Belog, which seems like some sort of subsidiary product of the excellent Bidoun Magazine, is a hot blog for all things Iranian.

Okinawa_Soba is the nom de plume of an American fellow living in Okinawa who presides over a stockpile of 60,000 antique Japanese photographs. To the benefit of photography enthusiasts and nipponophiles everywhere, he has decided to scan and upload a choice selection of the photos to his flickr photostream. How did one individual happen to come into the ownership of such a magnificient photographic treasury? According to Soba, it was rather simple:

“95 % of the stream came from photography dealers and collectors in several countries — the majority of images found during business travels to NORTH AMERICA. The part that was not found in North America was tediously acquired from several other countries of the world via “snail mail” correspondence, phone calls, and looking at Xerox copies of single images (and whole collections) that were available. Over 30 years of business travel in and out of Japan allowed me to frequent Antique photography and Ephemera Shows, as well as other venues that centered around the buying and selling of vintage photography. As a member of the National Stereoscopic Association, attendance at our Conventions and Trade Shows naturally resulted in the accumulation of old 3-D images of Japan and elsewhere.”

Note: I predict that hand-colouring will emerge as an avant-garde photo trend in 2010. Soon after it will be available as an iPhone app. Or maybe that’s already happened and I missed it.

Barcelona-based El Blog Ausente, which describes itself as “Pop-subculture devoted to demolition, spectacular colour and the Tohoscope format” has an amazing amount of pulp imagery available on their flickr account. Boasting nearly 3,000 scanned images from exploitation cinema, adult comics and Spanish pop-fiction, it’s definitely worth a browse if you’re ever short on inspiration or depravity.

The screen capture (apple+shift+4) is one of the easiest and most entertaining methods for sourcing visual material. When used with films, it’s an instant lesson in mise-en-scène and a convenient way to analyze different varieties of shot composition and art direction styles. Browsing capture blogs is also a solid time-killer for when you want to avoid work at all costs, here’s a few that I’ve been digging lately:

Screencrapz

Regularly updated,  tv and film screencap blog. Minimalist with loads of funky, obscure images.

Cine De Medianoche (Cinema Of Midnight)

Spanish exploitation film blog, with reviews, synopsis, screen caps, artwork and posters. They also have a yotube site.

Beth Loves Bollywood

A wide-ranging archive of Bollywood caps, with synopsis and reviews.

Dr. Insermini Against The World

Spanish blog with caps, posters and sharp bits of copy that focuses on “horror, pop culture and rock ‘n roll.”

Spinoza1632

Flickr account with an impressive amount of cool shit I’ve never seen. Some random photos mixed in there a well.

likexlike

A small-ish Flickr collection of music video caps.

In Twin Peaks

Episode by episode screen cap breakdown of Twin Peaks, with high quality files.

The Skye Is Falling

Hefty collection of movie caps, plus a bunch of photos.

Animated GIFs have got to be one of the most avant-garde artforms going on right now. Here’s a bunch I snatched from fuckyoudraculas. If you have any hot GIFs or now of any GIF-engineers worthy of publicity, send them my way = @. I think there’s something going on with these GIFs that can point us towards the future of photography. As we become inundated with more and more quality photos and prosumer becomes consumer, in order to “up the anté” and really make your images pop, they are going to have to contain a bit more energy than what the traditional static image can provide.