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The Beauty Of High-Rise Architecture, In Photographs
The towering structures that loom over us during our walk around the busy city can look similar and bleak. With some of them opting for glass windows and minimal designs on their architecture, we might think that they’re all just bland– but not really!Photographer Chris Hytha decided to document historic high rises to show the different artworks that can be found atop a structure’s spire. Additionally, there is creativity and art involved in the choice of a building’s gilding and signage, which differentiates it from the rest of the city skyline.His initial idea to complete this project was to photograph them from adjacent rooftops, but it proved to be challenging. He then turned to the next idea on his list: photographing from a helicopter with a telephoto lens. This too proved challenging as the costs of renting helicopters were far too expensive for his budget. In the end, he decided to take the photos via drone photography. While he encountered issues with his drone, such as its low resolution, Hytha found a way eventually to solve them. “The high-rise images are created by scanning the building façade with images at each floor level, then manually stitching the series of landscape images into one vertical composition,” he shared. “This technique is time-consuming but well worth it for the extra sharpness and resolution it provides! One of the side effects of this method is the flattening of perspective, making the images almost like an orthographic architectural elevation.”Image credit: Chris Hytha via My Modern Met #photography #drones #dronephotography #highrise #art
AI Generates Victorian-Era People
Alright, it’s best for us to put a disclaimer here: a computer is not spitting out actual human people. It’s simply portraits. Although the idea of an AI actually generating living creatures is terrifying, and sounds like the next big sci-fi series (or book, we’re not picky).Midjourney is an AI image generator that is capable of creating ultra-photorealistic images. Photographer Mario Cavalli decided to play with this application, and subsequently released a set of images that certainly took us by surprise. These photographs feel like a memento of a lost period of time, as they showcase different portraits of people in very realistic moments and poses. One would think they’re actually real. According to Cavalli, these images were straight from the machine learning tool. No Photoshop was required to make them stand out. “Midjourney v4 came out recently, I think it is currently the best [image generator] around,” Cavalli shared to PetaPixel, praising the quality of the generated photographs.In order to get these wonderful, hyper-realistic results the photographer built on and adapted text prompts created by Everton Lisboa and Ben Roffelson. These words are used in tools such as Midjourney to describe what image the user wants. For reference, Cavalli used the phrases “sharp focus,” “10mm lens,” and “wet collodion photography.”Image credit: Mario Cavalli on Midjourney#photography #artificialintelligence #AI #MarioCavalli #Midjourney #portraits
2022 NASA Photographer of the Year Winners
NASA's annual photography competition for its employees has concluded, and 12 images received accolades consisting of first, second, and third place awards in four categories: Portrait, Documentation, People, and Places. Shown above is the first place winner in the Portrait category. This is astronaut Thomas Marshburn, photographed by NASA photographer Josh Valcarel.
Jupiter, Io, and Europa in One Photo Taken by NASA's Juno Spacecraft
It looks like Juno has caught her husband cheating again. This time with two women at once!All mythological jokes aside (let’s get real this amazing yet lowkey funny instance was just the opening for a cheesy joke), there is no cheating involved. This is merely a great feat of technological advancement and scientific prowess.NASA’s Juno is a spacecraft dedicated to orbiting Jupiter and observing the happenings within the planet and its nearby celestial neighbors. The orbiter was able to capture an image of the planet and its two moons nearby in just one photo! The two moons seem to be very far from Jupiter, as the spacecraft was flying closer to the planet at 8,000 miles (61,000 kilometers). Regardless, this rare photo is still amazing! The image was processed by scientist Andrea Luck using the data from the JunoCam instrument, which captured the photograph.Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS#space #Jupiter #Juno #Io #Europa #moons #photography #NASA
Amazing Photos of Cold-Water Invertebrates by Marine Biologist Alexander Semenov
