
Thank you, Internet. Sometime in March, Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros piled into their biofuel powered converted school bus and headed south to Mexico. A month later, we're presented with this video of Alex Ebert's 11-member ensemble of merry hippies performing an acoustic rendition of "Up From Below," live from a Yucatan jungle. Such is the speed of the web, and one of the......read more
In 1997, Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky had an epiphany: "It occurred to me that the vast, human-altered landscapes that I pursued and photographed for over twenty years were only made possible by the discovery of oil and the mechanical advantage of the internal combustion engine. It was then that I began the oil project." For the next decade Burtynsky set himself to......read more
In three short years, the Prix Pictet has become the global prize for excellence in environmental photography, assembling some of the most powerful images of sustainability (or lack thereof) from around the world. The theme for this year's competition is Growth, which organizers call "one of the great conundrums facing humanity in the early decades of the 21st century." True enough. The winner......read more
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The past year was an explosive one for Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros, the Los Angeles ten-piece outfit whose 2009 debut album 'Up From Below' was a runaway hit. The band has been touring pretty much constantly since the record hit the streets, and they're getting a taste of success. At the same time, they're seeing first hand the kind of waste that accompanies a road......read more
The video for "40 Day Dream" is the third instalment in SALVO!, the 12-part video opera that Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros are creating to go along with their hit album Up From Below. And it's a beauty. Director Matt Amato follows frontman Alex Ebert -- in the role of his messianic alter ego, Edward Sharpe -- and his band of merry hippies as they dance and tromp through the desert in......read more
Alex Ebert has a thing for the desert. Earlier, you saw him traipsing around the Mojave Desert with the rest of the happy hippies in Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros. Here we find him back the sand dunes as part of his new solo project, Alexander, with director Benjamin Kutsko behind the camera. The vast, arid landscape nicely fits the earthy vibes of "A Million Years." Soulful......read more
Photographer Andrew McConnell's illuminating E-WASTE series focuses on electronic waste from the US and Europe being unloaded on West African countries like Ghana, Nigeria, and Ivory Coast. Hundreds of tons of discarded electronics are shipped to this region every year. Here, McConnell captures the dumping ground of Agbogbloshie, a suburb of Accra, Ghana. (Via Notcot) ...read more
Long before sustainable design hit the mainstream, Austin-based architects Andersson Wise earned a reputation for creating low footprint buildings that borrow design cues — and materials — from the sites on which they're built. Stone Creek Camp, a rustic wilderness retreat on the picturesque shores of Montana's Flathead Lake, is a case in point. The central building on the property,......read more
Vancouver's Old Faithful Shop is one of our favorite indie retailers and also happens to have a damn good blog. That's where we recently got hip to the work of Pacific Northwestern photographer Andy Grellmann, whose film images of idylllic scenes have us yearning for our next outdoor adventure. Like all great photography, Grellman's images from the lakes and forests of the Coast Mountains carry......read more