Brazilian Taxi Driver Beatboxes Michael Jackson

This is a very good rendition of Michael Jackson by some random Brazilian taxi driver!! Impressive!!
Thanks to Jorge Nieto for the find...

1920's Criminal Portraits from Australia

I was in awe of this series of "photographs of commitment" from the archive of the Sydney Justice & Police Museum. "They are beautiful, timeless, and peculiarly expressive. These vintage "mug shots" are just brimming with the individuality and personalities of a motley array of people who passed through Australia’s criminal justice system back in the early part of the 20th century .... creating unintentional art 90 years later!" - source

See lots more incredible portraits HERE.

Mattia Fagnoni Association Charity Art Show

I was contacted via Facebook asking me to share with our readers a sad story about a child called Mattia Fagnoni, from Italy who has recently passed away....Mattia was born with “Sandhoff Syndrome”, a genetic, degenerative and lethal disease. His parents have created the “Mattia Fagnoni Association”, in order to raise funds for finding a cure for this disease and providing support for the ones who need it. Mattia was the only child in Italy to have suffered from Sandhoff Syndrome; so it was all the more difficult for his parents because they were alone and found it hard to get practical advice and to find some help from someone who knew about this disease and how to treat it. Sandhoff Syndrome is difficult to diagnose because only one case in a million suffer from this illness, and you can identify it only by a Pre-natal genetic diagnosis. They started to notice something when Mattia was in his 6th month, because he was unable to crawl and sit up, all basic steps in the stages of development.
Since then, worsening of vision made Mattia almost blind. By 27th months old, his condition worsened day by day: he was not able to move, and was left with only his touch and hearing senses functioning properly. Soon after, Mattia sadly passed away, but his parents have continued the fight against the illness. They are planning to hold another art show in Naples, Italy on the 26th April to the 8th May and are looking for submissions. All sales income will go directly to the “Mattia Fagnoni Association”....

If you would liek to take part and help the Fagnoni family out (like these artists above did), then please get in touch on Facebook....
To find out more information about Sandhoff Syndrome you should visit the site www.ntsad.org.

Insane Russians W.T.F!!

Words failed me when I saw this, the most I could muster was WTF!

Benjamin Lowy Photography

Incredible photography by Benjamin Lowy....he really captures the dark-side to the world in vivid colour. "Benjamin Lowy received a BFA from Washington University in St. Louis in 2002 and began his career covering the Iraq War in 2003. Since then he has covered major stories worldwide. Benjamin's work from Iraq, Darfur, and Afghanistan have been collected into several gallery and museum shows, his work has shown at the Tate Modern, SF MOMA, Houston Center for Photography, Invalides, and Arles."

[VIA]

Alex Fakso New Book Fast or Die

"Fast or Die" - New Book Release

"Fast or Die is Alex Fakso’s latest photographic project, which came to life after four years of travelling around the world, from London to the US, and as far as Russia and Japan. Metropolitan narratives are immortalized in 60 shots: portraits of people running, taking the subway, sleeping on docks, sneaking into tunnels. Fakso follows his subjects taking part in the action, moving along with them, following them until he manages to document instants and moments of their days, thus creating snapshots that contain stories, details and sensations. This time Fakso expands his view beyond graffiti and tracks a robust framework of the metropolitan scenario embracing the people who inhabit it. Here are Images of ordinary people, common people plunged into the underground chaos; Fast or Die is a powerful photo strip describing the world through the subways. A reportage of the contemporary underground...."

by Alex Fakso
text by Andrea Caputo
Alessandro Zuek Simonetti
978-88-6208-164-1
language: english
pages: 112
illustrations: 50
binding: paperback
release: spring 2011

Florida School Boardroom Shooting

I wake up this morning to see the news of the irate gunman who felt that his wife had been unfairly dismissed by the school that she worked for. He walks into the boardroom meeting, sprays a 'V for Vendetta' logo on the wall and then tries to shoot half the people in the room before shooting himself....wtf.

Illustrations Not Photos

When you can draw this well...




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RIP Leslie Nielsen

Nielsen, who has died from pneumonia at the age of 84, was a serious actor until he struck comedy gold at 54 as the hapless doctor in "Airplane!"
"Surely you can't be serious," an airline passenger says to Nielsen's character in the 1980 hit disaster movie send-up.
"I am serious - and don't call me Shirley," came the deadpan reply.....you will be missed Leslie.

Legz Lauren Blog Update

With 535 pages & counting, buddy blogger, Legz Lauren's site is the perfect distraction from work...

RIP Andy Irons

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We dont really cover much surfing on here, but 3 times World Champion Andy Irons was a surf legend.
He had contracted Dengue Fever and rumours are abound that this was a case of an accidental overdose on Methadone.
A very sad day in the surfing world.

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Dietrich Wegner's Tattooed Babies

“Cumulous Brand” is an unsettling title for an art project with babies. The infant sculptures and photos were visualized and developed by Dietrich Wegner. “...babies are covered in multicolored tattoos in a meditation on how our identities evolve and how we declare them,” states Wegner.

