“How Do You Want to Be Remembered?”: This Company Develops Biodegradable Coffins Made from Mushrooms
One company in the Netherlands created what’s come to be known as the Loop coffin made of mushroom mycelium that biodegrades in just 30 to 45 days. The creator, TU Delft researcher Bob Hendrikx, woked with funeral directors to learn as much as he could about the burial process before designing the coffin made of natural materials.
In our 200.000 years of existence, mankind has developed a relationship of parasitism with Mother Nature. Our current behavior results in resource depletion and ecosystem loss: in some places around the world more than 40% of the biodiversity has already been lost. Even after death we leave a scar on this beautiful planet. Mother nature has been leading the way for 3.8 billion years before us and can help us to do so in the future. What if we could participate in nature’s end-of-life cycle? Continue reading »
Vibrant Vintage Photos of Mexico in 1968
School children playing on Olympic logo Mexico 68.
In advance of the Summer Olympic Games which would take place in Mexico City, making it the first Games to be staged in Latin America and hosted by a developing country, LIFE photographer John Dominis came and offered an intimate look at the people, their life and their rich culture. Take a look at the country through vibrant photographs taken by Dominis during his stay below. Continue reading »
Spectacular Winning Photos from The Wildlife Photographer of The Year 2020
The fifty-sixth Wildlife Photographer of the Year exhibition will immerse you in the breathtaking diversity of the natural world.
Explore some of the world’s richest habitats, see fascinating animal behaviour and get to know some extraordinary species. Go deeper and discover the surprising – and often challenging – stories behind the images during a time of environmental crisis. Each image has been selected by a panel of international experts and showcases some of the best wildlife photography in the world.
Wildlife photojournalism, single image category: Amazon burning by Charlie Hamilton James, UK
A fire burns out of control in Maranhão state, north-eastern Brazil. A single tree remains standing – ‘a monument to human stupidity’, says Charlie, who has been covering deforestation in the Amazon for the past decade. Photograph: Charlie Hamilton/2020 Wildlife Photographer of the Year Continue reading »
Shortlist Photographs Of The 2020 Bird Photographer Of The Year Competition
Burning
Pavel Chekanov/Bird Photographer of the Year
The prestigious Bird Photographer of the Year (BPOTY) announced the shortlist photographs of the 2020 BPOTY competition. This is the fifth year of this competition. There are five categories like Birds in the Environment, Birds in Flight, Bird Behaviour, Best Portrait, and Garden and Urban Birds. There are 15,000 images submitted by photographers from over 60 countries worldwide. Continue reading »
Catch Me If You Can: The Superb Contemporary Surreal Paintings By Leegan Koo
Leegan was born in Seoul, Korea. He began drawing and painting at a young age by himself. He grew up moving from one metropolitan city to another—Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York City to name a few—and cultural diversity and experience of dynamic urban life became the major source of his artistic inspiration, along with jazz, hiphop, and graffiti. Continue reading »
Amazing Vintage Photos Of Houses Carved Inside Massive Tree Stumps in America From The Early 20th Century
The giant size of the stump gives a good idea of the size of the old growth trees.
As the first waves of loggers swept over great portions of the Pacific Northwest’s old-growth forests in the second half of the nineteenth century, those men opened up the dark dense woodlands to settlement. And they surely left their mark on the land. Continue reading »
16 Bizarre Inventions From The Victorian Era
If you think that organs and bones crushing corsets were the most bizarre creation of the Victorian era, you could not be more wrong. Victorians have come up with its fair share of weird inventions. Even though this era was a long period of peace and prosperity, science was going through a weird phase.
Below are 16 bizarre inventions from the Victorian era, some useful, and some… not so much.
