Thus you shall go to the stars: Michæl Paukner (via Boing Boing)
Sic itur ad astra = Latin for “thus you shall go to the stars”
Happy Thanksgiving, everybody
The edge of an iceberg floating just off the coast of Antarctica. (Photo and caption by Mike Matas), National Geographic’s International Photography Contest 2009, Boston.com The Big Picture (via dino)
more sparse arctic beauty
rocks and snow, Nicholas Hughes (via ffffound)
This reminds me of the essay by Anne Fadiman on her attraction to the open, clear white spaces of the arctic and it’s tragic, gentlemanly explorers in her delightful book Ex Libris: Confessions of a Common Reader.
shore, Nicholas Hughes (via ffffound)
Sweden (originally via tatielle but now 404)
white flowers (originall via tatielle but now 404)
“Most men ask “Is she pretty?” not “Is she clever?“ Freshness, Charm - the Enticement of a Skin More Precious than Personality or Cleverness - do you seek it?” Palmolive ad (via Times Online 10 most bizzare sexist ads)
cropped Mainbocher corset
I couldn’t help but feel that what was beautiful about the Mainbocher photo was the simplicity - that the woman, not the set design, was what was interesting. I wondered if the inclusion of the artfully drapped hanging stays of the corset, the grain of the wood, the heavy blunt form of the shelf support were just so much noise so I cropped it a bit to see.
Perhaps the balance of light to dark from top to bottom provided by the wooden shelf in the original is needed. Perhaps cut so tightly the meaning of the image changes. Do her arms seem even more strangely cut-off (ala Venus de Milo) here than in the original? Does the shadow on her shoulder appear more drastic and blunt as the center of the cropped image? I realize now her waist is at the center in the original, the corset, the object of focus, an ad after all.
The Mainbocher Corset (via Iconic photos)
Horst P. Horst, most often known as just Horst, (1906 –1999) was a German American photographer best known for his photographs of women and fashion taken while working for Vogue magazine. His work frequently reflects his interest in surrealism and his regard of the ancient Greek ideal of physical beauty. For Vogue, he created one of the great iconic photos of the Twentieth-Century, “The Mainbocher Corset”. This photograph with its erotically charged mystery appeared in the September 15, 1939 Vogue. Seen from behind, a model sits on a wooden bench, looking down through her arms. She wears a back-lacing corset by Detolle for Mainbocher. Horst treats her body like a living sculpture, and this piece is as much a figure study as an image of a quotidian bit of lingerie.
