Photo: Michael Johnson

The Big Picture blog is showcasing 25 entries in this year’s photography contest that National Geographic hosts, asking the world to send in their best.  You can vote on each entry here.  Michael Johnson took this shot and wrote the caption:

This bee was unfortunate enough to land in my pool, but he made some amazing patterns buzzing around in the water. He later escaped.

Link

The Denver Post recently uncovered a collection of photographs taken by Durango, Colorado photographers William Pennington and Lisle Updike between 1915 and 1920. They were featured in the newspaper in 1974. From that article:

These pictures, bearing the stamp of their studio, were recently discovered in a long forgotten file of the Denver Post library.

The two young photographers supported themselves with their portrait business, but satisfied their artistic urges by traveling around the Four Corners area in a wagon taking pictures such as the ones appearing on this page.

“There was no money in taking pictures of Indians,” Updike, 84, said from his winter home in Phoenix, Arizona. His sons and grandsons now operate a chain of Updike studios in Utah and Arizona.

Updike died a couple of years after the original article appeared. The linked post features 16 of those prints. Link -via Cynical-C

(image credit: The Pennington Studio)

Photographer Richard Calmes takes glorious pictures of professional dancers in flight. This photograph (which took many attempts to achieve the result) is from the gallery entitled Beautiful Dancers on the Town. Link to gallery. Link to artist’s site. -via Everlasting Blort

Photo: Corrie White

No, that’s not the AOL Guy casting a cherry spell, it’s actually a drop of milk.  Corrie White discovered a talent for macro-photography  and prefers the dairy product due to its slower rate of descent.  Using dyes and little else, she creates some stunning, gorgeous images… she even shows her modest, kitchen-based studio!

Link Previously on Neatorama- Macrophotography of Dews

Matthew Maynard of Swansea, UK thought he could make himself look a bit better in the newspaper. At least better than the police mugshot that was printed, along with seven other people who police were looking for regarding a burglary. So the 23-year-old suspect took a picture with his cell phone and sent it to the newspaper office, requesting they use it instead of the police mug shot!

Police declined to comment on the provocative picture, taken on Mr Maynard’s mobile phone and texted to the newspaper offices, but said that their recent drive to catch criminals was working.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.

French photographer Fred Lebain took a trip to New York City and took a series of photos around town.  He then revisited those sites after printing out huge poster versions of his shots.  Then he carefully re-aligned the shots to incorporate his previous image into a new, dynamically interesting one.

these postcard images show lebain’s preference for particular areas of the city,
telescoping his views – a time parallax representing the days which separate the two shots -
and superimposing his vision of new york. hands, feet or a pair of jeans can be seen…
like surrealistic winks, indicating that the photographer is not alone in his mission.

Link

I’m a big fan of Nikon Small World, an annual photomicrography competition (featured before on Neatorama in 2007 and 2008). The winners of the 2009 contest have just been announced.

I particularly like this one above, the Atherix ibis (watersnipe fly) aquatic larva magnified 25x by Fabrice Parais of DIREN Basse-Normandie in Hérouville-Saint-Clair, France.

Link | Check out the whole gallery here: Link

Iberian wolves have been persecuted by people who see them as a threat to game and livestock and because of ignorance about the supposed danger they pose… In Spain, the population of Iberian wolves – a subspecies of the grey wolf – is thought to number 1000-2000 in the north, with a few tiny, isolated populations in the south… What José Luis hopes is that his picture, ’showing the wolf’s great agility and strength,’ becomes an image that shows just how beautiful the Iberian wolf is and how the Spanish can be proud of this emblematic animal.

Link, where you can also access winning photographs in other categories.

Usually, when you say "shoot" to a photographer, he starts snapping with his camera – but be careful when you say that to California-based photographer Alan Sailer. He may just start shooting … with bullets!

A photo shoot usually requires a photographer to just point a camera and snap – but U.S. artist Alan Sailer takes the process much more literally. The California-based photographer, 54, has captured a series of otherwise unassuming items as they explode on contact with a bullet. [...]

An expert at high-speed photography, Mr Sailer takes the pictures in a dark room positioned around 20cm from the target. The camera, which features a unique home-made flash, is set at a one-second delay.

Mr Sailer, who describes the process as ‘beyond dangerous, says: ‘The special item is the flash. It is a home-built unit based on the design of Harold Edgerton*. The flash is about .5 microsecond in duration and runs at 17,000 volts. It is beyond dangerous, it’s deadly.

‘The flash is triggered when the pellet from a rifle travelling at about 200 metres per seconds passes through a laser beam. Its the same principle as those beams that set off a chime when you walk into a store,’ he continues.

‘The camera is set at one second and an f-stop of 9-13 depending on the reflectivity of the subject. The flash stops the action. The one second gives me time to click the camera shutter with one hand while I pull the trigger on the rifle with the other.’

