‘The Winners’ by Rafal Milach
This book is dedicated to winners of various state and local competitions supported by the Belarusian authorities. The list of the winners also includes the best of the best in contests promoting beauty or public space maintenance. Winners are present in kolkhozes, schools, public institutions, nightclubs, village discos and on Boards of Honour in almost each Belarusian town.
Belarus, officially the Republic of Belarus, has been called the last remaining dictatorship of Europe. The more unstable Aleksandr Lukashenko’s regime is, the more dangerous and oppressive it becomes to the people and the last presidential elections in January 2011 confirmed this. People protested against the regime and demonstrations were brutally pacified, journalists beaten up and opposition leaders imprisoned.
When the economic crisis in Belarus reached its peak in spring 2011, the attention of the public was distracted by terrorist attacks on the Minsk metro on April 11th. The police acted shockingly quick and announced proudly that they detained the perpetrators only hours after the tragedy. Just a few months later, after a secret trial with limited access to self-defense, two men were sentenced to death.
No matter what happens, the message given to society by the regime is clear: everything is under control and Belarus has a bright future ahead.
Exploring this motto, I decided to become a propaganda photographer and tried to capture the sense of national pride purported by multiple state institutions. Using this façade, I endeavored to portray the winners of various contests of national and regional level. The heroes of this project represent the best of the best.
-Rafal Milach Continue reading »
Miniature Donkeys Are The Best Friend Anyone Ever Had
15-month-old Jack Johnston gets caught up in a cuddle sandwich with micro miniature donkeys called ‘Snuggle Pot’ and ‘Livingstone’ at Amelia Rise Donkeys. (David Caird / Newspix / Rex USA)
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“Las Mayas” Celebrations In Spain
In this photo taken on Sunday, May 11, 2014, a “Maya” girl sits on an altar during the traditional celebration of “Las Mayas” on a street, in central Madrid, Spain. The festivity of the Maya comes from pagan rites and dates from the medieval age, appearing in ancient documents, it takes place every year in the beginning of May and celebrates the beginning off the spring. A girl between 7 and 11years is chosen as “Maya” and should sit still, serious, and quiet for a couple of hours in an altar on the street decorated with flowers and plants, afterwards they walk to the church with their family where they attend a ceremony. (Photo by Daniel Ochoa de Olza/AP Photo)
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Rice Paddy Art
Tanbo Art is the strategic planting of four varieties of rice which have different colored leaves in order to create a giant image in the rice paddy. This type of aesthetic planting began in the Japanese village of Inakadate in 1993 in order to celebrate the village’s over 2000 year history of rice farming. The practice has spread to other rice cultivating communities in Japan and even other countries such as Thailand and South Korea.
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Pregnant Fitness Fanatic
“Mum-to-be Meghan Leatherman, 33, was pumping iron the day she went into labour. As well as going to the gym four times a week, Meghan, from Arizona, continued to walk her dog for three miles a day and go on a four-mile hike through the mountains every week. But far from doing herself or her first baby damage, Meghan, a marketing and communications consultant, insists they’re both healthier for it and her pregnancy was actually easier.
Now she is settling in to life as a mum after giving birth to 6 lb, 11 oz daughter, Florence Germaine, on May 3. But she expects to be back at the gym again in just three weeks”. – Barcroft Media. Photos: Meghan Umphres Leatherman, 9 months pregnant and dilated to 1cm seen lifting a heavy weight at her home town gym in Phoenix, Arizona. (Photos by Dave Cruz/Barcroft Media)
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Star Trails Pictured In The Night Sky
Star trails are pictured from a road in Singapore. These astonishing images of night sky are captured by Singapore based photographer Justin Ng. The pictures were taken between November 2013 to January 2014. It show’s star trail caused by the earth’s rotation and also can be achieved by zooming the DSLR lens inward or outward in small steps using a dedicated motorized zooming device. (Photo by Justin Ng/Barcroft Media)
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Madagascar Battles Locust Swarms
A helicopter of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) flies through millions of Locusts as spreads pesticide to fight against a swarm of locusts threatening to reach Amparihibe village on May 7, 2014 in Tsiroanomandidy, Madagascar. . FAO mission is to fight the locust’s swarm with an insecticide. (Photo by AFP Photo/RIJASOLO) Continue reading »
Girl Photographed Every Day Of Her Life Turns 18 Tomorrow
From the very first smile to a first tooth, baby steps and heading off to school, it’s common for parents to capture the precious moments of their children growing up. But Suman Bansal from Gillingham, Kent, has been photographed every single day of her life since she was born on May 16 1996, totalling an astonishing 6,575 pictures.
