Us and Them

There is something mysterious about space. Gazing at a starry night sky reminds us how small we are in grand scheme of the universe (or this universe... goddam scientists always making it bigger and more complicated). It reminds us how insignificant our day to day struggles and stresses really are and how silly we are to spend some much time fretting and worrying. Sometimes we just need to take a step back from our lives and see the beauty of the world around us. This is now made 10x easier because NASA has stapped a camera to a satellite orbiting the earth so now we can see it time-lapsed in HD with a click of mouse. Which you should immediately do.

Earth | Time Lapse View from Space | Fly Over | Nasa, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.

Just Watch It

Tethered to videos. Maybe a biased design of mine. I'll have to rethink the mobiles above my cradle, huh.

well... what have you done with your life?

This one is native to the thin wisps that seethe above us, half real clouds that incite the sensation of losing a word on the tip of your tongue, while it eats itself in suicidal evaporation. One of these guys says that slack-lining above a biblical abyss, without a harness, is true "freedom." One can't help but feel trapped, here, beneath the boiling sky, when one knows that others have been in it.

Bristle Sprouts

We ravage the land, creating centers, which generate their own edges. How these two roll in the hay gives a space life, and when periphery and center are denied their biological tendency to copulate, when continuity and permeability are hindered, natures bristles sprout. Here is a video I threw together for an architecture project. Forgive the ending, my editing is the headliner at the amateur hour.

Bristle Sprouts from Kevin Hermann on Vimeo.

The Other Half

Why make only one dope video, when you can make two? May seem arbitrary, but when you see this, compared the earlier video of the marching band, you may want to reconsider your creative approach. A love letter to re-iteration.

Eyes Wider Than Before

This video may be cliche at this point, as it's embedded in the tech-knowledge of most internet goers, but I can't seem to separate myself from the distinction between his eyes at the beginning and the end. A distance that we all relate to, engage in, our own spheres seeing in his a quality of ourselves. That mirror, that space in his life, is ornamented with experience, a linear segment made enigmatic by the lens of his personal narrative. Structure breathed into by a modern odyssey. To each, his own myth.

The Longest Way 1.0 - one year walk/beard grow time lapse from Christoph Rehage on Vimeo.

Wild and Wonderful

Lets talk about adrenaline. The rush of a feeling. The feeling of excitement, danger and sensory overload wrapped into one package. Lets talk about whitewater rafting the Gauley River in West Virginia on a 115% release day.

Just a taste of the experience:
A motley crew of adventures is assembled by Rory Heim aka the King of Fun, piled into a car and roadtripped off for a night of camping and a day of rafting in West Va. Add in a rafting guide with 10 years of experience and more redneck jokes than Larry the Cable Guy. Add in the morning sunlight peeking through the mist rising off the water, just as the leaves are starting to turn orange and yellow. Add in whitewater and jutting rocks that resemble the only water entrance to hell. Add in an amazing hot lunch right off the grill and a flask of some of the good stuff to put some hairs on your chest. Finally, add in a GoPro and John Denver and here's what you get:

Localites

Places: spaces characterized by a combination of elements that tickle our internal axis' of harmony, enveloping us in a unique phenomenological experience. Everyone's got a place, that 'spot.'

My brother and I have one too. There is a field near our parent's house in Crozet. A swath of naked rolling hills provide a corridor down which you can gander. You can see the mountains from there. There are hay bails (you can run on them), bird swoops/calls, openings and closings of the day, a vine-mantled tractor - all there. Sometimes I wish I were too.

We call it 'the spot.' I would show you a picture, but then, it wouldn't be 'the spot,' would it...

Here's another picture though. There's an old ware house down near the River. Ruins, old structures, worn, that welcome new life, open to fresh constituents to distinguish it. It's all gnarled trees and spray art. I call it the Bad Lands. A place - it is. THE spot? No. Still an axis' though.

Gareth Hermann for scope

Classic

OK Go - This Too Shall Pass from OK Go on Vimeo.

Air

The greatest snowboarding movie ever came out. Get some awesomeness in this trailer.

Brain Farm - The Art of Flight Trailer from Brain Farm on Vimeo.

I think the quote "What the fuck kind of planet are you from?" pretty much sums this all up. By the end of the film, you'll be desensitized to mythological aerial gymnastics, as Travis Rice and his posse man-handle some monumental peaks, mountains that seem to have opposable thumbs. To watch this intuitively choreographed play between natures larges indexes, spines that invoke oblivion, feels like a watching a fairy tale. Add dubstep. Ignite. Folks, your faces are blown.