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by lifeinrealtime.

This 10-minute video shows the impact of bullets on various targets at 1 million frames per second. It was made by Werner Mehl, an engineer noted for his development of high-speed photography:

Germany’s Werner Mehl is the talented engineer who created the PVM-21 infrared chronograph, in many respects the most sophisticated ballistic speed-measuring system currently available to the general public. Werner runs a company, Kurzzeitmesstechnik, which specializes in high-tech ballistic measuring systems and ultra-high-speed photography. Werner has engineered camera and lighting systems that can literally track a bullet in flight, millimeter by millimeter, with eye-popping resolution. Werner employs digital cameras that record up to 1 million frames per second, with effective shutter speeds as fast as 1.5 nano-seconds. The videos produced by Werner’s systems are amazing. Below are two short samples. The first shows a 7mm bullet penetrating cardboard. Note you can clearly see the engraving of the rifling on the bullet.

Link via Hell in a Handbasket | Werner Mehl’s Website

If you’re going to be in the San Diego area between now and November 1st, be sure to stop by the Lyceum Theater Gallery and see the winners of this year’s global contest.  From My Modern Met’s Alice:

The competition was judged by Charlotte Cotton, the Curator and Head of the Photography Department at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA). Now in its fifth year, Ms. Cotton narrowed down the exhibition to 111 stunning images from over 16,000 photographs she received (from 57 countries).

Link to site with slideshow.  Credits of slideshow
See also 10 Stunning Photos From The Art Of Photography Show on MyModernMet

Photo by Tamas Ladanyi

Today’s Astronomy Picture of the Day is gorgeous!  September 22nd was the Autumn equinox, where we all experienced nearly 12 hours of daylight, and 12 hours of darkness.

Oh, and that building in the background is the Benedictine Archabbey of Tihany, Hungary, which overlooks Lake Balaton.

Link

Brian Bielmann

51-year-old Brian Bielmann has been photographing surfers for over three decades, and has quite an impressive portfolio.  Some of his greatest shots are featured today at the New York Times Lens, including one depicting other surf photogs diving for cover, which effectively communicates the strange, dangerous world these people work in.

From Daniel Slotnik’s article:

Getting the shot in surf photography is “all about reacting and having confidence, and not thinking too  much,” Mr. Bielmann said.  He’s had many close calls, and has drowned 10 cameras by his own count.

An episode at Pipeline, an infamous break off Oahu, stands out. Mr. Bielmann ran out of film and signaled for a water patrolman to tow him to shore on a boogie board behind a Jet Ski. It was the water patrolman’s first time pulling a photographer out of large waves. Instead of waiting for a break in the set, he charged forward into a head-high wall of whitewater. The Jet Ski hit the whitewater and went vertical, meaning it was perpendicular to the boogie board — and Mr. Bielmann.

Link to article |  Link to Brian’s website

Photo: A. Butorin

Not only is this park in the Siberian-Yakutsk region an extremely beautiful sight, but is also regarded as a historically significant area in Earth’s development. The massive tree-like pillars draw tourists and paleontologists regularly, but getting there isn’t easy.

Many spend a lot just to get there and to take a look. This place is where…Siberian woods stand untouched and the only way to get there is to take a four day journey from Moscow city. First, you have to take a flight so long that if you flew opposite direction you could easily come to New York…Then upon the arrival to Yakutia region, the land from where the significant part of world’s diamonds production originate from. Then from there the only way to go to this place is by a boat. Armed native individuals can offer you a “cheap” $500 trip on a small boat, so in three days you can be on spot.

More awesome photos at EnglishRussia:

Link

Photo: Hiroshi Sugimoto

Hiroshi Sugimoto is a Japanese photograher who takes pictures of electrical charges. His exhibit “Lightning Fields” is currently on display at the Fraenkel Gallery in San Francisco. Sugimoto uses a 400,000-volt Van De Graaff generator to directly apply electricity to film. The above image is entitled “Lightning Fields 128, 2008.”

Artist’s Website

Link via Gizmodo

Previously on Neatorama: Hiroshi Sugimoto’s Henry VIII Photos

This series of photographs by Howard Schatz won a second place prize in the Sports Stories category of the World Press Photo Contest. He took pictures of boxers before and after fights. It hurts just to look! Also be sure to check out other contest winners. Link -via J-Walk Blog

The sounds of a cat on bass purr, a loon on lead vocal, two owls, wood stork and cuckoo (solo) are the sole musical instruments in this furry arrangement of the classic, Fur Elise, composed by Ludwig van Beethoven.

You can see who is currently singing at the botton of the screen.

– via SwitchZoo

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Tubehead.

Over 140,000 acres have been consumed by the fire.  But the efforts of the firefighters, beautifully documented by these brave photogs, have contributed to full containment, which is expected by September 15.

