Life Edited Can Be Just So Much Bullsh*t

Lately we’ve come across two compelling photographers whose images boldly portray an essential message about Instagram: the pretty picture you see is not the WHOLE picture. They show the unpleasantly real context from which the pretty photo was plucked, to become an aspirational ideal that messes with our heads. They help to antidote social media’s portrayal of the perfect lives we don’t have.

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The Waiting Wall + Public Platforms for Emotion

Inspired by Alain de Botton’s idea that Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall be adapted in new ways for modern times, digital storytellers Alan Donohoe and Steven Parker created “The Waiting Wall” in a busy English train station during the Brighton Digital Festival. The huge display projected the deepest fears and most personal confessions of travelers who submitted them anonymously for…

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Optical Illusion Interiors Out of Paint or Tape

Could it be that the great Mexican architect Luis Barrigan created a study with an unexpected, roughly-painted rather expressionistic trompe l’oeil window to brighten a windowless space? It LOOKS that way in this image we found at Aqqindex. It got us casting about for abstract optical illusions we might employ at home, the opposite of the usual trompe l’oeil that…

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Arlene Gottfried on the Benefits of Wandering

For over forty years, Arlene Gottfried  has photographed the people she meets in her journeys around New York City, revealing its diversity and heart through her extraordinary images. The very personal moments she captures call to mind Diane Arbus and Viviane Maier. The roots of her work, which includes assignments for The New York Times Magazine and Life Magazine, lie in her…

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Slow-Roast Tomatoes for Hors d’Oeuvres, Sauces, Tarts, Jam…

A farmer friend of mind asked my advice on preserving the luscious tomatoes that are abundance in the last, dazzling burst of summer produce. “Do you can tomatoes?” he asked. “No”, I replied, “I roast them.” Slow-roasting tomatoes in a low oven, evaporates their juices, and renders them dense, creamy and melting, with a concentrated tomato flavor that is at once tart, sweet and savory. They last for a couple of weeks in the fridge and they freeze beautifully. They can be improvised with endlessly…

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