Weekend Reading

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photo by Kristin TheissKristin has fit her vintage cameras into a suitcase. How very UPPERCASE. {You will find an owl t shirt design from Kristin's company KLTworks in issue #11.}

Andrea Jenkins' vintage camera collection

Would you like to start your own collection of vintage photo gear? Hula Seventy's Andrea Jenkins has an excellent article in the current issue #12. These three photos above show a portion of her amazing selection.

Road trips

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In Issue 12, we look at different types of creative adventure, including the roadtrip. Particularly, Hillary Webb of the Gold Fools tells us about their roadtrip from Halifax, Nova Scotia, across North America to exhibit at Renegade Craft Fairs. Today, we're going to look at the roadtrip in more detail. One of the great aspects of a roadtrip, for creative types, is that it provides both time with little to do but think, as well as constantly changing (or sometimes not so changing) backdrops. There may also be some adversity and some random encounters with people or creatures or roadside artifacts. 

When we drove from Calgary down to San Francisco two summers ago, one of my favorite memories is an early morning drive across the border from Nevada into California. We took a lonely little highway from Hawthorne, Nevada to the east side of Yosemite (#359 in Nevada, #167 in California); we didn't see another car along the entire stretch, infact the only other traffic we saw were the road crews who were just finishing resurfacing the Nevada stretch. The dark, virgin pavement and perfect yellow markings contrasted beautifully with the surprising green and purple and gold colours of this scrubland, and then we rounded a corner and the road turned suddenly straight, a wide basin opening before us and beyond that, Yosemite and the Sierra Nevada batholith towering up. While there were many more notable sights and events on that trip, that is the stretch of road that sticks in my mind the most.

photos by Janine Vangool

 

So what's your favourite roadtrip memory? Tell us in the comments.

Shoegazing Notecards by Chronicle Books (and me and a bunch of other people!)

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In Issue #6 (Summer 2010), we invited readers to submit photos of themselves “shoegazing”—the classic shot of looking down at ones’ feet and taking a photo (you can still participate in the Flickr pool). Imagine our excitement when Chronicle Books contacted me and suggested that the concept be turned into a set of notecards!

Shoegazing notecards contains 20 different cards with decorative envelopes as curated and designed by UPPERCASE. To work with Chronicle Books has been a career-long dream, so to see this project completed and even co-branded with the UPPERCASE logo is amazing!

Photographs are by Andrea Jenkins, Katrina Tan, Mario Gallucci, Cori Kindred, Shawna Bowers, Kelly Anne Williams, Kristen Hewitt, Siobhan Long, Carolyn Lagattuta, Adriana Botello, Asia Lemko, Lindsay Heggie, Rachel Denbow, Alison Heal, Jay Prynne and Parul Arora.

The box design is very pretty. It was an interesting challenge to design it as I have not designed much packaging before and the project had to reflect the aesthetic of UPPERCASE magazine while fitting with Chronicle Books' requirements and direction. To marry the diverse photographs, I decided to crop them all to a square format and use the photo styling similar to what is used in the magazine's layouts. For texture, I used an old piece of paper, when scanned and colourized, it evoked the texture of concrete and ground. The cards are printed on a matte-finished stock, but there's a nice gloss coating on the photographs. For added interest, I used a wavy line pattern, inspired by the soles of sneakers, for the backs of the cards and on the box bottom.

Here are the files showing the dielines:

Thank you to Kate Woodrow and Kristen Hewitt at Chronicle Books. And thank you to all the fine folks who participated in the call for submissions and who graciously shared their work on this project.

Click here to purchase Shoegazing Notecards

#11: Grateful for all the connections

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photo: Jacqueline Jaszka

Photographer Jacqueline Jaszka has a great photography project called The Local Creators in which she documents the artisans and makers in her San Francisco community. When planning a feature about 3Fish Studios, also in San Francisco, I discovered that Jacqueline had already shot everything I would want in a feature about this printmaking and illustration studio. Her images capture great detail as well as broader studio shots—and her portraits of this husband and wife creative duo are warm and endearing.

Thank you Jacqueline, Annie and Eric!


Read about 3Fish Studios in the current issue #11 of UPPERCASE.

Light cube, I love you.

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I wish I had made this purchase sooner! A table top lighting system for product photography. I'm still working on proper exposures and best compositions, but off to a nice start. The images still need photoshopping for removal of the background, but so much easier than waiting for decent light to filter in through the window...

(Purchase these books here. Or get all four of the most recent books as part of a bundle and save off the cover price and on shipping.)

Ten (times two)!

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I can hardly believe that ten issues of UPPERCASE magazine have been created. TEN! The forthcoming issue is at the printer and will be shipping in a few weeks.

Our dapper covers were photographed by Christine Edwards. I fell in love with both these fellas: Scooter, above, wearing a striped pink bowtie, and Lincoln, below, wearing a polka-dotted number. And so we have two covers! Scooter—with that perfectly curly ear!—will be sent to subscribers and both versions are available for single copy sales in our shop.

Please subscribe today.

woof!

Call for submissions: Florals

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For issue #9 (spring 2011) of UPPERCASE magazine, we invite you to submit creative photographs on the theme of "florals". The best images will be published in the magazine. Go beyond a snapshot of flowers... be creative in your composition, technique or processing. Interpret the theme through objects, fabric and fashion.

Please make sure that you have a print-ready file available (at least 4" wide, 300dpi) should we decide to publish your image. By submitting to the group, you agree to let UPPERCASE post your images on our blog as well as publish your photo in the magazine if it is selected.

Enter your work to the UPPERCASE florals group on flickr.

DEADLINE FOR POTENTIAL PUBLICATION: FEBRUARY 20

Fiona Watson

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I've admired Fiona Watson (aka Wild Goose Chase)'s photos in Flickr for a while, so it was nice to be able to profile her in the current issue. Like Gwen, mentioned in the previous post, Fiona has a connection to science, having studied biology and spent time editing medical journals. You can see the influence of scientific journaling and documentation in her beautiful photographic sketches. Thanks to Jenny Tzanakos who wrote the article. (These photos are Fiona's. I love to see other people's photos of the magazine!)

Call for photographs: shoegazing

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The shoegazing flickr pool is about self-portraiture combined with anonymity, style and a sense of place.

It is a gathering of images for potential publication in UPPERCASE magazine. We want shots of your feet/shoes in various locations as we explore this tendency of pointing the camera down towards ourselves.

Images should be publication-quality (high resolution). By submitting to the flickr group, you agree that we may publish your photo in our blog and/or in the print magazine. Should we decide to publish your photo in the magazine, we will contact you for more details. To be considered for the magazine, your image shoud be uploaded to the pool by May 18.


{top: bugheart  bottom: sacredlotus}