These are absolutely stunning!At first glance, one might think that the images were taken by a drone or a robot during an expedition and then edited or processed for better quality. Nope.It was all the work of marine biologist Alexander Semenov. In an article he wrote for Nature, he explained how he started taking these awe-inspiring photos. Semenov got obsessed with the beauty of the animals living in the waters of the White Sea in Primosrskiy, Russia. Semenov then decided to start taking photos of them to capture their unique beauty and strangeness. The marine biologist shared that he pulled invertebrates out of the water and took pictures of them in the laboratory without special lighting. After a few experimental setups to further enhance the quality of his images, he was able to find his groove. Semenov now has the compilation of cold-water invertebrates, some of the least-photographed creatures in the world. Check out more of his stunning work below!Image credit: Alexander Semenov#marine #animals #invertebrates #photography #science
Photographer Captured the "Impossible" Photo of the Milky Way Over the Golden Gate Bridge
On this particular evening, photographer Michael Shainblum only planned to go to the Marin Headlands to catch the sunset with his friend Joe. Unfortunately, the fog suddenly settled over the place. However, Shainblum decided not to go back home and instead "went with the flow," thinking about what he could photograph during this foggy night. Little did he know that this would be something unique. The fog that suddenly appeared out of nowhere turned out to be the perfect cover for the light pollution, allowing Shainblum to photograph the Milky Way and the Golden Gate bridge all in the same frame. The warm lights covered in fog also served as a great contrast against the cool night sky. It was a night of photography and timelapse videos.What an out-of-this-world fantastic photo!Images: Michael Shainblum#GoldenGate #MilkyWay #Photography #Surreal #Breathtaking #astrophotography
Photographer Andrew McCarthy Captured a Stunning Photo of the Comet Leonard or the "Christmas Comet" from his Backyard
Andrew McCarthy snapped stunning photos of Comet Leonard as it passed by our planet. The photographer went outside in his backyard and took photographs of the comet for about 12 minutes. In an Instagram post, McCarthy shared that he couldn’t see the comet with his eye alone, and used binoculars to see it clearly. “You can actually capture it with just a cell phone if you know where to look!” He added. The photographer used a modified SCT telescope to capture 25 separate 30-second exposures. In order to achieve the gorgeous photo of the comet above, McCarthy stacked the 25 frames together to achieve the zoomed-in effect as well!Image credit: Andrew McCarthy#photography #comets #space
Winners of the Close-up Photographer of the Year 2021
The top 100 winners of Close-up Photographer of the Year 03 (2021) or CUPOTY 03 are now featured on its website showing the winners gallery.The Close-up Photographer of the Year website was the brainchild of husband-and-wife duo Tracy and Dan Calder of Winchester, UK. They wanted to put close-up, macro and micro photography on the center stage and be celebrated in its own right.Tracy, a former editor of Outdoor Photography and a features editor at Amateur Photography, has over 20 years experience in the photo magazine industry. She’s also a photography instructor at West Dean College in Sussex, and an author of Close-up & Macro Photography, which has been translated into French and Chinese. Dan is a contributor to Black + White Photography magazine.This year’s Close-up Photographer of the Year (CUPOTY 03) has more than 9000 photos from 55 countries across nine different categories. These categories are insects, animals, plants and fungi, underwater, butterflies and dragonflies, intimate landscape, manmade, micro, and young.From each category, the top three winners were chosen alongside with the other finalists. Here are the top three winners per category.#photography #CUPOTY #MacroPhotography #CloseupPhotography #photographycompetitionInsects
Japanese Man Took a Selfie as Mount Aso Volcano Erupted Behind Him
This Japanese hiker has probably crossed a monumental feat off his bucket list, as he was able to snap a photo of himself in front of an erupting volcano.According to Japanese broadcaster RKK Kumamoto, the man decided to hike near the summit of Mount Nakadake, one of the five peaks of Mount Aso, which happened to erupt as he was about to take a selfie. “When I was looking through [my camera], the white smoke turned black, and after about three seconds, I heard a swooshing sound,” the man told RKK, according to Futurism. “I was scared. I never thought I would encounter such a thing.”#selfie #Volcanos #OddTiming #MountNakadake #MountAso #Volcanos #VolcanicEruption #Photographyimage credit: u/sinmantky via Reddit / Futurism
