Jamie Thomas for Olloclip, the indispensable, yet disposable lens and adapter kits for smart phones. What do I mean by that? Olloclip allows you to quickly an conveniently expand the native photo and videography capabilities of your iPhone (or Samsung) by clipping a a high quality wide angle, macro, or telephoto lens. The lenses work great, actually, but they aren’t super cheap, and if you invest the $60-$100 in one their packages, you are shit out of luck when you switch to a new phone. That’s right, though your old lenses don’t become obsolete when you get a new phone, the bracket that mounts them onto your phone becomes totally useless, and they do not offer the ability to buy just the bracket. What are you supposed to do with your old one? Well according to a spokesperson you are “free to give them away or sell them on eBay.” So while I can’t argue against the quality of the product (Olloclips are massively useful, especially when photographing/videoing skateboarding, and they are well made), I can not help but be angry about planned obsolescence and unnecessary waste. After all, it’s not as if Apple doesn’t have a history of changing…

  This quick sketch from Blockhead artist Ron Cameron shows the best way to shoot a board at home. Ron is working on a book and sent me this so I could photograph a super nice and rare Blockhead deck I found  in an old toy store in Belgium last year. The method works just fine and is tested and approved by Sean Cliver himself.

Frank Kunert builds and photographs amazing little scenes worthy of the Far Side like Tennis Halfpipe, and that’s all there is to it. – Do I need to credit tips from MC?

Group show at Powells in Portland. It stays up through the month of June. Opening reception on Thursday June 2nd, 6-9.

Stands for Artisphere in AAA magazine. I’d leave at a link to the article, but they won’t let you read it unless you are in the right zip code, and I’ve tried some logical guesses, but apparently there is some advantage to not letting people read something just because they don’t live near there. Sheesh, what a misguided strategy. You can still read it if you really want to look beyond CSS tricks, or you can read it here after the jump. Artisphere is the joint that had the Skateboard Side Effects show. The image above is Lia Halloran’s Dark Skate Backyard. She’s got a body of these long exposure with light trails made by skateboarders that I swore was on S&A somewhere before, but I can’t find it. – Thanks to Andrew Wahl for the tip.

The new iPhone has a nicer camera than the old ones. I have a 3G, and it’s truly an art to get a usable skate photo with it, but the prize is all that much sweeter if you manage to get one. I had an idea a few years ago to make a print edition of a skate zine made entirely with cell phone pictures. It was several years ago actually, because I was still gainfully employed. MC bought a cheap stick on wide angle adapter for his phone. I think Mark said someone ought to make a camera with a phone, instead of making a phone with a camera. Still, there’s something to be said for the aesthetic. You make the most with what you have, flaws and all. Crappy plastic film cameras are all the rage. The image above is from an iPhone camera review of sorts on Boing Boing. The new iPhone camera has a bump in the megapixels and possibly even a faster shutter mechanism with reduced lag. Pretty soon people are going to start hording vintage iPhones for the camera effects like Holgas. Maybe there will be a Hipstamatic flim/lens combo in the future that…

Well, the production values aren’t quite up to GVK standards, but it’s pretty good nonetheless. Not so much about Bryce, more like skateboarding with Bryce. This was put together by the folks who hosted the Burnside art benefit. (Way to shut off the beer with no notice for all the people waiting in line…) The show is still hanging at Nemo, 1875 SE Belmont in Portland until July 31. All proceeds benefit Burnside. Getting back to Bryce, Parts one and two. Three is still coming. Good stuff so far. Check it out after the jump.