You may have already seen this photo at BoingBoing or elswhere, but it’s too charming not to include here. Strange creatures from a strange world gazing at other strange creatures from another strange world. This photo was taken with a point-and-shoot camera by a hobbyist photographer, who was attending the aquarium with her friends during Dragon*Con. The photographer, positivespace on Flickr, had this to say about the photo in the BB comment thread:

For what it’s worth, the only editing I did in Photoshop was a small amount of cropping (apparently trying to center an image crouching while dressed as the third Good Fairy in a hoop skirt and a giant stuffed bra was difficult… who knew?!).

I was very lucky with this photo. Awesome environment, awesome models (my lovely friends) and, IMO, an awesome point-and-shoot camera. I basically wandered by this window, saw a great opportunity, directed my friends to stand under it, stuck the camera on Auto and fired away.

There’s another shot from this series that I also quite like, but this one’s the winner.

Harpers Bazaar UK employed Jake and Dinos Chapman who, with the help of photographer Michelangelo di Battista and illustrator Jon Rogers, produced this fantastic set for their November issue, which focuses on the always stunning Claudia Schiffer and features the supermodel in a variety of Grade-A pulp situations such as “Femme Fatale With Gun”, “Sexy Girl Tied Up and Being Threatened by Hand With Whip”, and “Sexy Girl Bound and Gagged Being Threatened by Ghoul”. I have linked the entire series after the jump, in standard, tiny Coilhouse image form but you should go here to see these in all their huge, scanned glory. I love them, but then, I’m a sucker for stuff like this. The pulp fiction thing. Not, you know, the sexy girl bound and gagged thing.

…

I’m gonna go now.

Via Super Punch who found them at Who Killed Bambi? who found them at My Modern Met and The Telegraph.

Three cheers for Oakland-based photographer Neil Girling! Longtime readers may recall his beautiful work from this 2007 post about California’s thriving underground circus scene. More recently, Neil braved scorching temperatures and hoards of cheerfully chafing, corseted quaintrelles to bring Coilhouse the following photo essay about the second annual Handcar Regatta. A tip o’ the topper to you, good sir, and thanks again. ~Mer

The Screaming Vortex races down the track.

September 27th saw the second installment of the Great Handcar Regatta, an afternoon of nonsensical anachronism, whimsy and ingenuity in Santa Rosa, CA. Though temperatures burned hot in the triple-digits, many thousands of spectators and participants flooded the Railroad Square historic park, perusing vendors, sipping refreshments, seeing live music, and — of course — watching the races.

Rock*N*Roll Sunday School Fixed Gear, powered solely by running, crosses the finish line.

Official MC Les Claypool provided commentary to the thronging crowds, which were said to have reached nearly 10,000 (a keen-eyed friend said Tom Waits was among them), many of whom were dressed appropriately old-timey for the occasion.

[Scads more photos after the jump.]

Irving Penn took the above photo of model Evelyn Tripp sixty years ago, in 1949. Penn’s photo below appeared in photographer Clayton Cubitt’s blog earlier this year with the caption “Irving Penn is 91 years old and he still kicks your ass.”

Many informative Irving Penn obituaries have popped up on the web over the past few hours – my favorite is this piece by the New York Times. There were many things I didn’t know about him! I was delighted to learn that, like me, he had the whole Jersey-Philly thing going on. His brother Arthur was the director of the film Bonnie and Clyde. Before falling into photography, he wanted to travel to Mexico with the hopes of forging a career as a painter. He joined the army, and worked as an ambulance driver.

Irving Penn lived an active, creative life, producing new work right up until his death. Let Penn’s legacy inspire us all, for this is the way that life should be lived. It doesn’t matter if you’re 70, 80 or 90: stay curious about the world, never give up your vision, and always continue to strive to do your best.

More inspiring images by Penn taken at various points in the past 60 years, after the jump.

See also: The Decline of Fashion Photography

Two photos from the series “Marcell” by Polish photographer Roksana Mical. I love this set, seemingly a chronicle of a plague doctor’s leisurely stroll through the woods or perhaps, more mysteriously, a record of some strange, elusive bird-like creature as it stalks through the desolate countryside. Mical’s photo’s all have a wonderful grain to them that helps to ground the images in reality which, in this case, only serves to accentuate the outlandishness of the subject.

via WurzelTumblr

We’re SO stoked for Zo today! After a year in aesthetic stasis, her personal website, Biorequiem, has finally relaunched with a gorgeous new look. Our favorite cosmonomad is a busy bee; she barely has time to initiate her patented Zobogrammatronic ambient energy battery recharge system, let alone find a spare moment to whip up sexy new design and code, so she enlisted Nubby Twiglet (our awesome Coilhouse Indie Ad Grid designer) and Star St. Germain to help her. And now the proud mama crows  “here it is – hussied up, blushing and ready to be sent out center stage with a brisk slap on the ass.” Huzzah.

You’ll find all sorts of goodies at Biorequiem 5.0. Art! Photography! Illustration! Memoirs! Bewbz! Chihuahuas!  Anthropomorphic cybercows! Go get some.

On display at the Maison Européene de la Photographie in Paris, Ara Güler’s photos of Istanbul during the 1950s and 60s are extraordinarily beautiful and surreal, almost otherworldly. They detail a city long shrouded in mystery and myth, celebrated in literature and song; a gateway between between Europe and the Far East. Here,  inside a city forever associated with images of domes and minarets, Güler gives us a glimpse of the once everyday and brings it to life, leaving it no less fantastic or ethereal having done so.

