Star Wars Urban Photography
French photographer Cedric Delsaux has created a series of photographs where he places Star Wars characters and vehicles in modern urban locations.
Souvenir Photos
“Souvenirs” is an ongoing book project by Hughes Photography in which toy replicas of famous landmarks are held up and photographed in front of the real thing. Check out this interesting collection of 95 souvenir photos from all over the world.
Living with Volcanoes
National Geographic features life in Indonesia in the shadow of smoldering Mount Merapi. Columns of noxious gas and jittery seismographs signal an imminent explosion. The government has ordered a full-scale evacuation, but many residents have refused to leave.
Merapi, whose name means “fire mountain,” is a natural-born killer. Rising almost 10,000 feet, it ranks among the world’s most active and dangerous volcanoes. An eruption in 1930 killed more than 1,300 people. The surrounding area is frequently affected by lava flows, rockfalls, and toxic gases.
Nowhere else do so many live so close to so many active volcanoes—129 by one count. On Java alone, 120 million people live in the shadow of more than 30 active volcanoes.
Ansel Adams Photographs
Ansel Adams (1902–84) was an American photographer, best known for his black-and-white photographs of the American West. In 1941, the National Park Service commissioned Adams to create a photo mural for the Department of the Interior Building in Washington, DC. The theme was “nature as exemplified and protected in the U.S. National Parks.” World War II halted the project, and it was never resumed.
The National Archives still retains 226 photographs taken for this project, most of them signed and captioned by Adams. They were taken at many national parks parks including Glacier, Grand Canyon, Kings Canyon, Rocky Mountain, Yellowstone and Yosemite.
Microsoft Launches WorldWide Telescope
From the world of competitive astronomical websites (isn’t the Internet grand?) comes this new offering from Microsoft, WorldWide Telescope. Like others before it Microsoft’s new offering allows users to explore planets and other celestial objects. You can also view/track objects from any place on earth and in any point in time. Of course as you might expect from Microsoft there’s more going on than that. There is a lot of imagery from NASA including the Mars rovers, Hubble telescope, the Spitzer Space Telescope and the Chandra X-ray Observatory. There are also ‘tours’ set up by expert astronomers or you can even save your own ‘5 year missions’.
Like with Google’s ‘The Sky’ or the open source Stellarium users must first download the free WorldWide Telescope software from Microsoft (windows only).
WorldWide Telescope (via BBC News)
Volcano Thunderstorm
“Few sights in nature can compare to the sheer magnificence of a volcano erupting in full flow. But while scenes of molten lava are relatively commonplace, this otherworldly picture of Chaiten Volcano in southern Chile shows a truly spectacular, and devastating, volcanic phenomenon.
“As clouds of toxic ash and dust tower into the sky, they ionize the air, generating an explosive electrical storm. Colossal forks of lightning spark around the noxious plume as it spews from the volcano’s crater, creating an image of raw, terrifying energy - as if the air itself were ablaze.”
The 3,300-foot Chaiten Volcano, 800 miles south of the Chilean capital Santiago, is erupting for the first time in thousands of years.
Beautiful Islands
National Geographic has assembled a collection of gorgeous photographs of small islands. The photo at left shows a dramatic collar of coral reefs ringing Mondriki Island (in the foreground) and Monu Island (background), two of Melanesia’s Fiji Islands. The Fiji Islands are made up of 333 islands in the South Pacific, known for their sparkling beaches, coral gardens, and lush rain forests.
Danger Art
Flying out of a skyscraper window 30 stories up, death appears imminent for this unlucky man. But in the world of “danger art,” everything is not what it seems.
Chinese artist Li Wei has produced an unsettling series of self-portraits, a mixture of performance art and photography that creates illusions of a dangerous reality. Wei has taken his work all over the world including Italy, Spain, Korea and the USA. His original photos sell for up to $8,000 each.
“My work and artistic experience are characterized by a unique specificity and particularity,” says the 37-year-old Beijing artist. “My artistic language is universal and deals with themes about contemporary politics and society using symbols understood by everyone in every part of the world. I am fascinated by the unstable and dangerous sides of art and I hope my works reflect these aspects.”
Online Jigsaw Puzzles
Time yourself and challenge your friends to solve online jigsaw puzzles featuring the amazing photography of National Geographic. Puzzle pictures include animals, landscapes, plants & fungi, people, sunrises & sunsets, weather, cars & machines, and abstract art. There are over 2300 puzzles in all!
Interactive 360 Degree Panoramas
Interactive Panoramas (or VR Photography) is a relatively new media that creates a panoramic view that immerse the viewer ‘inside’ the image. This is far far more advanced than the kinds of panoramas you can make with your digital camera and stitching software. Using your mouse you can view from side to side or top to bottom and all points in between of some fantastic imagery taking by Interactive Panorama photographers from all over the world and collected and displayed by Hans Nyberg a commercial photographer in Denmark.
There are over 400 stunning interaftive images of every thing from the Oslo Opera House to Death Valley, from the Oscars to Carnival In Rio. A truly stunning collection in a format that’s as close as you can get to being there from your PC.