The student, who turns 18 tomorrow, is used to smiling for photographs taken by her father Munish, who has documented his daughter’s life from the very beginning. And now every single image has been pieced together to make a giant portrait of the teenager in time for her 18th birthday.
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‘Wildlife Selfies’ by National Geographic
National Geographic asked Heads agency in Sao Paulo in Brazil, to make posters of animals doing selfies with their mobile phones in front of their bedroom, elevator and bathroom’s mirrors. A funny campaign leaded by Silvio Medeiros and Pedro Galdi. Continue reading »
Matt Rainwaters Captures Okie Noodling Fisherman for New York Times Magazine
Austin, Texas-based Matt Rainwaters takes fascinating pictures of people, places and things. Recently he photographed the Okie Noodling Tournament, Festival and Fish Fry, held in Pauls Valley, OK each year. Rainwaters had his series of marvelous characters from the tournament published in The New York Time Magazine. This event is steeped in backwoods tradition and attracts media from all over the world. Continue reading »
Art Eggcident By Henk Hofstra
With “Art Eggcident,” Dutch artist Henk Hofstra demonstrates what it would look like if God threw giant eggs down at us. The eight large, sunny side up eggs measure almost 100 feet wide in diameter. The installation took place in Leeuwarden, a city in the north of the Netherlands.
“I hope it becomes a meeting place with room for art,” says Henk. “Art that is different than a framed picture on the wall or a boring bronze sculpture. Art that shows us a different look, surprises us, or makes us angry or happy. Art that allows photographers to grab their cameras and arouses journalists. Art that evokes emotion, or provokes wild laughter.”
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Fisherman Catch Record Breaking Mako Shark
A fisherman caught a record-breaking 805lb Mako shark – and then barbecued and ate it with his friends. Joey Polk, 29, and his two cousins Earnie Polk, 43, and Kenny Peterson, 21, battled the 11ft predator for more than an hour before finally hauling it onto the beach. They normally tag and release their catches for conservation but were unable to resuscitate this one and instead made it the main course at a jumbo-sized family barbecue. The huge shark, caught at a secret location on the Florida Panhandle on April 15, beat a previous weight record set by Earnie for a mako weighing 730lbs, set in February 2009.
Joey Polk, 29, holding open the jaws of the 11ft mako shark. (Photo by Joey Polk/Barcroft Media)
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Pop Pop Bang By Thomas Brown & Anna Burns
A collaboration between creative director Anna Burns and the photographer Thomas Brown. Through the use of various mediums the pair have curated an exhibition that explores the masculine world of B-Movies and juxtaposed it with the traditional British landscape.
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Indonesia’s Medical Mannequin Industry
A craftsman works on making human anatomy mannequins on April 23, 2014 in Depok, West Java, Indonesia. The mannequins are made from fiberglass and will be used in schools, hospitals and laboratories. (Photo by Nurcholis Anhari Lubis/Getty Images)
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What the World Eats By Peter Menzel And Faith D’Aluisio
A stunning photographic collection featuring portraits of people from 30 countries and the food they eat in one day. In this fascinating study of people and their diets, 80 profiles are organized by the total number of calories each person puts away in a day. Featuring a Japanese sumo wrestler, a Massai herdswoman, world-renowned Spanish chef Ferran Adria, an American competitive eater, and more, these compulsively readable personal stories also include demographic particulars, including age, activity level, height, and weight. Essays from Harvard primatologist Richard Wrangham, journalist Michael Pollan, and others discuss the implications of our modern diets for our health and for the planet. This compelling blend of photography and investigative reportage expands our understanding of the complex relationships among individuals, culture, and food.
Oswaldo Gutierrez, Chief of the PDVSA Oil Platform GP 19 in Lake Maracaibo, Venezuela with his typical day’s worth of food. (From the book What I Eat: Around the World in 80 Diets.) The caloric value of his day’s worth of food on a day in December was 6000 kcals. He is 52 years of age; 5 feet, 7 inches tall; and 220 pounds. Gutierrez works on the platform for seven days then is off at home for seven days. While on the platform he jogs on its helipad, practices karate, lifts weights, and jumps rope to keep fit. His food for the seven days comes from the platform cafeteria which, though plagued with cockroaches, turns out food choices that run from healthful to greasy-fried. Fresh squeezed orange juice is on the menu as well and Gutierrez drinks three liters of it a day himself. His diet changed about ten years ago when he decided that he’d rather be more fit than fat like many of his platform colleagues. PDVSA is the state oil company of Venezuela.