Check out all 41 photos at the site: Link (Photograph by Jon Vidar/AP)

That Will Buff Out is a newish photoblog along the lines of Fail Blog and I Can Has Cheezburger, that’s chock full of fun!  Users submit photos of vehicles in compromising positions, and each entry is easily shareable.  Above entry, “Always Helps To Apologize” made me laugh.  Plenty more at the blog…

Link

We’ve featured a number of light graffiti or light painting before on Neatorama, but Jan Wöllert and Jörg Miedza of Light Art Performance Photography took the concept to a whole ‘nother level.

Behold their spectacular artwork here: Link

Is the man in this picture dead or alive? It’s not a silly question. In the early days of photography, dead bodies would be photographed for posterity. Often this would be the only picture ever taken of the person. Sometimes the bodies were posed as if they were alive.

There’s something just unspeakably creepy about this fireman. At first glance, he looks like a normal, awkwardly-posed guy from the 19th century. But upon closer inspection, you notice a few tell-tale signs: a rigid pose and fingers, a stand not quite completely hidden behind his feet, which is holding him up by some unseen armature on his back, liberal amounts of rouge applied to too-white cheeks, and those blank, blank eyes.

This picture is available on eBay. See more possibly post-mortem posed portraits at mental_floss. Link

Photo: Brian Ulrich

Photographer Brian Ulrich has spent the last few year examining “the peculiarities and complexities of the consumer-dominated culture in which we live.” His latest project captures the beauty and sadness of empty stores and failed businesses.

Most recently a new project began in 2008 entitled Dark Stores, Ghost Boxes and Dead Malls. In the recent economic downturn some of the very stores I photographed at the beginning of the project are now emptied and laid barren in the hulking empty architecture of the big box, mall or store.

Link -via Metafilter

Dorothea Lange captured some of the iconic images of the Great Depression.  As such she became one of the founding figures of the golden age of American photojournalism.  From sharecroppers to the Salvation Army, she recorded the times as they were then – and they were pretty harsh if the truth be told.

Lange took to roaming the streets taking pictures of homeless and unemployed people and this very quickly drew the admiration of local photographers. One thing led to another and she found herself employed by the rather harshly named Federal Resettlement Administration, later to become the Farm Security Administration (FSA). He job was to capture the lives and times of those affected by the Depression and to pass these images on – free of charge – to newspapers and magazines. The remarkable image of an ex-slave above was taken in 1938. Just over seventy years separates this shot and the Investiture of President Obama. One wonders if this woman – if informed of this future news by some errant time traveler – would choose to believe the shape of things to come.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.

Photo: David King Collection, London

The New York Times has a slideshow of famous faked photographs, including Abraham Lincoln’s head on John Calhoun’s body and Stalin’s erasure of his enemies. Shown above is the before and after photo manipulation where Nikolai Yezhov, a one-time head of Soviet’s secret police NKVD and a central player in Stalin’s Great Purge was himself purged – from life and this photograph.

Link via Instapundit

Earlier this year, photographers Eamon Lane and Carlo Nicora spent one weekend to photograph one thousand people (Flickr) on the streets of London. They asked the same question more than 1,500 times and succeeded in capturing an image an average of every 40 seconds.

Now, Gerard Franquesa and Sergi López Graells took the idea to Barcelona (Flickr, first image NSFW in a WTF kind of way, though – you’ve been warned) in hope that the idea will then spread to other cities around the world).

It’s kind of like people watching from the comfort of your own home: Link – Thanks Gerard!

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by lord_yo.

Andew Chase is a photographer who creates mechanical sculptures of animals and photographs them in different poses. This cheetah is his latest creation in preparation for his photo book Trionic Morphatractable Engineer.

Artist’s Official Website

A motion capture film of the cheetah

Via io9 (which has pictures of some of his best works)

I love Mark Velasquez’s portrayal of Little Red Riding Hood in this photo. His gallery has a variety of other amazing images. Stop by and enjoy them all.

Link

One hundred years ago this year, Russian photographer Sergey Produkin-Gorsky (pictured left) embarked on a project that was to define his life’s work – to photograph the vast country of Russia and its peoples in full color.  Yes, that’s right color.  Before the first commercial air freight flight, before the invention and testing of the tank and even before the sinking of the Titanic, Prokudin-Gorsky created an unrivalled and astonishing color record of his native country.

The process used involved a camera that would take a set of three photographs. These pictures would be monochrome but each picture would be taken using a filter of a different color. When all three monochrome pictures were projected (using light which had to be specifically colored) then the original color scene could be reconstructed.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.

Photography can be such a serious art, but taken too seriously it becomes formal and boring – at least for folks like Ivar Gravlejs. With 78 exhaustive tips he ranges from humorous to obvious, dead-pan to just plain stupid. Still, some of us would do well to remember the basics when taking pictures – or will at least get a laugh out of his twisted spin on conventional photo tips.

Link via Gawno