“It’s the weirdest thing. I feel like I’ve been in a coma for the past twenty years. And I’m just now waking up…Spectacular!…”
- American Beauty (1999)
Sam
Woodstock ‘94
Another internet relic from the early 1990’s.
In 1994, to commemorate the 25th anniversary of the famous Woodstock Music and Art Festival of 1969, another “2 More Days of Peace and Music” was organised. It came to be known as Woodstock ‘94.
The music festival was held on an expansive field out in Saugerties, New York, with an estimated 350,000 people in attendance. Over three rainy days festival goers had the privilege to watch a long list of popular performers, including Nine Inch Nails, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Primus, Blind Melon, Aphex Twin, Radiohead and Green Day. Even Bob Dylan accepted an invitation to perform there.
During the festivities, an online community website named The Well had set up a tent in which was placed a group of personal computers, with the purpose of allowing Woodstock participants to share their experiences via the world wide web. While in the tent, festival attendees posted real-time impressions, stories, and event gossip in their own words through The Well website. By the end of the festival some 300 separate webpages had been created, all featuring a whole bunch of journal entries, photos, and sound samples.
It is fascinating reading back through all those online entries, it provides such a unique glimpse into what was going on during those three days of music and mud. Perhaps even more significant, the website represents an early example of how people utilised the Internet to connect with the rest of the world, sharing our memories and experiences.
You can read back on these online entries by visiting the following URL:
(Source: shygirl364)
Life in Australia: Sydney 1966
Made by the Commonwealth Film Unit 1966. Directed by Joe Scully. A picture of life in the New South Wales capital of Sydney in the mid 1960s.
Outfield
Infield
Private Stuff!
Vivian Maier
About two years ago I came across something truly amazing. I’ve been meaning to share it with you guys for quite sometime.
It concerns a woman named Vivian Maier.
Back in 2007, while at an antique auction in Chicago, a man named John Maloof came into the possession of a storage locker packed full with film negatives. Unbeknownst to Maloof, the large hoard of photographic material he had just purchased was the lifetimes work of one Vivian Maier, a French-American nanny who looked after the children of a Chicago-based family during the 1950s and 60s.
However, when she wasn’t being the caregiver for an upper-middle class family, she pursued her passion for street photography, capturing anything and everything that she encountered. Throughout her life, few people were aware of her prolific photographic endeavours. It was only when Maloof began processing the countless undeveloped film rolls that she had left behind did he appreciate the significance of his auction purchase - he’d discovered a talented street photographer who had, up to that point, been completely unknown. John Maloof took it upon himself to begin archiving her work and showcasing it to the world. No mean feat, Maier left behind over 100,000 negatives and several hundred film rolls. Slowly but surely, Maloof has now managed to account for about ninety percent of Vivian Maier’s work, some of which can be viewed on her website, established about a year ago to allow others the pleasure of enjoying the work of a woman who captured life of the 20th century.
I think it’s simply incredible that someone so talented, with such an extensive body of work, went unknown for such a long period of time. Understandably, Vivian Maier must have felt more comfortable keeping her photography to herself, perhaps viewing it as more of a private hobby than as a means of artistic expression. Nonetheless, her work is marvelous, and represents, I believe, an important contribution to 20th American photography.
It makes me wonder just how many other skilled and passionate amateur photographers from decades past there are out there who haven’t yet been discovered. A great many I’m sure.
I strongly recommend you check out the website dedicated to Vivian’s work, her photographs are absolutely wonderful.
Frances Madden performing for a live music video recording.
Photo taken by Stuart Hope.
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