harlan erskine — photography/blog

Last night, I hammered out some new HTML pages with outtakes from last year’s Microsoft shoot. I can’t believe last year at this time I was finishing up a wild spurt of traveling for this project. I wrote a little bit about the project at the beginning of the year in this post: website update: Microsoft, I’m a PC.

Below, are a few outtakes that I have gathered together that were just posted to my website here. I might post some more but these fill in a few areas that are burned into my memory. Places and people that were not chosen to be in the final edit. This set is in reverse chronological order beginning with the afternoon shoot in Johannesburg, South Africa.

©2008 harlan erskine, Teacher, Kliptown Youth Project, Johannesburg, South Africa

After shooting early in the morning in Cape Town the crew bus ran everyone to the airport for the 2 hour flight to Johannesburg. Where we were met with a local crew and whisked from the airport to the township of Kilptown and their community center the Kliptown Youth Program. This Community center is part of the One Laptop Per Child initiative, so they had lots of computers for the kids to work and learn with. enjoy.

©2008 harlan erskine, Student, Kliptown Youth Project, Johannesburg, South Africa

©2008 harlan erskine, Ranger, Priviate Game Reserve, South Africa

The image above was taken at Aquila Private Game Reserve and Safari – an amazing place where the animals they have taken in to help heal and keep safe have a massive amount of space to roam free. Truly amazing to see elephants, lions, rhinos and countless other animals in this setting.

©2008 harlan erskine, Phil Walsh, Butcher, London

©2008 harlan erskine, Monica Hamilton-Richard, Lawyer, London

Microsoft, I’m a PC and this is how I roll. -Desanti Antoine

I just updated my commercial section of my website with the Microsoft work I did this August. The project lasted almost two weeks and sent me and the crew to Paris, London, Cape Town and Johannesburg South Africa and a shoot day back in New York. The shoot was a integrated set where a full tv crew would shoot the motion shots and then I would follow up with the still images. All the final ads are on You Tube as well as tons of additional videos here. The ads were produced to counter the nerdy stereotype of PC users by documenting the diversity of their user base. The subjects include a photographer, Nick Fleming a green architect, Edouard François, a French YouTube celebrity, Jey Jey (not yet posted) and many others.

I’ll be posting more images soon, including the ads posted last month in Union Square, Times Square and Spring street train stations.

Microsoft, I’m a PC and I share the truth. -Nick Fleming

Microsoft, I’m a PC and I design green buildings. -Edouard François

Microsoft, I’m a PC and my city never sleeps. -Matthew Murray

Microsoft, I’m a PC andI’m gonna get published. -Shamikah Martinez

Microsoft, I’m a PC and I’m one in a Billion. -Lucille Dechansiaud

© Liao Yusheng

I am not really sure how I can across this link but I can’t stop looking at these images of the 10 Most Amazing Ghost Towns. I am especially drawn to San Zhi with images by Liao Yusheng (Flickr set and slideshow) and Chernobyl workers’ home of Prypiat. You can see some great Chernobyl images over at the classic internet viral sensation – KIDDofSPEED project shot by a mysterious photographer who only goes by the name of “Elena.”

Maybe I found the ghost town link through the NOTCOT blog.

Harlan Erskine, “Out apartment window, Beijing, China” © 2008

So, I have been on a traveling bender for almost all of August and now I find myself in Beijing, China until the 29th to see the Olympic Games (hopefully if I can find a ticket) and to take some pictures. Anyone have any recommendations on what to see and where to go?

I am a bit in a daze right now. Having left a job I lived at for nearly four years, zoomed up to New York at break-neck speed ( I have the Georgia Speeding ticket to prove that) I feel like I am still going back to work next week and this is all a odd vacation with excessive packing. We drive my MINI up from the Magic City up 95 where we stopped at South of the Border and the Williamsburg, VA and made great time buzzing along until DC traffic brought us to a halt and delayed us several hours. Now, I am settled in the Upper West living out of a suitcase for a few days until move in on the 1st.

Despite my current state of disorientation from relocating the first day was great. We all filed in at about 10 am with awkward silences, questioning glances and timid introductions (why didn’t I film that I have no idea). Later in the day you could already feel the walls melting as introductions were made and work was shared. It was great to see some of their work and how diverse it all is. I wish we could have stayed a bit longer so we could have seen everyone’s book but time ran out for quick fire crit. I am looking forward to see what people shoot and even what I shoot. I couldn’t help to think that all around the country there were probably other incoming MFA students doing almost the same thing–I wonder if they felt the same?

No, I am not talking about the electro song but it will be part of the sound track as I move.

So, as some of you already know… I have finally thrown in the towel and I am leaving Miami and Crispin Porter + Bogusky where I have worked as a Photographer for the past year and a half and before that a Digital Artist for 3 years and I am going back to School to pursue a MFA in Photography from School of Visual Arts. It is very hard leaving a place with so many great people and great memories attached to it but I have been itching to do this for some time now and I can’t wait to get started.

I have to thank SVA Graduate Photography AlumsAmy Stein and Matthew Baum for their advise and insight.

Stay classy Miami I will miss you but I will be back regularly. Now back to packing…

© Tony de Marco. All rights reserved.

São Paulo: The City That Said No To Advertising

This is interesting-it looks like the city of São Paulo, Brazil has decided to heavily restrict out door advertising and take down their ubiquitous billboards and large posters, which were apparently covering the city. It will be interesting to see how this experiment plays out in the long term once the dinosaur-like billboard shells are all removed and the people have time to reflect on how this changed their city.

There is a really nice set of images on flickr related to this, including the image above.

Flickr photo by Tamela Wolff

Stardust Hotel-Casino in Las Vegas implosion.

Las Vegas one of those rare cities that celebrates the destruction of its own history. I’m a little sad I never got to see it. (video via Zoe Strauss)

© 2006 Harlan Erskine. All rights reserved.

I got back from a week vacation in Prague last week and I am finally over my jet-lag. I have a lot of pictures to post and as soon as I have a second later this weekend I will post more. The picture above was taken in the early morning in Prague’s Airport as we were departing, it was a sad but beautiful morning.