Winners of the World Photography Day 2021
Every captured photo lets us look into the photographer's lens and gives us a glimpse of the beauty they have experienced. Each photograph tells a story interpreted differently in the eyes of the beholder. Flickr blog announced its World Photography Day 2021 winners last September 28. There were 33,214 photo entries for their multi-category photo contest celebrating the theme of nature, objects and structures, animals, and people. Netherlands-based photographer Joris Vegter won the grand prize for his photograph "Bee Sleepover". His love for photography started when he took photos of his son's birth. He wanted to capture some things that people normally can't see.Image: Joris Vegter#Photography #PhotographyContest #Winners
How Mushroom Time-Lapse Videos are Filmed
Have you seen the Netflix documentary called Fantastic Fungi? Well, this particular show featured a lot of amazing time-lapse videos of different fungal species, which shows spectacular camerawork done by Louie Schwartzberg.The filmmaker has filmed footage of different fungi and will spend 24 hours a day, seven days a week, continuously taking videos. Schwartzberg’s dedication to his craft is seen through the masterpieces he has helped create, including the documentary mentioned earlier. Wired features the process that the visual artist and his team did to finish Fantastic Fungi. Check the video below!Image credit: Louie Schwartzberg/Wired #FantasticFungi #Louie Schwartzberg #TimeLapse #Photography #Netflix #Wired
1.4 Billion Pixel Resolution Radar Image of the Moon's Tycho Crater
The image above is only part of a 5x5-meters-resolution image taken by the Green Bank Telescope (GBT)-- the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope. This new photograph of the Moon’s Tycho Crater contains approximately 1.4 billion pixels. That’s a lot of pixels!The image is the highest resolution ever taken from the ground thanks to GBT’s radar technology. The scientists and engineers who worked on this project managed to cover an area of 200 km by 175 km, and were able to capture the entire crater. This early image has garnered support and funding for the project from the scientific community. More images will be released in the fall due to the time needed to process the billions of pixels captured by the telescope. Image credit: NRAO/GBO/Raytheon/NSF/AUI#Moon #TychoCrater #GreenBankTelescop #RadarTechnology #Photography
Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2021
Winners of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2021 competition have just been announced. The annual astronomy photography competition, now in its 13th year, is hosted by the Royal Observatory Greenwich and drew more than 4,500 entries, including many featuring images of distant galaxies that require the use of powerful telescopes.The overall winner of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year 2021 was Shuchang Dong who took this deceptively simple photo of a solar eclipse titled "The Golden Ring" shown above. Dong took the photo in the Ali region of Tibet on June 21, 2020."This place has year-round sunny weather, but in front of the annular eclipse, I saw dark clouds all over the sky," Dong said, "We were waiting with anxious minds but we were lucky. Within a minute of the annular eclipse, the sunshine penetrated through the clouds and afterwards the Sun was sucked into the thick clouds.""This image demonstrates both the beauty and simplicity of an eclipse, but also the science behind this astronomical event," noted competition judge Emily Drabek-Maunder, "Our sun can still be seen as a ring circling the Moon as it passes in front of the Sun, and mountains on the lunar surface can be seen hiding some of this light on the lower righthand portion of the image. This is a stunning achievement!"View more of the fantastic photos of the Astronomy Photographer of the Year competition below.#astronomy #photography #AstronomyPhotographeroftheYear #ShuchangDong #sun #solareclipse
Check Out These Highly Commended Photos From The 2021 Wildlife Photographer of the Year Competition
