Thank you!
The UK has been a bastion of free speech for many years now and it is something I am very proud of. Our recent heritage is full of grea…
The UK has been a bastion of free speech for many years now and it is something I am very proud of. Our recent heritage is full of great bands, writers, artists and film makers that have thrived in tolerant society that has welcomed free expression. The UK’s artists are known the world over for pushing boundaries and mixing together genres of art to create sub-genres and in some cases completely new genres! However I sometimes wonder what this tolerant, free society is going to make of the latest trend to hit the streets of the city, political urban art. Of course I realise Its not a new phenomenon , look at the scrawl on the old Berlin Wall or on the walls in Northern Ireland and you would find political graffiti slogans left in protest and to provoke thought. You can even find the ancient paintings of any native race anywhere in the world on rock faces or cave walls, whether they were made as decorative pieces or with some social impact in mind, who knows? Even in its most recent form as scrawl with spray can on a wall it has been alive in this country for years. The point is it is becoming very evident to me that this is becoming something of an epidemic here in London. When I say becoming, well I travel the streets searching this stuff out and I can tell you it is on the rise in quite a dramatic fashion here! Kids, young men and professional artists are getting more and more confident and ballsy about making bigger and more controversial statements on the walls of our city. The obvious answer is Banksy has created a precedent for the flood gates to open… although he was not the first to create this form of political graffiti in London, he is just the most well known and the first to achieve worldwide fame and fortune. But I feel to blame him or to even praise him for this would be wrong because to me he is only responding to the problems in society not creating them. Almost like blaming Hip Hop for the problems in Harlem, it’s short sited and completely missing the point. These artists are responding to the way the people are feeling right now and trying to get their voices heard the only way they can. For me this rise in political graffiti stems from the feeling that the noise society is creating is so loud and inconsequential the important points are not reaching the people. For example, a messed up singer will get front page headlines of our major newspapers while continued atrocities are being committed the world over by that do not even get a mention! How can a footballers affair be more important to the people than 2 million refugees going without food, water and medicine in Dafur. We are being drowned in a sea of pointless messages, with the substance floating past unnoticed. Whether you think it’s a problem with society or a government ploy to control us it’s clear that that to get the message across artists are resorting to more drastic measures. These measure are to take to the streets and to paint them on our walls for all to see… and in that respect I support what many of them are trying to do. Now I’m not saying all of this is political, some is just a beautiful piece of artwork designed to brighten up a… well Urban sh1thole! As well as this much of it is blatant vandalism that causes distress to its victims and actually ruins a perfectly beautiful building. Whatever the point is I have been documenting these images in my own way for years now. I don’t want to just show the images, I want to show them in context, this means including a bit about their surroundings and even the people that pass them on a day to day basis. The rest is up to you as to what you consider art, political messages, vandalism or even all three put together! So I am making it my mission to bring these images to you in what will be called my URBAN DÉCOR Journal, this is part 1 Ben AKA Redtempa
After publishing Urban Décor part 1 on M…
After publishing Urban Décor part 1 on Monday I was interested to see the reaction from the Redbubble community on the subject of urban art. To be honest I was expecting a mixed reaction because this form of art has many guises, some of which have a habit of pissing people off… tagging being one of them. This side of graffiti is the hardest to justify, something even I would struggle to do… not that I would want to anyway! Personally I am not even going to get involved in the debate because I can see both sides of the story and both are as valid as each other… in reality your opinions will probably be individual and varied and will be based on your personal experiences, good or bad. My own experiences have been both negative and positive and I’m pretty open minded on the subject, so I can understand the mixed reactions that some of the images I produce may cause. Some people will say tagging causes distress and is just blatant vandalism created by bored jobless youths with no respect for the property of others. Others will say it has been around for as long as the human race has been able to express itself through painting and (in some cases) can even brighten up the ugliest of human creations. Whatever your opinion in a free society such as the UK’s it is not going to disappear anytime soon. This is because to truly stop it we would need to take drastic measures that would not sit comfortably in our so called ‘free society’. However, as a photographer I like to document a street scene that I’ve found and I see beauty in. As I primarily photograph natural street scenes in urban areas urban art/vandalism is often a major feature of my work. This is because to me it is such and intriguing and powerful form of artist expression completely without censure that can reach and effect anybody or any age. I am intrigued as to the thought processes that go into designing tags and what they tell you about the artist/criminal that has created it. My intention with these is not to express my personal opinion, instead just to document a scene I think is beautiful and to show it in context with its surroundings. The fact these scenes are dynamic and constantly changing as more graffiti/urban art/tags gives me confidence that recording them is an important thing to do. In fact many of the scenes I have shot in my portfolio have been whitewash or replaced, something that makes me feel justified in spending the many days trawling the streets looking for them. Peace Ben AKA Redtempa
Thank you Jo for purchasing / ”!http://images-2.redbubble.com/img/art/backingcolor:white/produ…
Thank you Jo for purchasing / I’m so pleased it brings you pleasure, thank you!
