MEDITATING MONKS AT PONGOUR FALLS

Photograph by DANG NGO

HANGING OUT ON THE BROOKLYN BRIDGE, 1914

Photograph by Eugene de Salignac/Courtesy NYC Municipal Archives

MOUNT RAINIER CASTING A SHADOW ON CLOUDS

Photograph by Nick Lippert (via Komo News)

7 HOURS IN ONE IMAGE

Photograph by Isil Karanfil (isilkrnfl on deviantART)

ONE BOAT AND 145 WATER-SKIERS

Photograph by MARK SEATON PHOTOGRAPHY

Monday, June 24, 2013

The Worlds Most Famous Unsolved Mysteries

The Assassination of John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy was shot once in the back and once in head while riding with his wife Jacqueline in a Presidential motorcade through the streets of Dallas, Texas on November 22, 1963. Lee Harvey Oswald was arrested 45 minutes after the shots were fired. After hours of interrogation, in which none of the proper procedures were followed, he was accused of murder. He was killed by Jack Ruby in the garage of the police building on November 24 in front of hundreds of journalists. On November 29, President Lyndon B. Johnson created the Warren Commission to investigate the assassination. It was headed by Earl Warren, the Chief Justice of the United States, and found that Oswald was the lone shooter and that he did it from the sixth floor of the Schoolbook Depository Building with an Italian Mannlicher-Carcano rifle.

Jack the Ripper

One of the oldest unsolved murder cases in the world, Jack the Ripper instilled fear into the heart of Victorian London and still captures our imagination today. Between August and November 1888, five prostitutes were murdered in Whitechapel, an area in the East End of London. Everything about the murders seems to be shrouded in mystery, from the identity of the killer to the letters that were sent to the police. Even the number of victims is under scrutiny. It is generally accepted that there were five victims of Jack the Ripper. Jack the Ripper had a real effect on, not only the rest of London, but also the entire British Empire. The legend played on the fears that poverty, crime, disease and social unrest were at their doorstep, and Jack the Ripper became the personification of all these evils.

The Mystery of Stonehenge

Built in three sections over 6,400 years by the Neolithic inhabitants of Salisbury Plain in Southern England, Stonehenge has captivated visitors for thousands of years. The site contains 30 sarcens (upright stones) weighing 26 tons and 30 lintels (horizontal top stones). Each stone weighs 6 tons and was carved from bluestone from a location several miles away. The Neolithic builders were able to create a monumental that has perplexed humanity for thousands of years using only stone tools, and without using draft animals. Even after all these years, nobody really knows why Stonehenge was built. The other mysteries surrounding Stonehenge are its construction and the significance of the giant blue stones used. As a result of the recent discovery, a new theory has emerged, one that states that Stonehenge was a place to celebrate the lives of the dead.

The Lost Island of Atlantis

--> One of the oldest mysteries in the world, the legend of Atlantis has mystified humanity since ancient times. According to the Greek philosopher Plato, Atlantis was a large island somewhere west of the Pillars of Hercules (the Rock of Gibraltar) and the home of an incredibly advanced civilization known as the Atlanteans. Plato described Atlantis as a place of immense beauty with a palace compound in the center of three ringed canals. He said that every king that inherited the palace would add to it, trying to surpass his predecessor and by doing so they made it a palace that surpassed any other in both beauty and wealth. The Atlanteans themselves were blessed with wealth but at the same they were incredibly ambitious, constantly seeking power. Atlantis is said to have met its end when it was hit by a giant earthquake and swallowed by the sea. But is any of this the truth or is the story of Atlantis just a myth?

The Riddle of the Sphinx

When one thinks of the Sphinx, they immediately think of the Great Sphinx at Giza, but the Sphinx was a powerful symbol in Greece, Phoenicia and Syria as well. In fact Riddle of the Sphinx originates in Greek legend. According to the ancient Greeks, if a man crossed its path the Sphinx would ask, “What is the creature that walks on four legs in the morning, two legs in the afternoon and three in the evening?” If they couldn’t answer, the Sphinx would devour them; however, if they answered correctly, the Sphinx would destroy itself. The only person said to survive an encounter with the Sphinx was the Greek hero Oedipus who answered “man.” Despite the riddle being solved, the Great Sphinx still poses many questions. How old is it? Who built it? And what was the purpose of the passageways?

Lost cities found beneath sands of the Sahara

Ruins from a long-lost civilization have been revealed beneath the desert sands of the Sahara. Evidence of the advanced Garamantes civilization had remained mostly undocumented due to the strict regime of Colonel Gaddafi, but now due to recent events in Libya archaeologists have a chance to finally investigate in full the secrets of this long lost ancient culture. “It is like someone coming to England and suddenly discovered all the medieval castles,” said Proffessor David Mattingly. “These settlements had been unremarked and unrecorded under the Gaddafi regime.”

