Snaps: Storm Trooper Art

I bought a new painting for my apartment the other day. I found it in SoHo. It’s one of a kind and it’s pretty epic.

Besides being a “Star Wars” fan in general, I love the way the artist (Ron Wiggins) composed this painting. While describing it to a friend, I explained that it has a lot of personable, intimate qualities. You may not be able to tell from this photo, but the Storm Trooper isn’t just a faceless soldier — he (or she) is a person with feelings and desires. The eyes have a lot of emotion. The painting hints (in a stylized way) that the Storm Trooper is reaching out, presumably holding a weapon. But it also (from certain angles) looks like he’s reaching out for someone to take his hand.

I keep this work of art in my home office because it helps me to manage my frustration when I’m dealing with people who seem like they are blindly taking orders and passing on misinformation to me. I sometimes forget the struggles that others go through, and how sometimes it is easier just to do what you’re told, even when you know it’s wrong. I look at the painting and remember that sometimes the one doling out pain and anguish is going through plenty of it too.

In this painting, what I see is a Storm Trooper who is perhaps rethinking his or her identity and life path. He or she appears mid-transition. Perhaps this Storm Trooper is tired of blindly following commands. He’s alone, reaching out, considering what it might be like to live life in service of him (or her)self, not some oppressive force.

He’s thinking about freeing himself.

On My Radar: Instagram, Piictu, And Hashtags In Photo Communities

I recently caved and bought a white iPhone 4. My friend Corvida convinced me to give up on my broken Droid (the touchscreen failed long ago) and embrace 2011. My first paid app (99 cents) was camera+, a photo editing app that has many of the same features as Photoshop, great filters, sharing via Facebook and Twitter, and it integrates right into your camera roll.

I am already addicted to several free apps, but not surprisingly two of my favorites are photo sharing communities: Instagram and Piictu.

Instagram photo from last night

Instagram, the app with the cool filters that has a fan in Snoop Dogg and is being used by businesses of all sizes to promote their products and services, has been around longer than Piictu.

photo via CSS Lounge Flickr

Similar to it’s more established competition, Piictu allows users to follow (subscribe) to topics created by the community. It’s not a hashtag in the way that Instagram operates; users post a topic and people add to the thread.

In this first iteration, Piictu has very limited features. It doesn’t offer filter options the way that Instagram does and it’s default home page has three tabs called “following,” “popular,” and “latest.” This is really lame if you’re someone who likes to explore.

Instagram also doesn’t offer a search bar, but there is a way around that; beyond the cool filters, the big win that Instagram definitely has over Piictu is that if a photo has more than one hashtag on it, you can view more photos by clicking those hasthags.

It’s so easy and addictive to follow Instagram feeds of specific kinds of photos through hashtags. Below are some photos I’ve taken to add to their respective thread. Try to guess what they are called!

(more…)

Snaps: Friends At Home

I love taking photos of my friends in my South Bronx loft. It’s exciting when it becomes collaborative and they use the image elsewhere, or when it’s just a moment that I want to keep.

Corvida