1. THE TRICK PLEDGE ALTAR
Oh, those Victorians! They did love a practical joke. And what could be funnier than encouraging a friend to make a pledge at your new home altar… only for him to be surprised by the abrupt appearance of a human skeleton – which spits scalding water into his face!? Continue reading »
Polish Artist Designs Shoсking Ads Of Major Companies That Show The Harsh Reality
According to Igor Dobrowolski: “My name is Igor Dobrowolski and I’m a Polish artist. Recently, I designed my own version of the real advertisement. Corporations like Nestlé and Unilever profit wildly from single-use plastic packaging while peddling the myth of recycling as a solution. But anyone who has thought seriously about the issue can see that recycling could never handle the amount of plastic surrounding our everyday life.” Continue reading »
Russian Artist Has Left His Mark In The Most Unexpected Places Across The Country And Beyond Its Borders
Twenty-nine-year-old Stanislav Komissarov, aka Slava PTRK (an abbreviation of the word “Patriot”, his alias in computer games), is a street artist from the Urals. Nowadays he lives in Moscow and travels across Russia and Europe, leaving ‘mementos’ in different cities in the form of graffiti and installations that, by and large, deal with burning social issues. He has been doing street art for about 10 years, and has been very successful in the process: The artist has gone on to win many Russian and international prizes. Continue reading »
Stunning Images Of The Seven Wonders Of The Ancient World Restored In Their Prime
The 7 Wonders of the Ancient World was a list of must-see sites for Ancient Greek tourists. Compiled by Antipater of Sidon, a poet in 2nd-century-BCE Greece, with later contributions by figures such as the mathematician Philon of Byzantium, the list remains an important piece of intangible heritage today. Continue reading »
13 Concepts Showing How The Notre Dame Spire Could Look After Renovations
On April 15, 2019, one of the most horrific fires of the year broke out when the roof of the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris went up in flames. The inferno lasted for around 15 hours as the world watched in terror. The fire completely destroyed the structure’s iconic spire that collapsed hours after the fire was initially noticed. Most of the wood/metal roof of the cathedral was also destroyed, with only about one-third of the roof remaining. The interior of the cathedral didn’t suffer extensive damage thanks to the stone-vaulted ceiling that largely contained the burning roof as it collapsed. Continue reading »
30 Artists’ Tributes To The Iconic Notre-Dame Cathedral
On 15 April 2019 around 6:50 p.m., a fire broke out in the Notre-Dame Cathedral in Paris. One of the most famous historical buildings, it has a strong value to Parisian and French culture and is one of the most famous buildings in the world with around 13 million tourists every year. After the tragic news about the iconic cathedral burning went viral, many artists showed their respect to the monument by drawing it. Continue reading »
These Winning Photos Of The 2018 Underwater Photographer Of The Year Contest Will Take Your Breath Away
The ocean is stunning as it is terrifying. Underwater Photographer of the year contest awards those who use their creative skills to capture the stunning beauty of ocean and marine life. The winners of this year contents have been announced, photographers from 63 countries submitted over 5,000 photos in 11 categories.
German photographer, Tobias Friedrich, won the grand prize for his photograph ‘Cycle – War’ which shows a panoramic view of the shipwrecked SS Thistlegorm, stocked with rows of 16H motorbikes loaded into Fordson WOT 3 trucks.
British Waters Compact Category: “Peek-A-Boo!” By Martin Edser, UK
“It’s always fun to dive with and photograph seals but this encounter was extra special. I had not seen any on this dive probably because it was late afternoon and they were enjoying a sensible nap on shore. I was beginning to lose hope when out of nowhere a head popped up out of the kelp and gave me an inquisitive stare. It disappeared again as quickly as it appeared only for the head to pop up again a few moments later in what I can only describe as a game of ‘Peek-a boo’! The water was murky and flash was not really an option, but we were shallow and it was a bright afternoon so anticipating where the head was likely to appear and using a wide aperture and as fast shutter speed as I could, allowed me to capture this memorable experience and the face of my playmate.” Continue reading »
“The Last Days Of Martinique”: Rare Portraits Of Martinique Residents Before The Deadly Volcano Eruption In 1902
Portraits of men and women from Martinique through a collection of old postcards.
Like most of the Lesser Antilles, Martinique was built by volcanoes. It’s part of an active island arc that traces the boundary where the oceanic crust of the North American Plate subducts beneath the Caribbean Plate, forming a lush, perforated barrier between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. Continue reading »
Before The Great Clean-Up Began, Here Is Another Side Of New York In The 1970s That You May Never Know
New York is the most populous city in the United States, and one of the most populous urban agglomerations in the world. A global power city, New York City exerts a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment, its fast pace defining the term New York minute.
A street scene in Brooklyn, New York City, 1974:
Home to the headquarters of the United Nations, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has been described as the cultural, financial, and media capital of the world. Continue reading »
Artist Draws Faces He Sees In Everyday Objects
“I’m a dandy dapper dampener. Fires tickle my fancy, those are no match for me. Remove my monocle you must, for the water to flee. When it comes to parking, I know I’m a nuisance. But when your dog pees, I’m somehow translucent. I’m a damn dampened hydrant.”
Artist and musician Keith Larsen decided to illustrate inanimate objects in a cartoonish way and write little stories about them to bring them to life. Continue reading »
A 1960s Bedford Panorama Bus Lovingly Converted Into A Traveling Home
A lovingly converted Bedford Panorama available to hire.