The Natural History Museum in London, England, is no stranger when it comes to reviewing thousands of photo submissions for their annual international Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition. However, this year saw a record-breaking number of photographs submitted to the contest. This year, anonymous industry experts reviewed over 50,000 entries from photographers in 95 countries. Now that's a lot!“It was the overall quality of entries that took us by surprise. With most travel plans cancelled over the past year, photographers seem to have spent extra time considering what gems to submit,” says Roz Kidman Coz, chair of the judging panel and former BBC Wildlife editor.“There are stand-out pictures of unforgettable scenes and encounters – those unique wild moments, skillfully framed, that result from knowledge, experience and planning – but also fresh, beautiful observations of nature close to home or in close-up. The result is a collection of both thought-provoking images and ones that, in these dark times, remind us of the joy and wonder to be had from nature.”While the winning images are yet to be announced on October 12, 2021, here are some highly commended images from the competition. The stories behind the stunning photos are told over at BBC Wildlife. Why don't you have a look?(Image Credit: The great swim by Buddhilini de Soyza (Sri Lanka/Australia)/Wildlife Photographer of the Year)#Wildlife #Photography #WildlifePhotographerOfTheYear #NaturalHistoryMuseum
Do Not Erase: Images of Mathematicians' Chalkboards by Jessica Wynne
The works of photographer Jessica Wynne are currently in the Edwynn Houk Gallery in New York. The exhibition, called Do Not Erase, includes images of mathematicians’ chalkboards full of formulas.The photographs, at first glance, can be mistaken for the actual chalkboards themselves, provide a glimpse of how an academic mind works in the middle of brainstorming and discovery. According to the gallery’s press release, “Wynne’s blackboards illuminate the power of the whirling web of shapes, numbers, and calculations scribbled in the heat of discovery.” Through the artist’s lens, the complex calculations and mathematical concepts displayed on these boards in the form of scribbles, scrawls, or rough writing are linked to the timeless lineage of artistry and writing: cave paintings, hieroglyphics, and graffiti.Image credit: Jessica Wynne/Edwynn Houk Gallery#Photography #JessicaWynne #EdwynnHoukGallery #Blackboards #Mathematics
These Amazing Aerial Photographs are Winners of the Drone Photo Awards 2021
From thousands of pink-footed geese meeting the winter to a large power plant emitting smoke in the background, the winners of this year's Drone Photo Awards show things that we don't usually see on the ground. Ironically, while the photos look definitely beautiful as one looks with the right perspective at the right time, the stories behind some shots could rather be heartbreaking.Image Credit:The Great Divide by Janessa Anderson
Fantastic Book Dioramas by 'Book Whisperer' Elizabeth Sagan
What happens when a photographer is a bibliophile? She uses her books to make extraordinary photos. This is the case for Elizabeth Sagan, a photographer who uses books to create wonderful art pieces. Here are some of her works:
"Heaven" by Roman De Giuli is an Artistic Recreation of Flowing Clouds in the Sky Using Just Ink and Watercolors
Nope. There are no digital visual effects in this video. All scenes here were created using water colors, ink, acrylic paint, and shot with a very powerful camera. Spending weeks upon weeks of tweaking shots, “mixing paint and staring at a wet piece of paper”, German photographer and filmmaker Roman de Giuli finally finished this project, which he aptly titled “Heaven”. If you haven’t seen an otherworldly video before, this might just be it. (Image Credit: Roman De Giuli via YouTube) #Surreal #Heaven #Spiritual #Videography #Photography
Citric Acid Photographed in Stunning Clarity
Meet Vance Williams, a professor of organic materials at Simon Fraser University. Williams, aside from being a scientist, is also creating art with his scientific findings.In order to convey the information he discovered during his studies, Williams creates images of different chemicals and organic materials. His photos are bright, vibrant, and abstract. At first glance, the photos he publishes online look like drawn artworks, but they’re not!Williams employs different steps in creating his magnificent images. Take, for example, his photo of a citric acid crystal. First he dissolves the material in water, then he lets it evaporate on a microscope slide. To generate the different colors for the image, he views the crystals with polarized optical microscopy. Finally, he chooses a slide and processes it using the site Make Hyperbolic Tilings of Images.Aside from generating images of citric acid, Williams has also captured images of different organic materials. Check some of his images below and more on his Instagram! Image credit: Vance Williams #Chemistry #Photography #ScientificPhotography #OrganicMaterials #Science #Art #CitricAcid #PolarizedOpticalMicroscopy
The FPV Drone: Seeing The World Like A Bird
