[willreichelt]

One of my pictures is in this fun exhibition – come check it out?

Art On The Wall presents

Pip Smith, Sam Twyford Moore, Zoe Norton Lodge, Jason Childs, Harry Wynter, Bethany Small, Lee Tran Lam, Angela Bennetts, Steph Harmon, Amelia Schmidt, Rosanna Stevens + more…

The Alaskan wilderness is a strange place – absolutely gigantic, strikingly beautiful in a stark, graphic kind of way, and perpetually lit (the sun doesn’t even start thinking about going down until at least 10pm). The kind of place that makes you feel like the most insignificant speck in the universe.

Here’s a few pictures I snapped along the way on our journey from the Denali Highway down to the Kenai Peninsula.

In keeping with the retrospectively nostalgic vibe of NYE, I thought I would throw together a few images of different spaces that I was incredibly lucky enough to inhabit during 2010. They range from cluttered & intimate to awe-inspiringly huge, and they all represent particularly special moments for me throughout the year.

Beck’s Festival Bar (Sydney, Australia)

One of the highlights of this year’s Sydney Festival, Beck’s Festival Bar hosted the amazing Grizzly Bear. I arrived a little late to the show, but was just in time to hear them kick straight into ‘Two Weeks’, a song that sends shivers down my spine.

Art Gallery NSW (Sydney, Australia)

At the opening of the Archibald, Wynne and Sulman exhibitions at the Art Gallery NSW, I was extremely proud to accompany my ridiculously-talented cousin Victoria (that’s her in the middle talking to the lady with the mohawk), who was a Sulman Prize finalist. Check out her work!

826 Valencia (San Francisco, USA)

At the behest of Lee Tran Lam, I found the McSweeney’s Pirate Supply Store during a free moment on a business trip to the US. It’s a brilliant little space, crammed to the gills with pirate paraphernalia and literature.

Pixar Animation Studios (San Francisco, USA)

To say that this was one of the major highlights of the year for me would be a massive understatement – the chance to visit Pixar while in San Francisco was one I couldn’t pass up. This is just the lobby, it gets exponentially more awesome the further in you go.

Sequoia National Forest (Northern California, USA)

One of the most beautiful natural environments I’ve ever seen, the Sequoia National Forest in northern California features some of the largest trees on the planet.

William Street, Paddington (Sydney, Australia)

While wandering down William Street in Paddington on one of my many assignments for Urban Walkabout, I copped an impromptu sunset rainbow. Awesome.

Mount Fuji (Honshu, Japan)

Even though we were rocketing across the landscape on a Shinkansen travelling at monumental speed, the size and beauty of Mount Fuji still induced slack-jawed wonderment.

Happy New Year everyone! Best wishes for 2011.

Polaroids from my recent trip to Japan.
Osaka, Kyoto, Tokyo, Naoshima.

Chinatown, at the southern end of Sydney’s CBD, is jam-packed with amazing restaurants. A couple of months back, I spent a few fun afternoons walking around the area, photographing some of the top spots for Urban Walkabout‘s new Food Lover’s Guide to Chinatown & Haymarket.

Infinite sunshine, drool-worthy Mexican food, street festivals, endless cups of coffee – for the last two weeks, I’ve been soaking up the culture of Venice Beach, Santa Monica and the surrounding areas in Los Angeles, California.

I was there on business, so most of my time was spent trekking up and down the freeways and working out of the Animal Logic office, but I was free on the weekends to venture out and explore.

Morgan and Jay work in the Animal Logic LA office.

Orly Olivier, an LA-based photographer – we checked out her amazing polaroid exhibition in Silverlake.

It took us an hour of waiting in line to get our hands on one of Pink’s hotdogs.

Pushing my way through the throng down at the Abbot Kinney Street Festival, I was pretty stoked to discover Soko performing live – I’d missed her show at the Oxford Art Factory last Christmas, so this was an unexpected treat.

Harry Perry, legendary rollerblading guitar player of Venice Beach.

From a work perspective, one of the highlights of my trip was meeting legendary makeup & prosthetic effects wizards Alec Gillis and Tom Woodruff Jr, and getting a tour of their workshop. This massive sculpt of an Alien fighting a Predator was part of a jaw-dropping display room next to their foyer featuring highlights of their past work.

A friendly local.

Last month I took a break and went to Thailand with my friend Chris for a couple of weeks. The bulk of our time was spent on the island of Koh Samui, with a few days in Bangkok on the way home thrown in.

(photo by Chris Deal)

Thailand is humid, beautiful, commercial, stressful and relaxing all at the same time depending on where you are and what you’re doing. It’s full of fantastic food, animals, friendly people, majestic islands, crowded cities, strange tourists, scooters, and about a million things to buy.

Here’s a few of my impressions.