Thank you to whomever bought Blue View! ”!http://images-3.redbubble.com/img/art/backingcolor:white/product:greeting-card/view:preview/...
Thank you to whomever bought Blue View!
I just wanted to take a few seconds to promote some of my favorite little pieces of coolness: dingbats...
I just wanted to take a few seconds to promote some of my favorite little pieces of coolness: dingbats. Check out The 4-1-1 on Dingbats for more information on installing and using Dingbats! I also wanted to give a shout-out (and proper credit) to some dingbat/font resources and the actual dingbats/fonts I use in my work… Dingbat & Font Resources: UrbanFonts.com DingbatDepot.com FontsForFree.com FontStock.net Daily Free Fonts Dingbats-UK Font Head Design Freeware AbstractFonts.com Dingbats & Stylistic Fonts I Use: ABCLogosXYZ Aeroplanes Asian Dings BalloonDigits BarMKode Bookshelf Symbol 7 CareBearsbyIacy Carr Balloons cats MEOW Children ChockABlockNF CODON Comet DavysDingbats2 Distro Bats Dragline BTN Dm Eller Erotica CD FAD Omega Birthday Bats Flower Font Heads Free Regular Gallaudet Regular! GERMS GoodDogBones GoodDogCool Greenwich Mean Time Hannah HardTalk Infinite Dingbats lindkvist1 lindkvist2 Minimum Wage Money Shot More than human Morphina MW Ding-A-Lings nicklishnickoz Not Too Shabby Boxed Ocean_Iacy Old Time Ad Dings One Old Time Ad Dings Two OPTIC.BOT Orcas Palsu Playing Cards Ransom rayguns Retro Bats One Saturn Sound FX SwishButtons Toast Tombats 6 Tombats 7 Tombats Four Tombats One Tombats Smilies Tombats Three Tombots Type Keys Filled Vehicle Decals ‘Flames 7 Art’ winnertakeall WoodcuttedCapsBlack WutsCookin WWBearySpecial Xerography [Stuff I could not find links for: ClassiCapsXmas2002, Garys, KL1-Pharaos & KL1-Pharaos Two, KleinsTypesoup, LetterBeings, Marlett, MS Outlook, SA-DoodleStar, SA-Roris dings, SA-Swirls, SmileAndTrain, Webdings, Wingdings, Wingdings 2, Wingdings 3] *NOTE: I will add to these lists as they grow. These are my pieces which use any of the above dingbats/fonts (will add as I create more):
The Kiss is on the RB Home Page – much thanks to RB staff! ”!http…
The Kiss is on the RB Home Page – much thanks to RB staff!
thank u very much to the anonymous buyers for purchasing my Calenders - / 6 copies Mornington Peninsula...
thank u very much to the anonymous buyers for purchasing my Calenders - / 6 copies Mornington Peninsula / / 4 copies Graffiti around Melbourne / / Thanks to redbubble for producing such a wonderful product
For me who can’t add, this is a particular honor. Escape has been featured in “Ar…
For me who can’t add, this is a particular honor. Escape has been featured in Art in Math
*What an amazing feeling to win a challenge against so many absolutely beautiful photos that were submitted. I am delighted, overjoyed, ...
What an amazing feeling to win a challenge against so many absolutely beautiful photos that were submitted. I am delighted, overjoyed, I just can’t explain the feeling of winning the “Large Mammals” challenge in the wonderful group AMERICAS~Rural, Urban, Wild, Free – Expressions of Artists. Thank you, thank you to all the folks who voted for this photo. It’s done well, having been featured twice and now winning a challenge, WOW! Got to get my red dancing shoes! Thank you Lois :-))
I have put together this year’s collection of my favourite photos in a gallery. A couple of things - / These are not necessarily my bes…
I have put together this year’s collection of my favourite photos in a gallery. A couple of things - / These are not necessarily my best photos, whatever that means. They definitely are not my most popular photos – in fact, the majority of them have not been seen before. But they are my personal favourites in 2008 (in chronological order), for many and various reasons. You’ll find many genres, from landscape to street, from floral to abstract. However, many of my favourites cannot be shown, as they were taken for clients who do not give permission for public display. Another bit of trivia – I counted 11 photos that have been cropped. I mention this, because one of the things I enjoy about photography is to frame and compose on site. Anyway, enjoy. There are a lot of them – 105, I think. Slideshow works best, on black. If you skim through them, I’ll know, and come and eat your cat. 2008 – A Photographic Retrospective
Here are some photos I took on New Year’s Eve 2008 in Melbourne.. / It’s a little tradition for us to take the kids into the City to watch…
Here are some photos I took on New Year’s Eve 2008 in Melbourne.. / It’s a little tradition for us to take the kids into the City to watch the fireworks. / Happy New Year 2009 & / Enjoy.. Basia :o) Hmm…. Maybe fellow bubbler?! / Couldn’t help my self.. it was just floating in the breeze waiting to be photographed! /
Sooo very happy!! Underneath_the_Crusty_Bark_of_a_Fir_Tree...
