Domic Davies is responsible for the photographies displayed in the famous Big Fat Cookbook:

In this enormous, beautiful book, we hear the full story of the meteoric rise of Heston Blumenthal and The Fat Duck, birthplace of snail porridge and bacon-and-egg ice cream, and encounter the passion, perfection and weird science behind the man and the restaurant.

Heston Blumenthal is widely acknowledged to be a genius, and The Fat Duck has twice been voted the Best Restaurant in the World by a peer group of top chefs. But he is entirely self-taught, and the story of his restaurant has broken every rule in the book. His success has been borne out of his pure obsession, endless invention and a childish curiosity into how things work – whether it’s how smell affects taste, what different flavours mean to us on a biological level, or how temperature is distributed in the centre of a soufflé. (from the editor’s website)

See more excerpt from the book over at Daily Icon. Visit The Fat Duck official website (before being a book, it’s a three-Michelin-starred restaurant in the UK). Learn more about chef Heston Blumenthal on Wikipedia. If you can’t afford the full version of this book (it sells at around 150$ dollars on Amazon) don’t worry : there’s a lowered-price edition of it, selling at around 30$:

The cookbook hailed by the Los Angeles Times as a “showstopper” and by Jeffrey Steingarten of Vogue as “the most glorious spectacle of the season…like no other book I have seen in the past twenty years” is now available in a reduced-price edition. With a reduced trim size but an identical interior, this lavishly illustrated, stunningly designed, and gorgeously photographed masterpiece takes you inside the head of maverick restaurateur Heston Blumenthal. Separated into three sections (History; Recipes; Science), the book chronicles Blumenthal’s improbable rise to fame and, for the first time, offers a mouth-watering and eye-popping selection of recipes from his award-winning restaurant. He also explains the science behind his culinary masterpieces, the technology and implements that make his alchemical dishes come to life. Designed by acclaimed artist Dave McKean—and filled with photographs by Dominic Davies—this artfully rendered celebration of one of the world’s most innovative and renowned chefs is a foodie’s dream. (Amazon)

In any case, be sure to take a look at the Big Fat Undertaking blog: someone actually attempting to do more with this book than looking at the picture.

Previously on Skandalon

In the 50s and 60s, as the whole ‘Mad Men’ advertising agency era was booming, no one came close to Gescheidt for innovative photography, and he created numerous campaigns, magazine, book, and album covers. His images often both flattered and mocked American sensibilities, and his ’30 Ways To Stop Smoking’ series from 1964 remains a landmark in satirical conceptual photography. (Field Of Vision: Alfred Gescheidt)

Previously on Skandalon

Studio series focusing on disused electronics, as well as flora and fauna.

About Benn Innes:

Born in Knoxville, TN, Ben Innes now works, eats and sleeps in Minneapolis, MN. He gained his BFA in photography from the Minneapolis College Of Art and Design in the spring of 2009. (About)

First spotted via Coudal Partners.

Higher Pictures: “Untitled” by Alfred Gescheidt, vintage gelatin silver print, 1961

In an age when Photoshop seems to be a de facto part of nearly every photographer’s creative process, the ways of in-camera and darkroom trickery - montage, collage, double exposure, hand-retouching and re-photographing - are in danger of becoming a lost art. Alfred Gescheidt was a master of all these techniques and more, although his name has, rather unjustly, become largely unknown in recent years.

Once described by former New York Times photo editor John Durniak as “the Charlie Chaplin of the camera”, Geischeidt amassed a rich body of photographic work that was unique, satirical, idiosyncratic and at times even hallucinogenic. (Field of Vision: Alfred Gescheidt)

Alfred Hitchcock left a peerless legacy of the stylishly macabre. In this year’s Hollywood Portfolio, Keira Knightley, Javier Bardem, Seth Rogen, and other stars channel iconic moments from the director’s greatest hits. (see the whole slide show)

Spotted via Douglas Haddow’s Tumblr blog.