This is what diving from Angel Falls in Venezuela looks like. And no. This footage is not 3D-rendered animation. This is real footage. Yes. This kind of footage is now possible thanks to First Person View (FPV) drones.Ellis van Jason, the videographer who filmed the Angel Falls shot, describes the experience as being like a bird. “You can fly wherever you want.”While the footage produced by the FPV drones istruly breathtaking, it is a costly stunt for the videographer, as there is a possibility that he might lose his drone in the process. This is why Ellis, as well as his student, Julio, advise those who like to give FPV drones a shot to understand the technicalities of the drone, as well as practice flying the drone through simulations.(Image Credit: CNN)#Drone #Photography #DronePhotography #Videography #DroneVideography #Film #FPVDrone #EllisVanJason #AngelFalls #waterfall #Venezuela
Image Competition Winners Show the Diversity of Ecological Science
The image above by Kristen Brown shows a school of jackfish swimming in a spiral at the Great Barrier Reef. It was the overall winner in the 2021 photo competition from the scientific journal BMC Ecology and Evolution. The picture also won in the category Conservation Biology. The competition attracted entries from researchers all around the world eager to use their creativity to highlight their work and capture the diversity of the planet's flora and fauna. BMC Ecology and Evolution invited anyone affiliated with a research institution to submit to one of the following six categories: ‘Conservation Biology', 'Evolutionary Developmental Biology and Biodiversity', 'Behavioural Ecology', 'Human Evolution and Ecology', ‘Population Ecology' and 'Ecological Developmental Biology'.Our Senior Editorial Board Members lent their expertise to judge the entrants to the competition, selecting the overall winner, runner up and best image from each category. The board members considered the scientific story behind the photos submitted in addition to their artistic judgement (Fig. 1).#jackfish #fish #biology #photography #photocompetition
Anna Isabella’s Gorgeous Photos in Iceland
It was Anna Isabella’s first time in Iceland, and she spent the last four months in the country for her years-long self-portrait project. And boy, was she lucky being in the country, being able to witness the eruption of Reykjanes, and being able to take photos of the Northern Lights.“I can definitely say that no other place has inspired me more as a photographer,” she says in her documentary film about her experience. “During my time here, I’ve experienced more incredible things that I could ever hope for,” she continues.For Isabella, her photos express her love for nature and her connection to it.#Iceland #NorthernLights #Reykjanes #VolcanicEruption #Photography(Image Credit: Anna Isabella Photography via YouTube)
Moving Through Objects Like A Bullet
Specifically made to zoom into tiny objects, the Laowa 24mm probe lens allows us to see even the tiniest details of everyday objects. Cinematographer Ben Ouaniche, founder of the Macro Room, demonstrates the capabilities of the probe lens by zooming in inside a bottle with leftover orange juice, a glove, between the pages of a book, and through a cleaning brush.While the probe lens does not really fire bullets, Ouaniche presents it as if it was a sniper rifle. He adds both visual and sound effects on the video. The result is a mesmerizing experience.#Photography #Camera #ProbeLens #Cinematography #VisualEffects #BenOuaniche #MacroRoom(Image Credit: Macro Room/ YouTube)
Great Grey Owl Perfectly Camouflages Itself
James S. Batuigas is a 45-year-old photographer who loves to go out and enjoy nature. One day, he decided to look for the great grey owl. He drove for about five hours by car to his favorite wildlife spot in British Columbia. Batuigas arrived by the forest road at around noon time — an ideal time to search for these birds as they rested at noon. Driving by the forest road, the amateur photographer scanned every tree that he could see. Suddenly, out of the corner of his eye, he saw some kind of movement in a tree trunk. It was what he was looking for. It was the great grey owl. The owl was perfectly camouflaged on the tree bark, probably scanning the environment for its prey.“If the owl didn't look at me, I would have missed it,” said Batuigas about the owl hiding in plain sight.People were thrilled to see the picture, and commented about the owl’s amazing stealth. Others congratulated Batuigas for spotting the elusive owl.I’d be scared if I was the bird’s prey.(Image Credit: @edseljamesbatuigas via Instagram)#Photography #Camouflage #Owl #Stealth
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