Via lens culture.

Please welcome guest-blogger and wunderkammer artist Jessica Joslin’s formal addition to our Staff Page! – Ed.

One of the things that I love about living in Chicago is that it’s merely a hop, skip and a jump away from Wisconsin. For those of you on the coasts, that statement may make little sense. Still, I am wholeheartedly convinced that there’s magic there. Wisconsin’s had far more than its share of brilliant eccentrics, outsider artists and charming crackpots. From Alex Gordon’s jaw-droppingly magnificent House on The Rock –a place whose wide-ranging wonders utterly defy description— to the architectural gems of Gordon’s sworn enemy, Frank Lloyd Wright, to the strange and beautiful man-made grottos that dot the countryside, Wisconsin is a treasure trove of wonderful weirdness.

Eugene Von Bruenchenhein (1910-1983) was a true Wisconsinite, in the very best (and most eccentric) sense of the word. He lived in a world of his own making, hidden away in a modest house in Milwaukee with his beloved wife and muse Marie. During the days, he worked as a baker, but in his own words, he was a “Freelance Artist, Poet and Sculptor, Inovator [sic], Arrow maker and Plant man, Bone artifacts constructor, Photographer and Architect, Philosopher.” In each of his chosen disciplines, Von Bruenchenhein was incredibly prolific. When his work was discovered shortly after his death, his home was literally stuffed to the gills with his creations. His paintings are vivid, apocalyptic explosions of color, swirling with mysterious monsters and elusive, organic forms. The distinctive surfaces are partly a result of his process. Since brushes were often an unattainable luxury, he used his fingers, twigs or bushes made of  his wife Marie’s hair. Marie herself is a lovely enigma. Eugene clearly adored her. She was his one and only model in a series of photographs influenced by the pin-up imagery of the time. In his images, he turned her into a queen, a goddess, a siren… constructing crowns out of tin Christmas ornaments and adorning her with wreaths of pearls.

Left: one of Von Breunchenheim’s bone chairs. Right: A photographic portrait by Von Breunchenheim of his beloved Marie.

It was Von Bruenchenhein’s bone chairs that first caught my eye. They are tiny and intricate, constructed from the detritus of many a chicken dinner. Apparently, he ate a lot of chicken, because he also constructed wonderful little bone towers. They look almost like architectural models of the Watts towers.

I am also fascinated by a snapshot of a wall in his home, probably in the basement, scrawled with his philosophical musings. “Death haunts men forever and finally wins” is written directly underneath “Electric meter” and “Water and Gas.” It’s as if he felt that his revelations needed to be put somewhere permanent, somewhere that could not be misplaced like a sheet of paper. It’s like having the rare chance to peer into his head. Next to a pin-up in a bikini, ever the romantic, he writes: “All go down the drain. Collect yourself. Tomorrow it is too late. Make love worth ALL” – and above a dark water stain, there is “Love is a fire ever bright.”

To see more, visit his extended biography at Kinz + Tillou and view a great collection of photos at the Hammer Gallery site. More images after the jump!

Model: Melina

We first mentioned photographer Tina Cassati in our homage to ruffs, and since that time she’s created tons of incredible work, which can be seen on her MySpace page if you add her. Cassati continues to use Photoshop more and more to create strange and exaggerated shapes for her models, and the results are sensuously surreal; take, for example, this recent set, titled SwanHälsinnen.  In addition to taking the photos, Cassati also fashions the headpieces – sometimes in the form of a post-production collage, other times in real life, recycling old clothing or crafting paper and flowers into sculptural adornments.

More images from this series, after the jump!

Model: Nina de Lianin. Hair, hat, etc: Tina Cassati.

I don’t post vintage photos here very often (mostly because there are so many wonderful blogs devoted to them), but this one found over at Siege’s blog was too good to pass. You simply have to click here to see it in large format – there are so many incredible details! This looks like a still from a new movie – two talented actors, dressed expertly by a costume designer, captured by an in-demand photographer.  But no; it’s a vintage ambrotype from the Civil War era.

Just look at them. If this image doesn’t inspire you to start spinning tales, I don’t know what will. What did he do for a living? Did he ever fall off a horse? Did he like doing magic card tricks? Was he allergic to bees? How did he meet his lady, so stylish with her ruffled bonnet and black leather gloves? Was their marriage passionate? Did she have a good singing voice? Did she hate going to church?

Tell me a story about them.

Update! This post is officially getting the Coilhouse tag “Misinformation,” because Siege has uncovered some new facts. “A TinEye search result led to Google led to a post on A Database that lists this as ‘Veteran of Waterloo with his Wife’ c1850s:

“Bruce Bernard saw this unusual photograph for sale at Christie’s in the 1970s. It appeared in the Sunday Times Magazine where he was picture editor and in his book Photodiscovery, he later tracked it down for the collection. The medal on the man indicates him as a veteran of Waterloo.”

See also: Reliability of Wikipedia

Although it turns out this couple was from Europe, I still like Paul Komoda’s more American-sounding names from the comments: “Athanasius Scrimshaw and his good lady, Jerboa.”

For more on Coilhouse’s love affair with old photographs, check out The Tarnished Beauties of Blackwell, Oklahoma, probably one of my top 5 favorite Mer posts of all time.