Think planet earth-esque ski porn. At one thousand frames per second. For scale: they can take one second in reality and stretch it into one minute of footage. Delayed gratification never felt so good. The cusp is moving in next door, so get get neighborly and civil, were in for the long haul.

Lunatic

The Mountain from TSO Photography on Vimeo.

Feel small. Let this one stroke you into a complete sensation of profound harmony, enveloping, in it's palm, the central axis from which your aesthetic sense radiates.

It's almost fall. We should look around more - places are doing cool things.

Entreated to recognize, to validate. Do so.

spiderwebs, veins in a leaf, a sheet of water (touch it), tree trunks, feathers, cracks in the sediments, planets - OH MY

Give the '80s a Chance

I laughed.

Grum - Through The Night from The General Assembly on Vimeo.

There's something about business-in-the-front-party-in-the-back mustached synth homo-erotic shenanigans that makes life less serious. Which I deem to be a wise lesson. Forget making it through the night, hopefully you make it through this video, that's the real test.

Children of the Gnar

It rained yesterday.

So we take it to the vaults, where old times play.

Yeah, we did Vermont. A bro-adtrip to end the summer. B-Alfukn Day, Huck Flinn, and the two Hermann miscreants. Verb-status in high order. Something like... "The 802 Sessions: Going H.A.M at full Bro-pacity"

A chapter of high impact, verses of water via rocks, wheels, fireworks (try a morter out a sunroof... no? no one?) p.a.r.t.y./r.a.v.e, hikes to panoramas, waterholes to more flight, shenanigans to all day everyday - and the book rambles on from here.

The pressure is on, as were pretty high up as it is - climax feels like an olden creed. So, maybe, this is a tribute to tomorrow, to the next jump, from even higher up.

Enjoyage.

Caught Red Handed

I like to take pictures. I like to make videos. But the imagination is an elusive damsel, to say the least, and capturing her in a raw, candid moment is freakishly difficult. Oftentimes I am left with something like a silver slipper in my hand, a hint of what could have been. When I first watched this video, not only did I come close to letting my eyes drool (crying is far beyond the boundaries of the 'bro' code), but I felt that it had captured what imagination, in the midst of its mystical creation, was. To you: feel free to let the tears flow, and also see how "Apricot" could be, maybe is, your perfect daydream.

APRICOT — A Short Film by Ben Briand from Moonwalk Films on Vimeo.

Country Boyz

K-Herms and I were in South Cackalaky for new years when Kevin captured this gem of Gabe McConkey brakin the wishbone of some cream topped yogurt. If you dont know what a "wishbone" is in this context then you should def watch the video and get some Nelson County eduMcation.

The Future was NOW

My friends older brother, Ted Day, and his cohorts recently created this from scratch up in NYC... soundtrack and everything. Retro, Futuristic, Detective, Violence, Love, New York City, Comic, Cyborg ... these keywords make it a "dude check this out" video for sure.

OMG

if this doesn't blow your mind wide open, god knows what will...

dream on

everynight, the yarn of memories meets the needles of imagination. here, in the workshop of dreams, seeds are knitted. seeds of adventure, visions of a future. and some old self peeks through the cracks of youth and quietly chuckles in mirth, with the remembrance of that brave, limitless disposition. the marks your feet leave on this earth may dry up, wash away, but they ultimately intertwine and tangle to create a thread of memories that are intricately woven together each night by the skilled hands of inspiration.

where to now?

I'll be Home

Dug this gem up, an xmas card built from details. The Holidaiyez have always been about textures and smells, old comforts awakened once again in the langour of wood-stove afternoons. These are the things that cause us to return.

The Leap

My brother once said, "the fruit is on the end of the branch, so why not take a leap?"

Well said sirrah, well said. So here we are, taking a leap into the vast, cosmic tangle that is the internet. In order to honor the chaos that we join, this blog will be a bit of a ramble, and although our ADD space cadet amateur hack productions, in form of frames and words, will be varied, they will not be without deep intentions. I can guarantee that everything with our 'brotography' (corny - be damned) stamp on it will be infused with meaning, and reflect our greater quests for understanding of this human condition. Simply put, we love life, and seek nothing more than to come to terms with this existence and grow and change through our experiences.

Here is where those experiences will be shared.

My first attempt to convey who we are and what were interested in is to share this video with y'all - it's beautiful, stark, and powerful. And DAMMIT if I don't have a complete man crush on this guy's accent.

DARK SIDE OF THE LENS from Astray Films on Vimeo.

Here's to expression. Cheers, bottom's up, take the leap.