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Silent Hill
Jonny Joo, 23, visits derelict malls, stations, towers and other places because they remind him of Silent Hill – a psychological horror video game which was made into a film. “When I first started exploring places, so many would remind me of the game. It was a world I was kind of obsessed with because of how dark and eerie it looked”, Joo said. His book, titled “Empty Spaces”, will feature 116 images and is being released this week.
An abandoned old grain silo, described by the photographer as “peaceful”. (Photo by Jonny Joo/Barcroft Media)
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Historical Figures’ Letterheads
“Letters have changed the world, from Churchill’s letters to Roosevelt during World War II to Martin Luther King’s letter from Birmingham jail. Here at MOO, we wondered how those letters would have looked today.
To reimagine how iconic figures could have branded themselves in the modern world, our creative team have designed unique Letterheads and Business Cards for some of the most famous letter writers in history, capturing each identity in a set of stationery.” Continue reading »
Octopus By Marialuisa Tadei
Marialuisa Tadei‘s sculpture is very large compared to a life size octopus. The sculptures are made of steel and concrete. They are then turned into a mosaic using hand cut glass. The texture is bumpy because of the mosaic but is smooth on the glass. The main idea behind the sculpture is to explore spiritual and symbolic representation.
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Artists in Pakistan Target Drones with Giant Posters of Child Victims
In this undated handout photograph from the “Inside Out Project”, a poster bearing the image of a Pakistani girl whose parents, lawyers say, were killed in a drone strike, lies in a field at an undisclosed location in the northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province. A group of artists in Pakistan are hoping to generate “empathy” among US drone operators by placing giant posters of children in the country’s troubled tribal regions. The work, which is titled #NotABugSplat, was made with the help of French street artist JR who plans to unveil portraits from around the world at the Pantheon in Paris as part of a project called “Inside Out”. “Bug splat” is said to be a term used by drone pilots based in the US to refer to how victims look when seen through video cameras. Since 2004, no region of the world has been targeted by US drones more than Pakistan’s tribal districts which border Afghanistan, and are home to Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants. According to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, these strikes have killed at least 2,296 people and 416 civilians. (Photo by AFP Photo)
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DeLorean NYC Taxi
A clever PR stunt envisioned by art director Mike Lubrano who got the idea to convert the famous DeLorean DMC-12 from “Back to the Future” into a classic New York yellow cab. The goal would be to communicate the futuristic philosophy of fashion brand Nooka and to carry the message “Experience the Future”. Continue reading »
Argentina Tiger Triplets
Three month old white Bengal tigers cubs play inside their enclosure at the Buenos Aires Zoo, Argentina, Wednesday, April 16, 2014. Cleo, a captive Bengal white tiger at the zoo, gave birth to two females and one male, white tiger cubs on January 16, 2014. (Photo by Natacha Pisarenko/AP Photo)
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Weston-Super-Mare Sand Sculpture Festival in England
Detail of a sand sculpture is seen as pieces are prepared as part of this year’s “Once Upon a Time” themed annual Weston-super-Mare Sand Sculpture festival on April 16, 2014 in Weston-Super-Mare, England. Due to open on Good Friday, a team of award winning sand sculptors from across the globe have been working to create sand sculptures influenced by fairy tales and fables but that also include some current television and cinema blockbuster hits such as The Hunger Games, Game of Thrones and The Hobbit. (Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images)
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“After the Apocalypse” by Photographer Lori Nix
Photographer Lori Nix hand-crafted dioramas are fictional scenes of a post-apocalyptic world in which plants and decay reclaim both grand and mundane structures. Each structure is built in Nix’s living room and can take over half a year to build.
Library, 2007. Photographer Lori Nix says this is the most popular image she has made for this project that she calls “The City”. (Photo by Lori Nix)
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Smithsonian Magazine’s 2013 Photo Contest
Finalist, Americana category. Dust swirls around citizens of Black Rock City as they peek into the “Black Rock Bijou Theatre”, an art installation at the 2013 Burning Man festival. (Photo by Mark Kaplan/Smithsonian.com)
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Vertical Garden By Patrick Blanc in Madrid, Spain
Green building also known as green construction or sustainable building is the practice of creating structures and using processes that are environmentally responsible and resource-efficient. Continue reading »
