags, lighters








3
even baseball caps and those visors that american ladies wear.








4
beer bottles with aprons and mascot heads.
the dragon of porto, the lion of sporting and the eagle of benfica.








5
lisbon is where the nata originates.
these were at the very cafe where the nata was invented.
outstanding !








6
lots of trams in lisbon. 
if you ever go there, you have to go on a tram ride.








7
a chicken pie in a coffee shop.




i realise these photos aren't showing a lot of lisbon.
i did a post about the city a couple of months back if you can be bothered
typing 'lisbon' into the search bar at the bottom of this page.

what i would say is this. if you're in the uk and you like the odd weekend
away in europe and haven't been... i would very much recommend lisbon to you.


it's almost worth it for the nata, ginginha, and trams alone.

obrigado lisboa.






Thursday, 6 December 2012

whitfield christmas card 2012








as you may know, i always make my own christmas cards.

http://markwhitfieldphotography.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/limited-edition-whitfield-xmas-cards.html

http://markwhitfieldphotography.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/last-christmas.html

http://markwhitfieldphotography.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/making-xmas-cards.html


usually i just draw onto a piece of card but this year i've embraced
the digital age and drawn onto a piece of paper, scanned it in to my
mac, and messed about with it using photoshop.

1
the first sketch. in biro onto a postcard








2
when i thought it might be a good idea to use a bit of colour








3
using a felt-tip pen and a ruler








4
after scanning in the felt-tip / ruler effort, i dumped some colour onto it.








5
and this is how it stands at the moment.

i toyed with the idea of putting a yellow halo around the baby jesus
and also around mary's head.

i thought about giving crowns to the three wise blokes too.

i as also advised to make the star "star-shaped" instead of square.

plus there's usually some livestock involved in this scene...
should i put some animals on the left ?

any ideas ?

let me know soon as i'm going to have to get these lads knocked out in the
next couple of days.

season's greetings and all that.







macaroons









macaroons ?
yes please.

top 20 sneakers of 2012









what better way of ending the blogging year is there than a good old list ?


starting today, my list of the top 20 pairs of trainers / sneakers / kicks
released this year.


number 20
nike air force 1
this release in all black denim was part of the thirtieth year anniversary pack.
details include the first ever denim outsole.