Realism Challenge #3: Playing Card. Portrait Drawn with Ballpoint Pens. Nope, not a photograph. This is an amazing portrait drawn by 29-year-old Portugal-based attorney Samuel Silva (he says art is just his “hobby”) based on a photograph by Russian photographer Kristina Tararina. Silva’s medium of choice is standard Bic ballpoint pens on paper and this particular portrait uses eight different colors, taking some 30 hours to complete.
The drawing went gangbusters on Reddit last night and Silva fields a number of questions about his work over on deviantART. You can see many more of Silva’s drawings here. Bottle Cap Portrait. Artist Mary Ellen Croteau was working on an artwork involving plastic bottle caps, creating tall endless strings that are strung vertically in colorful columns. She repeatedly noticed how some of the caps would fit neatly inside of one another creating new color combinations similar to the portraits of Chuck Close. Inspired, she became sidetracked and embarked on her own self portrait using the colors that “naturally” appeared in the bottle cap plastic.
This work was submitted by John Mangahas as part of the Curatorial Contest of Awesomness that was held this past week on Facebook. We received nearly 100 submissions and the six winners and the awesome work they brought to my attention will be blogged about over the next few days. Side note: I had Megan help me sort through the 90+ submissions, and of our individual lists of the “best” six items, four were identical.
What! Missed out on all the action? Amazing urban & landscape photography. Martin Turner is a 36 year-old living in Bristol, UK. Photography is his hobby and passion, and he has been shooting for over six years. He mainly shoots architecture and landscapes, although has an interest in all forms of photography. His work has featured in numerous publications and recently featured in the Landscape Photographer of the Year book, his shot ’7 More London’ was projected onto the exterior of the National Theatre in London. For more amazing urban & landscape photography by Martin Turner, please check out his website here or drop by his flickr photostream right here.
Unusual Long Exposure Firework Photographs. While attending the International Fireworks Show in Ottawa, Canada earlier this month photographer David Johnson had his camera in hand to document the night. When Spain’s entry into the competition begin he decided to try something a little different resulting in the photos you see here which are unlike any long exposure firework shots I’ve ever seen. Via email David tells me how he accomplished the effect: The technique I used was a simple refocus during the long exposure.
Each shot was about a second long, sometimes two. What’s interesting is that unlike usual firework photos that seem to make long trails across the sky, Johnson’s photos look like flowers with little triangular plumes coming to a point. Top 50 Pictures of the Day 2011. Every day at 5pm the Sifter posts the Picture of the Day. Below you will find a collection of the Sifter’s Top 50 from 2011. It’s hard to imagine the year is almost over, time seems to fly faster each successive year so it’s fun to take a moment and look back at the year that was. Click any of the pictures below to be taken to the individual post to learn more about the photographer and picture taken.
Enjoy and stay sifty my friends! Top 50 Pictures of the Day 2012. Jun 28, 2012 *Update: The Top 100 ‘Pictures of the Day’ for 2012 have just been published. Click here to check out the most up-to-date post! After the positive reception from last year’s “Top 50 ‘Pictures of the Day’ for 2011“, we promised to highlight the top 25 ‘Pictures of the Day’ at the end of every quarter, eventually culminating in an epic Top 100 for 2012. It’s hard to believe we’re at the halfway point for 2012. With that, here are the Sifter’s Top 50 ‘Pictures of the Day‘ for this year. If any image really intrigues you, be sure to click the title link or picture itself. That will take you to the individual post page where you can find out more information. Please note the photographs themselves were not necessarily taken in 2012, they just happened to be featured as a ‘Picture of the Day’ this year :) Enjoy! Dream Music: Part 2. Parade militaire en domino.
8-bit Color Cycling with HTML5. Destroying stuff 2500 img/s HD. 6 Minutes of Stuff Getting Destroyed in Super Slow Motion CollegeHumor video. Perpetual Ocean. Cracked egg under water.