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Everyday Normal Guy - Jon Lajoie

Comedian Jon Lajoie busts out some rap.

Being a Dickhead's Cool

This is mainly for the benefit of ESPV's American & Asian readers, as its already done the rounds here in the UK....We basically live slapbang in the middle of all this dickheadedness. A hilarious insight into the plight of the Hipster Youth in East London...brilliant!
Thanks to Are (Dielooted) for passing this onto me.

Skydive From Space Update 2

4 people now have their eyes on this record.

Felix Baumgartner, who with the help of Joe Kittinger, the man who has held the record since 1960, is well on his way to complete this insane challenge. A photo of his gondola which wil take him up to 120,000 Feet is below.

The rivals are:
Steve Truglia, a British stuntman.
Cheryl Stearns, a pilot for US Airways who holds 30 skydiving records.
Michael Fournier from France, who has attempted the freefall record 3 times and has been his dream for 20 years. His last attempt was in May 2010, but was cancelled due to a technical fault.

My money's on Felix.

Check out our previous post on him and his spacesuit HERE.


1. Camera Systems
Three pressurized housings on aluminum arms will contain a total of three HD, three ultra-high-resolution video and two digital still cameras. Four more cameras record outside and three inside. "We basically built a flying television studio," says Jay Nemeth of FlightLine Films.

2. Outer Fairing
The Gemini shape of the capsule is "really a very elegant way of putting a lot of insulation around a lot of the systems," says chief engineer Bill Dodson. R-24 equivalent foam, covered by a fiberglass shell and fireproof paint, helps guard against temperatures as low as minus 100 F.

3. Liquid Oxygen
Redundant liquid-oxygen tanks with independent lines provide 10 hours of O2 for the 3-hour flight, plus pressurize Baumgartner's suit at altitude. N2 flowing from an oversize liquid-nitrogen tank will keep the cabin's oxygen level to below 30 percent, minimizing fire risk.

4. Pressure Sphere
A pressure sphere, molded from fiberglass and epoxy, sits in a chrome-moly steel load frame "like an egg in a bubble-wrap container," says project director Art Thompson. It will be pressurized to 8 psi—equal to 16,000 feet—but is designed to withstand 50. "It's definitely overbuilt."

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Photographs that shook the world: omayra sanchez

Many see this photo from 1985 as the beginning of what we nowadays call "media globalization", because Omayra Sanchez's agony was followed by television cameras from all over the world. Despite all the footage that was recorded by those tv cameras, it was this photograph, of a shocking reality and humanity, that went down in history as the first broadcast of the pain and death of a human being.
Omayra Sanchez, 13 years old, was the victim of volcano Nevado del Ruiz's eruption in 1985, that devasted the Armero village, in Colombia. Omayra was trapped for three days under the mud, clay and water that was left from her own house. When the paramedics, with scarce resources, tried to help her, they sadly realized there was nothing they could do, since to remove her from the deadly trap they would have to amputate her legs and the lack of a speacilist on the scene would result in her death.
According to the paramedics and the journalists that surrounded her, Omayra was strong until the last minute of her life. For the three days her agony lasted she thought only about going back to school, her studies and her friends. Photographer Frank Fournier took this photo of Omayra that travelled the world and generated a worldwide controversy about the indifference of the Colombian government before the victims of natural disasters such as this.
The photograph was published months after the girl's death and Frank Fournier was awarded the 1986 World Press Photo Premier Award for this picture.

Ron Mueck – Hyper Realist Sculptor

Ron Mueck was born on 1958 is an Australian hyper realist sculptor working in Great Britain. Mueck's early career was as a model maker and puppeteer for children’s television and films, notably the film Labyrinth for which he also contributed the voice of Ludo.
Mueck moved on to establish his own company in London, making photo-realistic props and animatronics for the advertising industry.

Although highly detailed, these props were usually designed to be photographed from one specific angle hiding the mess of construction seen from the other side. Mueck increasingly wanted to produce realistic sculptures which looked perfect from all angles.

In 1996 Mueck transitioned to fine art, collaborating with his mother-in-law, Paula Rego, to produce small figures as part of a tableau she was showing at the Hayward Gallery. Rego introduced him to Charles Saatchi who was immediately impressed and started to collect and commission work.

This led to the piece which made Mueck’s name, Dead Dad, being included in the Sensation show at the Royal Academy the following year. Dead Dad is a rather haunting silicone and mixed media sculpture of the corpse of Mueck’s father reduced to about two thirds of its natural scale. It is the only work of Mueck’s that uses his own hair for the finished product.
Mueck’s sculptures faithfully reproduce the minute detail of the human body, but play with scale to produce disconcertingly jarring visual images. His five metre high sculpture Boy 1999 was a feature in the Millennium Dome and later exhibited in the Venice Biennale.
In 2002 his sculpture Pregnant Woman was purchased by the National Gallery of Australia for $800,000.