Mysterious skull discovered in Peru

An elongated skull found in the city of Andahuaylillas has managed to baffle anthropologists. The skull possesses a number of unusual features including an elongated cranium, enlarged eye sockets and a set of adult teeth despite the fact that the skull appears to belong to an infant. A group of anthropologists who visited the site to view the skull allegedly concluded that it wasn’t even human while others have suggested that it could be the product of an ancient technique known as “cradle boarding” in which the child’s skull was elongated from an early age.

Bigfoot (aka Sasquatch)

Bigfoot is world-famous for spooking the bejesus out of hikers and hunters in North America and Scientists consider Sasquatch to be the result of folklore, misidentification and a whole lot of hoaxes. However, many people still believe these humanoid creatures exist around the world, just like the Yeti of the Himalayas. One of the most infamous unexplained mysteries in the world today, Bigfoot has been described as an ape-like creature, some 6-10 feet tall, weighing more than 500 pounds, and covered in dark brown or reddish hair. Witnesses give him large eyes, a heavy brow ridge and a crested head, much like a male gorilla. Footprints allegedly belonging to Bigfoot are 24 inches long.

Black Dahlia

She was known as the “Black Dahlia”. She had jet black hair and preferred black dresses and lingerie. Those who knew her best said she had a tattoo of an exotic flower on her inner thigh. She wanted desperately to be a Hollywood actress, but her fame would not come from the movies. It would come from her death, a murder which has gone unsolved for 60 years. On a cold morning in January 1947, the nude, mutilated body of 22-year-old Elizabeth Short was discovered in a vacant lot in the Leimert Park area of Los Angeles. What made the murder so unique was the barbaric nature of the crime. The Black Dahlia’s body had been neatly severed in half, gutted and drained of blood. Author Lawrence P. Scherb put the unusual crime into perspective: “Her face had been very brutally cut from ear to ear in a grin. Her throat had been cut and she had been mutilated sexually. Basically, she was the worst case of a sex crime in the history of Los Angeles County.”

Tuesday, June 18, 2013

5 Art Websites that Will Inspire You


Image from Flickr user Nina Matthews Photography
Art has the power to make us think outside the box, ask questions, fascinate and inspire curiosity. Whether the medium is through paint, photography or design, art is something that surrounds us every day and is objective in taste. We have compiled a list of  five websites that will dazzle your eyes, challenge your mind and expose you to many different lenses of artistic endeavors. This list is just the tip of the iceberg, so please feel free to tell us about any art websites that you recommend.
1.
ARTINFO
WHAT An online publication with up to the minute news about art and culture,
featuring reviews and events.
IN DETAIL ARTINFO.com is a creation of Louise Blouin Media and has a variety of
sections ranging from performing arts and fashion to lifestyle and visual arts.
UNIQUE For all the art connoisseurs out there, the site offers an index of sold paintings searchable by artist name, giving insight into the value of an artist at a given time and their marketing trend.
Image: Screenshot from ARTINFO.com
2.

Monday, May 27, 2013

Water Bridge in Germany

Water Bridge in Germany 


Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Tallest mountain "Mount Everest" #Nepal

Tallest mountain "Mount Everest"
Mount Everest is one of the tallest mountains in the world. It is part of the Himalayan Mountains. They were formed in the last few million years. After the supercontinent of Laurasia broke up millions of years ago, India moved slowly north towards Asia and then crashed into it. The seabed between the two plates (the earth's crust is divided into large areas of land called plates) was crumbled and pushed up on the northern rim of India to form mountains. These two plates of the earth's crust are still moving, so the Himalayas are being pushed up higher.
The highest mountain on the planet, Mount Everest is growing two inches taller each year. Satellite technology says the mountain is currently 29,107 feet tall. First recognized as the highest peek in 1852, it got its western name ten years later in 1862. Mount Everest was named for Sir George Everest (1790-1866), a British surveyor. Surveyors don't agree on the height of Mount Everest. The British government in the 1800's thought the height was 29,002 feet. In 1954 the Indian government said it's 29,028 feet, but a widely used unofficial figure says it is 29,141 feet! 
Mount Everest lies on Nepal  
People from the western hemisphere weren't allowed to climb Mount Everest until the early 1920's. The first known climb that made it to the top was made by a New Zealander named Edmund Hillary and a Nepalese named Tenzing Norgay. They climbed the mountain in 1953. Since then Everest has been climbed by 400 people. Access is restricted by the Nepalese to prevent too much damage to the environment.
Mount Everest is 97 degrees below freezing, talk about cold!
IT LIES IN NEPAL


Friday, January 11, 2013

Quit Dissing My Megapixels--I love all 36 million of them!