The bus has a beautiful wooden floor, painted pine boarding and a well thought-out dining/kitchen area with hand-built units, oak worktops, a gas cooker and a fridge. At the back is a cosy double bed and a wood-burning stove placed on an old flagstone. An L-shaped sofa seat folds into a further double bed. Solar panels on the roof power the lights and a socket to charge phones, laptops etc. Continue reading »
2016 Wildlife Photographer Of The Year Winners
“Entwined Lives”. Tim Laman, US Winner, Wildlife photographer of the year. A young male orangutan makes the 30-metre climb up the thickest root of the strangler fig high above the canopy in Gunung Palung national park, one of the few protected orangutan strongholds in Indonesian Borneo. Laman had to do three days of climbing to position several GoPro cameras that he could trigger remotely. This shot was the one he had long visualised, looking down on the orangutan within its forest home. (Photo by Tim Laman/2016 Wildlife Photographer of the Year) Continue reading »
A Group Of Artists Unveil A Mural Celebrating 250 Years Of Literary History
The Graphic History Company and Machete UK today unveiled The Author Mural commissioned to celebrate nearly 250 years of literary history at Hachette UK’s landmark London building, Carmelite House, on the north bank of the Thames. The mural features the names of prominent authors published by Hachette UK from the foundation of the group’s oldest publishing house, John Murray, in 1768, to the present day, including Charles Darwin, Jane Austen, Bram Stoker, Vladimir Nabokov, Enid Blyton, Daphne du Maurier, Nelson Mandela, J. M. Barrie, Goscinny & Uderzo, JK Rowling and Malala Yousafzai. It also features Nobel and literary award winning authors and key moments in the history of the company, such as the notorious burning of Lord Byron’s scandalous memoirs in 1824. Continue reading »
Beautiful Early Entries Of The 2016 National Geographic Nature Photographer Of The Year Contest
Hunting For Fish
The 2016 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year contest is accepting entries in one or all of four categories: Landscape, Environmental Issues, Action and Animal Portraits. The grand-prize winner will receive a 10-day trip for two to the Galápagos with National Geographic Expeditions and two 15-minute image portfolio reviews with National Geographic photo editors.
Here: A mature bald eagle drags the tail of a fish across the surface of the water after picking it up out of the Susquehanna river. It was late in the day when the sun was setting casting an orange hue over the water. (Photo and Caption by Eric Esterle/2016 National Geographic Nature Photographer of the Year) Continue reading »
Brazil Through The Lens Of David Alan Harvey
David Alan Harvey’s shots of Rio and Bahia, taken over the course of a decade, look beyond the cliches of bikini babes, crime-ridden favelas and Christ the Redeemer.
Photo by David Alan Harvey / Magnum Photos / The Guardian
Rio de Janeiro, Ipanema beach. David Alan Harvey, founder of Burn magazine and a member of Magnum, has spent 10 years photographing the wild vitality and natural beauty of Bahia and Rio. Continue reading »
Breathtaking WWII Colorized Photos Look Like They Were Taken Yesterday
World War Two black and white photos that are researched and colorized in detail by Doug and other artists from the ‘Colourisehistory Group.’ These breathtaking colorized photos look like they were taken yesterday.
A Supermarine Spitfire Vc ‘Tropical’ JK707 MX-P serving with 307th Fighter Squadron, 31st Fighter Group operated by 12th USAAF. The regular pilot was 1st.Lt. Carroll A. Prybylo, but when lost it was flown by Capt. Virgil Cephus Fields, Jr. (Source – US Navy, via Library of Congress. Colorized by Paul Reynolds. Historic Military Photo Colourisations) Continue reading »
This Writer’s Shed Was Designed To Be A Quiet Haven In The Big City
WSD Architecture were commissioned by their client, an author and illustrator, to design and build a backyard shed where they could work, at the end of their property in the London Borough of Hackney. Continue reading »
13th Annual Smithsonian Photo Contest Finalists
“A Little Monkey on the Cliff”. “A cold front hit the Nagano prefecture. I saw a little monkey enduring the cold in Jigokudani Monkey Park. This little monkey is really cute”. (Photo by Hidetoshi Ogata/Smithsonian Photo Contest) Continue reading »
59th World Press Photo Contest Winners
“Storm Front on Bondi Beach”. Nature, first prize singles. Rohan Kelly, Australia, Daily Telegraph. Location: Sydney, Australia. A massive “cloud tsunami” looms over Sydney as a sunbather reads, oblivious to the approaching cloud on Bondi Beach, November 6, 2015. (Photo by Rohan Kelly/World Press Photo Contest) Continue reading »
