If you haven’t already (as I mention the lovely lady on my personal Twitter pretty much every day!), take a look at Cassia’s wonderful vintage-inspired photographs.

She’s just made the front page of Flickr’s Explore with this colourful collection of beach huts, shares her favourite things on her blog and sells prints through her shop on Etsy and on All Things Original.

If you’re in Brighton this weekend, be sure to drop by the IO Gallery at 39 Sydney Street where a selection of her retro TTV images are for sale. They’ll only be available there until Monday 24th August, so be quick!

This weekend we dropped into the Crane Kalman Gallery in Brighton’s North Laine to check out British photographer Samuel Hicks’ first solo exhibition, “On the Way”.

Here’s an introduction by the artist himself:

“The … images are from 3 trips to the States over 18 months, driving through Texas, New Mexico, California and Nevada.

These trips were essentially quite loose; sometimes we knew we had to be at a specific place in a week’s time, but how we got there and where we stopped was decided along the way, sometimes by looking at the map, or often asking someone what it was like there.

I wanted to have a look around, see for myself…”

Typically, the photo I loved (Mustang, above, shot in El Mirage, California) was the most expensive. If anyone has a spare £1100 lying around… donations gratefully received.

If you can’t make it to Brighton for the show, much of it is available to view online at FOTO8.

More images by Samuel Hicks are on his website, samuelhicks.com.

On The Way runs from 4th June to 19th July 2009 at Crane Kalman Brighton, 38 Kensington Gardens, North Laine, Brighton BN1 4AL.

Today the little Russian film camera with a big cult following, the Lomo LC-A, or Lomo Kompakt Automat, celebrates its 25th birthday!

Originally designed as a cheap, durable camera for the Russian market, it quickly gained popularity in the communist East. By the 1990s, however, its popularity had waned because of cheaper and smaller cameras coming in from Asia and production ceased.

Fortunately, at about the same time, a bunch of students from Vienna discovered the LC-A while in Prague and started bringing a load of them back. As popularity for the camera increased in the west The Lomographic Society was born and production started again at the original Lomo Optics factory in St. Petersburg.

In 2005 the Lomo Optics factory closed (for good this time) and the life of the original LC-A ended. The Lomographic Society re-launched the LC-A as the new Chinese-built LC-A+ (which included a few extra features like a multiple exposure switch, more ASA settings and a cable-release button) and later introduced the LC-A+ RL which re-introduced the original Russian-built Minitar lens instead of a Chinese one and the cult following continued… albeit at a higher price!

To celebrate the anniversary, Lomography.com have 25% off all Lomo LC-A+ cameras and 10% off everything else on the 17th June only.

The “10 Golden Rules of Lomography”:

1. Take your LOMO everywhere you go.
2. Use it anytime – day or night.
3. Lomography is not an interference in your life, but a part of it.
4. Shoot from the hip.
5. Approach the objects of your lomographic desire as close as possible.
6. Don’t think.
7. Be fast.
8. You don’t have to know beforehand what you’ve captured on film.
9. You don’t have to know afterwards, either.
10. Don’t worry about the rules.

For thousands of great Lomo photos, check out the Lomo Flickr group pool or the lomography.com member gallery.

I recently had an email from Donald W. Ballard who corrected a few details in my previous article on the Disneyland Hotel. Don’s written a book on the subject so should know his stuff!

His blog is a treasure trove of things about the hotel; early photographs both private and promotional, concept art, newspaper and magazine clippings and advertisements, brochures, passes, memos… even a mini golf scorecard! You name it, it’s probably in there.

The Disneyland Hotel: The Early Years is available direct from the author for $47.50 plus shipping.

Ever wondered what your SNES looks like under an x-ray? Yeah, me neither. This guy did, though, and has managed to scan the insides of a whole range of consoles from the Atari 2600 (mostly empty) to the Wii (with accessories, no less) and the Playstation 3 (pictured above).

Reintji’s X-Ray Funnies (via Destructoid)

While browsing my feeds today (thanks Feedly!) I came across this wonderful photograph. Gorillas Don’t Blog wasn’t taken aback by it (“I wish there was more hotel and less blue sky”) but I sure was. The innocent simplicity of the nine-year-old Disneyland Hotel as it stood 45 years ago, surrounded by nothing but the odd southern California palm tree, is in very stark contrast to it’s present state.

If anyone has a photograph of the hotel from this very position today I’d love to see it.

The Disneyland Hotel was third party operated when it was built in October 1955, four months after the Disneyland park opened. Texan Millionaire Jack Wrather, probably most famous for being the producer of the TV show Lassie, financed and owned leased the property as Disney had run out of cash building the amusement park itself. It wasn’t until 1988 that The Walt Disney Company purchased it and the original tower pictured here was demolished in 1999 as part of the “Disneyland Resort” expansion which included the construction of California Adventure on what was Disneyland’s parking lot.

Be sure to check out the rest of the Gorillas Don’t Blog site for more superb vintage Disneyland pictures.

Update: Just had an email from Don Ballard, who has recently written a book on the Disneyland Hotel to tell me that the the Sierra Tower, the tower pictured here, wasn’t demolished. In fact it’s the only original building left standing.

“All of the original Hotel from 1955 – 1960 was demolished in 1999 to make way for Downtown Disney. This included all of the old two story Garden Villa Structures (my favorites), shopping areas, original restaurants, including the Monorail Cafe (my favorite), Travelport, Monorail Station, original Embassy and Magnolia Ballrooms and the Olympic Pool. To me, the Hotel lost most, if not all of its charm in 1999.”

Ever the fan of bringing old cameras back into production (and charging a nice premium for them), Lomo are resuscitating the Diana camera back. The medium format camera has been out of production for nearly 35 years but will be made available again this month as the Diana+, joining the LC-A+ on their production line.

The starter kit, which includes Diana+ Camera (with lens cap and shutter lock), Diana Vignettes photo and story book and Instruction manual is available direct from Lomo for £27.55 (or $50, if you’re on the other side of the pond). (via Boing Boing)

Flickr censored a user that complained about her photos being stolen: More post-purchase nonsense from Yahoo!.

I haven’t had a chance to post anything for a while so I’m catching up a a bit here. Originally mentioned by Blackwing Diaries, the UCLA’s Department of Special Collections unveiled a new website with 5,100 images from the archives of the LA Times and the Los Angeles Daily News.

Cartoon Brew has been rooting through the archives and has come up with a load of interesting photos of Disneyland, Walt Disney Studios (the strikes, and the never very camera-shy Ward Kimball), Bill Peet and many more that haven’t been seen for a very long time. Enjoy.

Update: Boing Boing has also been on a photo hunt and come up a whole new array of goodies.

Autumn and the Plot Against Me: One man’s long search for the location in a Windows XP desktop photo. (via Kottke)