Quit Dissing My Megapixels--I love all 36 million of them!

First of all, I must say that I have resisted the urge to write this post for over a year because I know I am going to get dozens of comments saying nothing more than “Megapixels are unnecessary–I want ISO.”  I often think that photographers simply repeat what they have heard other pro photographers teach online, and stick to it instead of investigating things on their own.
Before I get nerdy on you, allow me to provide some background if you’re newer to this debate.  On a camera sensor, there are millions of light receptors (called photosites) that collect information about how much light is present, color, and other information.  It used to be, in the early days of digital photography, that camera manufacturers could only fit 2 or 3 million pixels on these sensors.  Now, a sensor of the same size can contain 30 or more megapixels.  The problem with the proliferation of mexapixels on a sensor is that it reduces the space available for each photosite.  The smaller the photosites are, the more difficult it is for camera manufacturers to create cameras that can take pictures with high ISO levels and still maintain a low amount of digital noise.  So many photographers argue that they don’t want camera manufacturers to keep adding more megapixels on a sensor, and would prefer that the manufacturers instead focus on low light performance.

I COMPLETELY understand this sentiment.  I have missed many pictures in low light environments because my camera simply couldn’t take a clean picture without adding more light to the scene with a flash.  I understand that if all else is equal, the camera with fewer megapixels will produce images with less noise because each photosite has a larger area of light to gather from.  I get it.  Really–I do.  This mirrors a conversation I had with Scott Bourne a few weeks ago at the Google+ Photographer’s Conference, where he argued that the new Nikon D800 (which has 36.3 megapixels) should not be used by portrait photographers because it has too many megapixels.  I very respect Scott, but we disagree on this point.

Future-Proof Your Images with Higher Megapixel Cameras

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

How to Photograph the Milky Way

How to Photograph the Milky Way
Last week, I took a photo of the Milky Way above an old schoolhouse building in Idaho. I posted the photo on our Facebook page, and it received 1,548 likes, 177 comments, and was shared 84 times. I was pretty happy (okay, fine… I was ecstatic) that so many of you said such nice things about my picture.
MANY of you asked how the photo was taken, and wanted a tutorial on photographing the Milky Way.  Your wish is my command.
Milky Way in Idaho
Camera Settings for Night Photography of the Milky Way

Wednesday, January 2, 2013

50 essential photography tips

50 essential photography tips
Whether photography is a hobby or a profession, you'll get a whole lot more out of it if you understand how it works. With a firm grasp of aperture, shutter speed, sensitivity and focal length, the ratio of truly great to merely mediocre shots you download at the end of an expedition is all but guaranteed to climb.
Here we present CNET UK's 50 essential shooters' tips. Don't uncap your lens without them.
Aperture
1. Understand aperture
The most fundamental element any photographer should understand is aperture. The aperture is the physical opening within your lens that allows light through to the sensor (or film in an older camera). The wider the aperture opening, the more light can pass through, and vice versa.

Sunday, December 30, 2012

A women shares her home with 11 cats – four cheetahs, five lions and two tigers!

A women shares her home with 11 cats – four cheetahs, five lions and two tigers

Riana Van Nieuwenhuizen, shares her home with 11 cats – four cheetahs, five lions and two tigers! Wow, What a lady!
The sanctuary worker shares her South African home with not one but FOUR orphaned cheetahs, five lions and two tigers.
Forty-six-year-old Riana said: ‘I love them all. But they’re a handful.’
Riana bought her first cheetah, Fiela in 2006, after realising the big cats were in trouble and heading for extinction with only 1000 left in Africa.

Saturday, December 29, 2012

Save Digital Photos as RAW or JPEG

Save Digital Photos as RAW or JPEG
Should photographers save their digital photos in RAW format or JPEG in their camera? Many photographers are unsure which digital photo format has the best image quality.
However, most digital photos end up as JPEGs for printing or web display. The real choice is where to process the RAW image data from the digital sensor. Should photographers do it in the camera as part of the picture taking process, or save the RAW image data and process it later on a computer using specialist software, such as Adobe Lightroom or DxO Optics Pro.
Saving digital photos in RAW format is not a magical recipe to give instantly better photos than saving as a JPEG photo in the camera. Many photographers claim the JPEGs from their camera look just as good as the RAW images, and in some cases better.  They unintentionally are misleading themselves, and others, because they are not completely wrong. In ideal lighting conditions digital cameras produce JPEGs with little or no difference in quality to those from RAW files.