Sooo very happy!! Underneath_the_Crusty_Bark_of_a_Fir_Tree featured in Nature’s_Macro_Canvas Rusty_Palette featured in Abstract_Macro_Urban_Art A very big Thank You to the Hosts of Nature’s Secret Canvas and Abstract Macro Urban Art!! Wishing you all a Marilyn :o)
Thank you so much to Scott and Darlene Ruhs, fabulous hosts of Canada…the Great White North for featuring my photo *Dreaming of Summ…
Thank you so much to Scott and Darlene Ruhs, fabulous hosts of Canada…the Great White North for featuring my photo Dreaming of Summer Travels. How ironic you should pick this photo tonight, because we just mapped out our trip west this evening! Thank you thank you for this honor. Also, a great big thank you to Sharon Mau, fabulous host of AMERICAS~Rural, Urban, Wild, Free-Expressions of Artists for featuring my photo This Side Or That Side this evening. I am so honored by this.
Some photos from yesterday, as I walked around. / These are not exactly a representation of the day, but rather, what I ended up liking m…
Some photos from yesterday, as I walked around. / These are not exactly a representation of the day, but rather, what I ended up liking most. Enjoy. Link
the Urban Playboys played at the Geelong Waterfront on the Australia Day long weekend as part of Skand…
the Urban Playboys played at the Geelong Waterfront on the Australia Day long weekend as part of Skandia Week. They had a huge crowd in front of them of all shapes and sizes and ages, most of them on their feet having a ball. If you get the chance to see them, you won’t be disappointed. / To find out more about them,click here. (make sure you have your speakers turned on). 1 / / / 2 / / / 3 / / / 4 / / / 5 / / / 6 / / / 7 / / / 8 / / / 9 / / / 10 / / / 11 / / / 12 / / / 13 / / / 14 / / / 15 /
I am thinking of putting together a book showing the best of our Urban Wildlife Group in time for Christmas. The people I will use to …
I am thinking of putting together a book showing the best of our Urban Wildlife Group in time for Christmas. The people I will use to publish the book would be Blurb.com who have software that allows one to design a very professional looking book including a dust jacket with inner flaps. Their pages also allow for text so one can make anything from a coffee table extravaganza to a recipe book. In order to do this, I would invite members to submit work that they consider worthy and I would also invite members whose work I admire who may have missed these notifications. For work submitted, I propose using a ‘Challenge’. It would be called the ‘Book Challenge’ and will allow you to submit one photograph of your best work. This would not be a challenge in the true sense, but would be a place to initially start gathering work for consideration. Other work would have to be submitted by email if you think it is worthy. All published photographers would have a full credit so we also need to know your real name, not your nickname! All those submitting work whether it be by invite or via the challenge, would also have to send me their images by email. Images must be of the highest quality and I would recommend sending full size images where possible. An accompanying text must also be sent with the submission. Basically this should say what the creature is and where it was photographed. Locations must not be vague, we will have a global audience as usual so ‘my back yard’ will not do, it tells us nothing. ‘My back yard, Tuscon, Texas, USA is better. The text is very important. One or two condensed but informative paragraphs are ideal telling what we are looking at, where it was photographed and how. Any interesting information about the species may also help, but please use your own words; don’t just ‘lift’ your text from Wikipedia or the like. Urban Wildlife means precisely that. It means the picture must be taken within the confines of a city or town. If it is two miles out from the city perched on a pole or crossing the road it is no longer ‘urban’. I really would like to stick to the strict confines of our group so please only submit pictures that were NOT taken out in the country or wild coast. A park within the city is fine, a park outside the city is not. So to sum up… 1. Your very best work. Jpeg Images only. / 2. Well written and informative accompanying text. / 3. Send you full size image and text (use Notepad to create a .txt file) to info@johnhootonphotography.com / 4, Include the URL of your picture so that I have a quick reference in Urban Wildlife c/o RedBubble. Although Christmas might sound quite a long way away, I have got to select, edit and compile the book by about mid November at the latest, so you can start submitting work straight away. I will limit the works to up to four per person. I think October 31st will be about the last date for submissions. I cannot guarantee that your work will appear in the book, it will be a compilation of the best of the best so there will be a limit on the number of pictures we can publish, however, I encourage you to submit your best work, and will very much welcome your effort whether it is published or not. I will probably plan the book in chapters, so we might have Birds, Insects, Butterflies, Wildlife, Mammals, Reptiles. I will probably skip flowers. We don’t have enough of them and there are stacks of books on flowers that are a subject on their own.. Bear in mind what our group is about. Start digging through your pictures and let’s create a book that we can be really proud of. By the way, books sell for a profit on Blurb and if by some miracle we happen to create a best seller, then profits would be divided up amongst the photographers on a picture by picture basis. The coffers would be reviewed every quarter. Let me know what you think by commenting, and I will attempt to answer any questions and reply here. John
