Look At The World's Greatest Skylines Without Any Lights On When we envision the world’s greatest cities--from San Francisco to Sao Paulo to Paris to Tokyo--we usually picture bridges and towers and cathedrals: the built environments that have left lasting impressions on our mind’s eyes. The irony being that those skylines have been in place for at most a century or two; the sky above has looked the same for millions of years. Our greatest cities are often the sources of the most light pollution. In those places, we rarely see the stars. But, with a clever method of composite imaging, the French photographer Thierry Cohen has turned the lights out in the city to reveal the stunning stars that have always been overhead. In his series "Darkened Cities," Cohen creates a visual reminder of what the world would look like if it were free of light pollution, and asks us to ponder how an increasingly urban society can disconnect us from the natural world.
The Top 75 ‘Pictures of the Day’ for 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“, the Sifter 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 already into the final quarter of 2012. *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! Ansel Adams Photographs In 1941 the National Park Service commissioned noted photographer Ansel Adams to create a photo mural for the Department of the Interior Building in Washington, DC. The theme was to be nature as exemplified and protected in the U.S. National Parks. The project was halted because of World War II and never resumed. The holdings of the National Archives Still Picture Branch include 226 photographs taken for this project, most of them signed and captioned by Adams. They were taken at the Grand Canyon, Grand Teton, Kings Canyon, Mesa Verde, Rocky Mountain, Yellowstone, Yosemite, Carlsbad Caverns, Glacier, and Zion National Parks; Death Valley, Saguaro, and Canyon de Chelly National Monuments. The Kings Canyon photographs were taken in 1936 when the establishment of the park was being proposed. In addition, there are eight photographs taken by Adams of Yosemite in the General Photographic Files of the National Park Service. To Order: All prints are labelled: "Carlsbad Caverns National Park."
Watch What Happens When Sunlight Hits This Building The Nasir-ul-Mulk Mosque, or Pink Mosque, stands in the middle of Shiraz, Iran and is one of the most beautiful buildings created by man. The mosque stands apart from any other architectural work of art on the planet. Every day, when the sun hits the mosque, the whole building is flooded with a rainbow of color which will surely enchant anyone who visits it. Colors from the stained glass dance across the floor in every shade imaginable, while the walls and ceilings glow with intricately painted colors of their own. The breathtaking mosque was built from 1876 to 1888 and has been a sight of beauty since then. The walls and ceilings of the mosque are painted with the most vibrant colors Every sunny day produces a beautiful display of color As you get closer to the mosque the details become more impressive The Pink Mosque is one of the few mosques in the world to have stained glass The beauty of the mosque is beyond belief People who visit the mosque are enchanted by its beauty
The Creative Process of Ansel Adams Revealed in 1958 Documentary Today marks what would be the 111th birthday of Ansel Adams, the American photographer who captured the sublime power of the wilderness, taking iconic images of the American West, most notably in Yosemite Valley. (See photo gallery here.) Original footage documenting the creative life of Ansel Adams is surprisingly hard to come by online. Ansel Adams, Photographer (1958) is available at YouTube and Archive.org. Follow Open Culture on Facebook and Twitter and share intelligent media with your friends. Related Content: Discover Ansel Adams’ 226 Photos of U.S. Alfred Stieglitz: The Eloquent Eye, a Revealing Look at “The Father of Modern Photography” 1972 Diane Arbus Documentary Interviews Those Who Knew the American Photographer Best Henri Cartier-Bresson and the Decisive Moment
These 14 Clever Drawings Will Make You Question Everything Wrong With The World There's a "secret" message in all of these. Some of them are eye opening! Artist Pawel Kuczynski, who is based in Poland, creates thought-provoking art that will give you another way to view this world. Perhaps it’s something you didn’t see clearly. Other times, he’s just plain satirical. Needless to say, we need more artists that remind us to question what’s “normal” and to encourage us to think outside the box. Image Credit: Pawel Kuczynski Want to take shot at deciphering his work? Credits: SFGlobe, Imgur, Pawel Kuczynski Trending on the Web
Journeys - Yosemite National Park - What Adams Saw Through His Lens - Travel And then you’re there. Pale, curvaceous granite rocks dance in the skyline. Dozens of people stand along the edge of the pull-off, called Tunnel View, trying to capture the scene. Some snap two quick shots with disposable yellow cameras, and others set up their tripods for hours, watching the light strike Yosemite’s monoliths. On the left, El Capitan, a rock climbers’ mecca, appears the tallest. Many people know these sights by name, but more know them by sight alone, as captured through the lens of the legendary American photographer . Adams first visited Yosemite in 1916 when he was 14 years old. The park itself also remained a favorite. The first step on an Ansel Adams-inspired trip to Yosemite is to visit the gallery run by his family. I ordered three books written by Adams from the gallery’s Web site before my trip: Adams’s autobiography, his collected photos of Yosemite and a step-by-step explanation of some of his works called “Examples: The Making of 40 Photographs.”
