Je m’excuse.

This crossed my desk today and I found it to be oh-so-clever…  I felt obliged to look up René Magritte’s self-portrait entitled ‘The Son of Man’ here, of which the Belgian surrealist stated: “At least it hides the face partly. Well, so you have the apparent face, the apple, hiding the visible but hidden, the face of the person. It’s something that happens constantly. Everything we see hides another thing, we always want to see what is hidden by what we see. There is an interest in that which is hidden and which the visible does not show us. This interest can take the form of a quite intense feeling, a sort of conflict, one might say, between the visible that is hidden and the visible that is present.”

in London, Stockholm, Tallin, New York, Amsterdam…

Graphic designer Anna Garforth’s Mossberger project takes advantage of the extreme adaptability of mosses, applied with the help of a natural-yoghurt and sugar solution, aimed at walls, etc.—formerly grey surfaces “become alive” in the truest sense of the word, and without unhealthy paints and lacquers. (Thanks Miles Harrison for the story link).

Lübeck, Germany

All things tangible (with a surface) bear a tactile texture… here’s 100 free textures captured by photographers around the world for Smashing Magazine—check them out… you might just like them.

Berlin, Germany

In the “a picture’s worth a thousand words” department, Niemann’s your man…

The great blue-white North

It’s a cold time of year to be in the high arctic… nevertheless an enjoyable experience to get into the remote North. The last three days have been a frozen blur—a quick sortie to art direct photography with Ian McCausland (can’t wait to see his shots!) for our mutual client, The North West Company. We left Winnipeg early Thursday, stopped in Prince Albert, Saskatchewan for a few hours, refueled in Yellowknife, then on to Inuvik in the Northwest Territiories. Besides photographing in the NorthMart store there on Friday, we got out on the ice road to Tuktoyaktuk. Then, back eastward with a fuel stop in Kuglugtuk (Coppermine) and an attempted landing in Arviat—but as the runway lights didn’t work, it was on to Churchill, Manitoba for the night (with all food services closed by the time we landed we settled for brews with the local revelers). Up early yesterday, back up to Arviat (with photography in the Northern store there), and a bone-chilling session out on the land with champion musher Michael (who assured us he was “sweating” in his traditional seal-skin parka, caribou leggings, and wolf-skin mittens). Then back down to Winnipeg to spend a comfortably warm Valentine’s Day evening with the lovely Evelin…

Images: Ian on the winter road to Tuk; the (ice) road beneath our feet; refuelling the Conquest in Kuglugtuk; with the sled-dogs in Arviat’s -40 degree windchill; Nunavut’s iconic license plate.

New York, New York

Check out the diverse oevre of prolific Korean ex-pat creator Ji Lee here.

(Thanks for the link, Gediminas.)

Budapest, Hungary

This (“American Toys”) project was created by combining images from every United States patent containing the phrase “toy pistol.” The earliest image dates back to the mid 1800’s… by Christopher Baker. More about American Toys here.

Lubbock, Texas

It’s 50 years ago last week since the Iowa plane crash that killed 22-year-old Buddy Holly (along with Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper)—immortalized by Don Maclean in American Pie as “the day the music died”—but the music didn’t die of course, and Buddy’s influence has loomed large ever since. As one might expect, scores of anniversary tributes have appeared… such as here (other links have since gone dead).

Congratulations on the enduring legacy, and thanks, Buddy!

Brussels, Belgium

Type is where you find it (if you have an eye for it, that is)… like this lovely pebble alphabet of Clotilde Olyff’s, found here.