Previously on Skandalon : “Force By Northwest”

Abbey Lincoln, a singer whose dramatic vocal command and tersely poetic songs made her a singular figure in jazz, died on Saturday in Manhattan. She was 80 and lived on the Upper West Side.Her death was announced by her brother David Wooldridge. Ms. Lincoln’s career encompassed outspoken civil rights advocacy in the 1960s and fearless introspection in more recent years, and for a time in the 1960s she acted in films, including one with Sidney Poitier. (The New York Times: “Abbey Lincoln, Bold and Introspective Jazz Singer, Dies at 80” by Nate Chinen, August 14, 2010)

About photographer Roberto Polillo:

From 1962 (when I was 16) to 1974 I was lucky to photograph the most important jazz musicians of the time. These images have been almost hidden for many years, but recently I have made an outing… A selection of these images have been recently shown in personal exhibitions in Milano, Roma, Torino, Siena, Napoli, Genova, Verona and other places, and collected in a big photographic book, “Swing, Bop & Free” , which also cointains texts by my father Arrigo , who was a well known jazz critic and historician. (more)

This photograph is part of the exhibition Summer Place currently running at the Bonni Benrubi Gallery:

Bonni Benrubi Gallery is pleased to announce a group exhibition, Summer Place. This exhibition expresses the vitality of the summer season through the work of contemporary photographers who capture the leisure, athleticism, heat and psychology of the season through their images.

Highlights include new work by gallery artist Karine Laval, who transports the viewer to a place of pure sensual, existential experience, as swimmers splash and shimmer among the reflective waters of her exuberant yet nostalgic color pool images.Susannah Ray documents the surfing subculture of Rockaway Beach, NY, which makes up for the lack of allure and lifestyle of West Coast surfing with a surfeit of heart, dedication and soul. (more)

About Karine Laval:

Her photographs are notably spontaneous, and they are reminiscent of the photographs of masters such as Cartier Bresson and Eggleston, for she shares a similar use of color as an expressive tool. In this regard, her most characteristic series, such as White, on the snowy winter landscape of Norway, and Pool, on the relaxed and leisure environment of swimming pools in summertime, transport viewers into simple and naïve atmospheres meant to portray everyday life in XXI century society. (Bio)

Visit Karine Laval official website.

“This image, Chip Clark’s most requested photo, shows Roxie Laybourne, Smithsonian research associate, in front, with Birds Division collections staff members Beth Ann Sabo, James Dean, Bonnie Farmer, and Dawn Arculus, in 1992. The Museum holds the largest collection of vertebrate specimens in the world, with over 5.8 million specimens representing fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and mammals. Photo by Chip Clark, Smithsonian Institution” (more)

About Chip Clark:

“Chip Clark came to the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History in 1973, with a degree in biology and an interest in photography. He has been a photographer on staff ever since, documenting thousands of specimens and exhibits, and accompanying scientists on research trips around the world. He has photographed everything from dinosaurs and mummies to diamonds, butterflies, and, of course, his fellow staff members. In the field he has photographed in caves in Jamaica, the rainforest in Peru, the coral reefs in Belize, and on the ocean floor in a deep-sea submersible off the Bahamas. He thrives on the challenges of photographing the natural world in its environment, no matter what the conditions.” (“Chip Clark: Museum Photographer for More Than Thirty-Five Years”)

The photo comes from sarcoptiform’s photostream on Flickr. Because the way those photos were taken and assemble (frontal shot, neutral gray shade) it’s reminiscent (in a way) of Bernd and Hilla Becher typology of water towers (Amazon, Wikipedia).

The two authors behind the blog Mrs. Dean, Norman Beierle and Hester Keijser, did a much more elaborated (and explicit) hommage to Bernd and Hilla Becher’s water towers series : Joghurtbecher. It’s a study ― Becher style ― of… yogurt cups. See example here. More about Joghurtbecher.