Wow! History's most iconic photos in colour VJ Day in Times Square Abraham Lincoln Anne Frank Bikini Atoll Thich Quang Duc – The Burning Monk RMS Maurentania Battle of Gettysburg Albert Einstein Courtesy of the incredibly talented Sanna Dullaway The Top 100 ‘Pictures of the Day’ for 2012 Dec 11, 2012 After the positive reception from last year’s Top 50 ‘Pictures of the Day’ for 2011, the Sifter 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. That time has come! Below are the top 100 POTDs for 2012. I can’t thank you enough for taking the time out of your day to check out the site. *Please note the photographs themselves were not necessarily taken in 2012, they just happened to be featured as a POTD this year. Enjoy! COPYRIGHT© 2012 RMS TITANIC, INC; Produced by Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute
Originality in photographs according to US Court of Appeals What is original (and is thus protectable) and what is not in a photograph? Questions like these have troubled copyright lawyers (and possibly courts, too) since the invention of photography itself. As this blogger learnt from The Hollywood Reporter, the First Circuit Court of Appeals has just delivered a decision addressing this Hamlet's dilemma, in little more than 6,000 words. The case is Donald A Harney v Sony Pictures Television, Inc, and A&E Television Networks, LLC, a fascinating appeal from the US District Court for the District of Massachusetts with an even more intriguing factual background. Background On a sunny spring day in 2007, freelancer Donald Harney snapped a photograph of a blonde girl in a pink coat riding piggyback on her father's shoulders while leaving a Boston church on Palm Sunday. In 2010, Sony produced a TV film based on Rockfeller's identity deception and entitled Who is Clark Rockfeller? What the Court of Appeals said
Tim Roda’s Hidden Father: A father draws from his past to create images with his family (PHOTOS). Tim Roda, courtesy DanielCooneyFine Art, New York The black-and-white family photos that make up Tim Roda’s series “Hidden Father” were, for the most part, taken with an old Minolta 35mm camera, the same model Roda’s father had used. It might not seem to be an important detail, but it is significant since Roda’s work is often rooted in family history and domestic life coupled with his attraction to more traditional forms of photography, specifically the film negative. Like Roda’s other work, “Hidden Father” explores the role of the father and the son’s relationship within the family. Roda said that when he was a child his introduction to making art began with his imagination and creating things with whatever happened to be around. “Sometimes there are memories and sometimes other things that trigger ideas that need to come out,” he said. “I work with materials the same way my dad did or my grandfather did,” he said.
The British Library Puts 1,000,000 Images into the Public Domain, Making Them Free to Reuse & Remix Earlier this week, Oxford's Bodleian Library announced that it had digitized a 550 year old copy of the Gutenberg Bible along with a number of other ancient bibles, some of them quite beautiful. Not to be outdone, the British Library came out with its own announcement on Thursday: We have released over a million images onto Flickr Commons for anyone to use, remix and repurpose. The librarians behind the project freely admit that they don't exactly have a great handle on the images in the collection. You can jump into the entire collection here, or view a set of highlights here. To learn more about this British Library initiative, read this other Open Culture post which takes a deeper dive into the image collection. Related Content: The Rijksmuseum Puts 125,000 Dutch Masterpieces Online, and Lets You Remix Its Art The Getty Puts 4600 Art Images Into the Public Domain (and There’s More to Come) The Digital Public Library of America Launches Today, Opening Up Knowledge for All