The winner is this sleepy polar bear who clawed a bed from a small iceberg and settled in for a nap.
Photo credit: Nima Sarikhani
The winner is this sleepy polar bear who clawed a bed from a small iceberg and settled in for a nap.
Photo credit: Nima Sarikhani
A gallery of the finalists for the 2020 Comedy Wildlife Photography Awards.
From a gallery of abandoned theme parks by Seph Lawless. I spent a lot of time at Geauga Lake (the photo at the top) when I was younger. It was smaller than Cedar Point, but also closer. Lots of good memories. And, hard to believe now, there was once a Sea World park right across the lake.
Beautiful images from the International Space Station. Even better in HD.
I love this photo of The Beatles preparing to be photographed crossing the street for their Abbey Road album cover.
This beautiful image, taken by Harold Edgerton in 1944, was part of an Allied experiment exploring nocturnal reconnaissance photography.
In addition to the Joyce and Becket video in the previous post, here’s a couple more things in celebration of Bloomsday.
I once heard that James Joyce wrote to his wife Nora that he could pick out her farts in a room full of farting women. Today I finally got to read the entire thing, as well as others of his dirty letters. Filthy, filthy stuff.
Also, check out Eve Arnold’s photo of Marilyn Monroe reading Ulysses.
At the end of the day, when the actors have gone home and she has finished cleaning up after the action, Jo Broughton photographs porn sets.
“As a cleaner I saw the sets in the cold light of day and picking up and cleaning the mess, was a bit like dealing with a crime scene. Dealing with the inevitable bodily fluids made me feel my own humanity and then the vunerability of the models who had performed for the camera that day. In the end, though, I was learning my craft, trying to understand light and how to photograph really well.”
Perhaps it’s the hollow yet the forbidding facades. Probably it’s the neglected and decaying interiors, riddled with gusty corridors and the relics of their former purpose. More likely still there’s something in the fear and stigma attached to mental disorder itself. Abandoned buildings of all descriptions seem haunted by the ghosts of their past – but when the ghosts are the souls of those declared clinically insane and sectioned, the place is likely to hold more bad memories than most; bad memories but also great character, rare solace, and irresistible magnetism for urban explorers.
A beautiful collection of photos of abandoned and decaying British asylums. How creepy is that dental chair? Great stuff.
A giant digital camera is being built by an international team of scientists at Fermilab in an attempt to solve the mystery of dark energy.
Of course, we don’t really know whether dark energy even exists. What we do know is that the universe has been expanding since the big bang. But rather than slowing down like everything else fighting gravity’s pull, this expansion seems to be speeding up. Something must be causing this, and astronomers call that something dark energy. The hope is that scientists can use detailed photos to chart the light from galaxies and supernovas, which will show the growth of the cosmos and at least give them more evidence for the existence and effect of dark energy.
French photographer Vincent Fournier has produced some wonderful images of the Chinese, Russian and US space agencies, including their earthly training grounds.
More of Fournier’s work can be found at his website.
(via snarkmarket)
Before picking up the brush, Norman Rockwell spent a great deal of time directing and composing photographs that he would use to create his iconic (and oft-derided) paintings.
Photography has been a benevolent tool for artists from Thomas Eakins and Edgar Degas to David Hockney. And to illustrators, always on the lookout for better ways to meet deadlines, the camera has long been a natural ally. But the thousands of photographs Norman Rockwell created as studies for his iconic images are a case apart. A natural storyteller, Rockwell envisioned his narrative scenarios down to the smallest detail. Yet at the easel he was an absolute literalist who rarely painted directly from his imagination.
Instead, he first brought his ideas to life in studio sessions, staging photographs that are fully realized works of art in their own right. Selecting props and locations, choosing and directing his models, he carefully orchestrated each element of his design for the camera before beginning to paint. Meticulously composed and richly detailed, Norman Rockwell’s study photographs mirror his masterworks in a tangible parallel universe. Photography opened a door to the keenly observed authenticity that defines Norman Rockwell’s art. And for us today it is a revelation to discover that so many of his most memorable characters were, in fact, real people.
Say what you will, Rockwell was a master of facial expressions.
Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera is a new book that details his creative process, and there is a companion exhibition at the Norman Rockwell Museum, in Stockbridge, Mass., through May 31st.
There’s more at NPR’s The Picture Show.
(via pdn)