In order to make the gathering of photos and compiling of the Urban Wildlife Book easier, I thought it might be good if I could find some…
In order to make the gathering of photos and compiling of the Urban Wildlife Book easier, I thought it might be good if I could find some suitable photo file sharing software. I have found something that gives us privacy and can handle large files. This is less cumbersome than sending stuff by email, where your file size might be restricted, and has the advantage of putting everything automatically in one place, making the management of hopefully many photos, a lot easier. / / It is called Memeo Share, runs on your desktop, and will enable us to create a ‘pool’. One advantage for you is that all those partaking can see what is going on at any time, and you can also view pictures as big as your monitor will allow. The key points I was looking for were: 1. Non restrictive, must be able to handle large files. / 2. Must be private. / 3. Must allow downloading of large image files. / 4. Must allow reasonable storage per user. Memeo Share seems to fit the bill. It is easy to use, allows every user 1GB of FREE storage and it can run on your desktop. I have created a private group within the software called “Urban Wildlife Book” and the easiest way to get into it, as it is by invitation only, is to just send me an email request for an invite. I have even written one out for you! Just copy and paste the message below in an email, and send it to pix@johnhootonphotography.com Hi John, / Please send me an invite for the free Urban Wildlife Book Sharing Circle software, so that I may more easily take part in our exciting project. You will then receive a Memeo Share invite email from me which will have a link, taking you to a page where you can download the software and be part of our Exclusive Sharing Circle. I really would like as many people in our group as possible to take an active part in this project. I really think it is going to be very exciting and at the end of it, we are going to have a world class book of superb photographs. Even if you don’t think you have any pictures yourself, submit them anyway, and take part by inviting others who may have some pictures you admire, and would like to see in the book. Spread the word! I will probably create a space somewhere in our Urban Wildlife Forum soon where I can publish all ongoing news and where you can comment and discuss the project. We can then keep all the written discussion in one place instead of scattered articles in my RB Journal. I will look forward to seeing some Urban Wildlife Book Sharing Circle invite requests in my pix@johnhootonphotography.com inbox soon! Kind regards, John
Thank you Shapes and Patterns for allowing me …
Thank you Shapes and Patterns for allowing me to participate and subsequently win their latest challenge “Shapes in Minimalism” with the following photograph Also for featuring “Amanece…” And…....yes it is not over…Thank you Urban Art for featuring “Hats off…” in their group (my special tribute to Julius Shulman) I appreciate it very much! Julian
Thank you Urban Art for featuring two consecutive photographs in your group – bo…
Thank you Urban Art for featuring two consecutive photographs in your group – both pieces that I love. And special thanks to Lost in Space [75% Negative Space] for featuring “S…” in their great group. I appreciate it! Julian NOTE: and guess what – this week they are 15% off framed! **
Yes folks, its that time of year, time to get your early christmas shopping done. The perfect gift, that you can’t go wrong with, a beau…
Yes folks, its that time of year, time to get your early christmas shopping done. The perfect gift, that you can’t go wrong with, a beautiful artistic Calendar from Red Bubble. I have just added a few more calendars to my Portfolio, I sure hope you like them. (Gosh all those links, whew)!!! Abstract Macro Urban Art Abstract Urban Art Watercolor Paintings And there’s a few oldies but goodies:- Gold Coast Sunsets Flowers Abstract Rock Textures Australian Native Flowers Paperbark Art Australian Bark Series A huge thankyou to everyone for your ongoing support, awesome feedback and comments and most of all for your inspiration…..hugs Kathie xxxxxxxxx
Top Of Game – Colour – Detail shot “View s…
Top Of Game – Colour – Detail shot View shirt page
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What a surprise when I logged in and found the Home Page featuring several creative photo’s from the group that I host “Abstract Macro Ur…
What a surprise when I logged in and found the Home Page featuring several creative photo’s from the group that I host Abstract Macro Urban Art including one of my own shots. An honour indeed to be on the front page….goosebumps…LOL! Thanks Red Bubble for an awesome site, it really is an amazing art community here, I’ve learned so much and made many friends from Australia and all over the world. Definitely a steady flow of inspiration to so many artists including myself.
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